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Ann Saudi MedAnn Saudi MedAnnals of Saudi Medicine0256-49470975-4466King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre 10.5144/0256-4947.2008.394aasm-5-394aLettersReply Haddad Farid S. Dr.6409 Vista Pacifica, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275 United States of America, T: +1310-541-1435, haddadmd@cox.netSep-Oct 2008 28 5 394 395 Copyright © 2008, Annals of Saudi Medicine2008This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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In his comment, Dr. Farrokh Habibzadeh asserts that the script he saw on the charts is Nastalīq. The authors deserve our thanks for the comment although I believe it is only a simple observation. The second discovery that the notes on the charts are in Persian is also obvious. When he writes: “Avecinna and Rhazes, two well-known Iranian (sic) scholars … wrote many of their books and articles in Arabic”, he stuns us with the notion that “Iranian” and “Persian” are synonymous terms. How could ibn sÿna, who died 1000 years before “Iran” was scripted on a map, be Iranian? How could alrazÿ be called Iranian by any stretch of the imagination? I have yet to see a work by ibn sÿna or by alrazÿ written in Persian, which is not a translation from Arabic. The great Persian civilization antedated the Arab civilization. The Iranian Renaissance, whether pre-Pahlavi, Pahlavi or post-Pahlavi, is no less brilliant but should not be confused with the much older Persian period.

I am also surprised by the final statement in the letter: “Unlike what the author mentioned, all the text is in Persian; no sentence in the chart is in Arabic”. I had clearly stated in an earlier letter that “the notes on these sets are written in Persian calligraphy … these drawings are the work of a Persian scribe-artist”. 1 One should not confuse the author of the charts with the scribe who copies them. I also wrote that: “parts of the text are in Arabic and parts in Persian.”2 This refers to the text of the book, not to the legend notes on the charts. As a matter of fact the preponderant part of the book is written in Arabic. I am surprised that the author jumped to this conclusion after looking at a reproduction of two charts out of about 76, that the text is Persian? A careful study of all available material is necessary before any definitive conclusions can be made. I have attentively, carefully, meticulously and thoroughly studied these charts and the manuscripts in which they are found for over 70 years; yet I still hesitate to make any final conclusions. Here are my preliminary and tentative comments. The book in which the charts were inserted was actually copied in Putna, Behar, India and comprises 264 folios. I wonder how one can jump to conclusions before one reads the book, or takes a look at it, or at least recognize its existence.

Nationalism is laudable, but should not be used to bend history, which remains a universal science that belongs to all nations. The great Pasteur had said “La science n’a pas de patrie”, which translates into “science has no fatherland.” Michael DeBakey recently died at the age of 99. Whether he is considered American, Lebanese or Arab does not change in any way his enormous, important and signal contributions to surgery; they belong to all humanity and not to any particular group, culture or nation. Fortunately, history has not yet stooped as low as political punditry.
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REFERENCES
1 Haddad Farid S   Letter to the Editor Ann Saud Med 2008 Mar-Apr 28 2 139 40 
2 Haddad Farid S   “Anatomy Charts” from the collection of Dr Sami Ibrahim Haddad Ann Saud Med 2008 May-Jun 28 3 220 
3 Haddad Farid S   “Anatomy Charts” from the collection of Dr Sami Ibrahim Haddad Ann Saud Med 2008 Jul-Aug 28 4 309