Journal - International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

Rosanna GORINI AN ANDALUSIAN MUSLIM SCIENTIST: IBN AL-BAYTAR
ously covered by his teacher. He also gathered botanical
materials in view of their possible pharmacological
use. In this journey he was accompanied by Ibn
abi Usaybi'a, one of the most valuable of his pupils
who reports that, during their naturalistic travels, they
brought with them the books of Dioscoride, Galen
(ca. 130-200 A.D.), al-Ghafiqi (12th c.) and other
similar authors. It is possible to reconstruct the itinerary
of this travel from the informations given by the
same Ibn al-Baytar in his treatises (5), also if it is not
possible to know exactly the modes of his travel. He
moved to Ceuta, in Morocco, and hence he arrived in
Algeria, at Bugìa. Then he moved again, arriving in
Constantinople through Tunis, Tripoli and Barca.
From the South coast of the Asia Minor, about 1224,
passing through Iraq and Persia, Ibn al-Baytar
moved to Syria and, later, to Egypt. Here, according
to some authors, he observed for the first time
hashish being eaten. The main users of the drug, he
noted, were the Sufis. "People [i.e. the Sufis] who use
it [hashish] habitually have proved its pernicious
effect," he writes, "for it enfeebles their minds by carrying
to them maniac affections and causing sometimes
death." Ibn al-Baytar then adds: "I recall having
seen a time when men of the vilest class alone
dared to eat it, still they did not like the name takers
of hashish applied to them (6, 7).
In Egypt he entered as "chief of the herbalists" the
service of the Ayyubid Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil, who
ruled over this country from 1238 to 1240 and in the
same period over Syria. After the death of al-Kamil,
Ibn al-Baytar lived a little longer in Palestina and
Syria. Here he did some herborization on the mountains
where the flora was more rich than in Egypt and
after he returned to Egypt (8), where he continued to
work with the son of the precedent Sultan al-Malik
al-Salih who ruled from 1240 to 1249 and to whom
he dedicated his main works (5).
Ibn al-Baytar died in Damascus between October
and November 1248. Considered by some authors the
greatest Muslim botanist and by others only the
greatest compiler of pharmacological books in the
Arabic world (9), Ibn al-Baytar devoted his very
extensive literary production prevalently to botany
and pharmacology. One of his most important books,
the Kitab al-Jami' li-mufradat al-adwiyah wa-alaghdhiyah
(The comprehensive Book on Materia
Medica and Foodstuffs) gives a summary of the pharmacological
knowledges of his time. It consists of an
alphabetically ordered dictionary in which foods and
simple medicaments from the animal, plant and mineral
kingdoms are reported and can be considered the
largest pharmacological encyclopedia still surviving
at our times. In order to write this book Ibn al-Baytar
based himself on many authors, especially Greeks
authors as Dioscorides, Galen, Aristotle (384-322
B.C.), Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.), Oribase (325-403
A.D), Rufus of Ephesos (late Ist c. B.C-half 1st c.
A.D.), Paul of Egina (625-690 A.D.) but also Persian,
Indian, Sirian Chaldean and Arab Muslim authors,
among which Razes (ca. 864-930 A.D.) and Avicenna
(980-1037 A.D.). He also based himself on many
botanic and agricultural works and on the work,
today lost, of his teacher al-Nabati (13th c. A.D.) and
of Abu Hanifa al-Dinawari (ca. 815-895 A.D.), considered
by some historians the founder of the Arabic
botany (1).
Kitab al-Jami' can be considered one of the main
reference works for the history, the botany, the pharmacology,
the medicine and also for the language of
its time. It is of special interest for the linguists
because, where possible, Ibn al-Baytar reports the
Greek, Berber, Persian and Latin names of the plants
(10). It seems important to underline that the cohesistence
in this book of foreign languages represents
an unprecedent occurrence among the Arab Muslim
scientific works.
Ibn al-Baytar treatise can be considered the basis
of many subsequent manuals concerning medicinal
substances, as that written in the 18th century by the
practitioner in India Muhammad Husayn ibn
Muhammad Hadi al-Aqili al'Alavi (11). Even if Ibn
al-Baytar has been known in the Western countries
only in the 19th century, his works and mainly the
work we have considered in this brief profile, have
made possible to consider him as one of the most
important scientists in the field of botany and medicine
of his time and his contributions have exerted a
profound influence on Eastern as well as Western science.
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