Maimonides becomes Saladin's court physician

1186

Moses ben Maimon, the Jewish philosopher and doctor who had fled Almohad Spain via Morocco to Fustat, was appointed chief physician to Saladin's vizier and later to the sultan himself. Patients waited in line outside his house each afternoon after he returned from court. His medical writings, composed in Arabic, synthesized Greek and Islamic medical traditions with his own clinical observations, earning him a reputation that extended far beyond the Jewish community.