An Analysis of the Characteristics of Sources and the Authors of “Hui Hui Yao Fang;” A Comparative Reading of the Texts “Hui Hui Yao Fang” and “The Canon of Medicine”

“Hui Hui Yao Fang: is a large encyclopedia of Islamic medicine compiled in the late middle Ming Dynasty. This text includes a wide variety of medical knowledge including prescriptions, theories, and therapies. This paper first reviews the existing scholarly literature and history of “Hui Hui Yao Fang,” which reveals that “Hui Hui Yao Fang” is not merely a Chinese translation of one or more Arabic or Persian medical books, but rather it is a new medical encyclopedia compiled by authors who rewrote and reorganized the contents of various Chinese translations of different Arabic and Persian medical books that had been introduced to China during that period. Considering the connection between Chinese transliterations of foreign words and their annotations in this work, the second part of this paper is a comparative reading of “Hui Hui Yao Fang” and prominent Islamic medical books (Arabic and Persian). By analyzing the phenomenon of language in this book, I come to the conclusion that “Hui Hui Yao Fang” is a compilation of Chinese translations of various Arabic and Persian medical literature introduced to China during the Yuan and Ming Dynasties, and that it was composed by the Huihui (Muslims from Iran and Arab nations), who assimilated into the dominant Chinese culture by using their language and medical knowledge, and referring to the original texts of Persian and Arabic medical books under the unified guidance of a government official or non-governmental organizations. The authors’ knowledge of pharmacy is limited, and this limitation reflects the general problems of Hui medical scientists and even the medical community in China at that time.