Ahin, Bendich

Mathematician and physician at Arles during the second half of the fourteenth century. Nostradamus says that Ahin was an excellent mathematician, well versed in Arabic, Greek, and Latin; that, because he was prudent, loyal, and very experienced in the art of medicine, he was appointed physician to Joanna of Anjou, queen of Naples (1369), was lodged in the royal palace, and was exempted, both for himself and his posterity, from all special taxes laid upon the Jews. Ahin seems also to have busied himself with astrology, as it is said that he predicted the tragic end of the queen. M. Kayserling has tried to identify Bendich with  (Maëstro Bendit), one of the ten men to whom Kalonymus ben Kalonymus dedicated his "Eben Boḥan"; but the identification is by no means certain.

Bibliography:

  * Nostradamus, L'Histoire et Chronique de Provence, p. 427;
  * Kayserling, Eben Boḥan, Budapest, 1877;
  * Depping, Les Juifs dans le Moyen Âge, p. 334;
  * Carmoly, Histoire des Médecins Juifs, p. 108;
  * Landau, Gesch. d. Jüd. Aerzte, p. 45;
  * Nübling, Judengemeinden des Mittelalters, p. 86. In these last authorities the name is wrongly spelled "Abin." Compare Gross, Gallia Judaica, p. 85.



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