The Chãhar Maqãla of Nizami Aruzi Samarqandi, a didactic-literary text from the 6th century AH, presents in its fourth discourse, titled “On the Science of Medicine and the Guidance of the Physician,” a collection of anecdotes about renowned physicians in which the body, illness, and pain occupy a central role. Drawing upon Michel Foucault’s “clinical gaze” as the primary theoretical framework for examining medical authority, and incorporating Frank and Charon’s narrative models of illness (for narrative analysis) and Turner’s phenomenological approach to body studies (for the sociological context), this study seeks to critically re-examine the representation of the suffering body in these anecdotes. The primary objective of this research is to demonstrate that the sick body in this text is not portrayed merely as a clinical reality, but rather as an arena for the performance of the physician’s knowledge, authority, and ethics. Employing a descriptive-analytical method and an interdisciplinary approach, this study utilizes purposive sampling to analyze seven out of the twelve anecdotes from the medical discourse. The findings indicate that the sick body is consistently interpreted through a system of signs, the authority to decode which rests solely with the physician. Furthermore, pain and suffering primarily serve as the narrative starting point rather than the locus of empathy, and the dominant structure of these anecdotes reproduces the “narrative of restoration,” in which the physician serves as the primary protagonist. This study establishes a foundation for re-reading other classical Persian medical-literary texts through the lens of body studies.