Ibn al-Baitar
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Abu Muhammad Abdallah Ibn Ahmad Ibn al-Baitar Dhiya al-Din al-Malaqi ( ابن البيطار) was one of the greatest scientists of Muslim Spain and it's believed that he was the greatest botanist and pharmacist of the Middle Ages. Born in the Spanish city of Málaga at the end of the 12th century, he learned botany from the Málagan botanist Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati with whom he started collecting plants in and around Spain. In 1219 he left Málaga to travel in the Islamic world to collect plants. He travelled from the northern coast of Africa as far as Anatolia but the exact modes of his travel are not known. The major stations he visited include Bugia, Constantinople, Tunis, Tripoli, Barqa and Adalia.
After 1224, he entered the service of al-Kamil, an Ayyubid Sultan, and was appointed chief herbalist. In 1227 al-Kamil extended his domination to Damascus, and Ibn al-Baitar accompanied him there which provided him an opportunity to collect plants in Syria His researches on plants extended over a vast area including Arabia and Palestine. He died in Damascus in 1248.
Ibn Al-Baitar’s major contribution, Kitab al-Jami fi al-Adwiya al-Mufrada, is one of the greatest botanical compilations dealing with medicinal plants in Arabic. It enjoyed a high status among botanists up to the l6th century and is a systematic work that embodies earlier works, with due criticism, and adds a great part of original contribution. The encyclopedia comprises some 1,400 different items, largely medicinal plants and vegetables, of which about 200 plants were not known earlier. The book refers to the work of some 150 authors mostly Arabic, and it also quotes about 20 early Greek scientists. It was translated into Latin and published in 1758.
His second major work is Kitab al-Mlughni fi al-Adwiya al-Mufrada is an encyclopedia of medicine. The drugs are listed in accordance with their therapeutic value. Thus, its 20 different chapters deal with the plants bearing significance to diseases of various parts of the human body.
