Persian Source Library · Safavid–Qajar era — 16th to 19th century
Aghili Khorasani
Muḥammad Ḥusayn ʿAqīlī Khorāsānī (محمد حسین عقیلی خراسانی)
The work
Makhzan al-Advia — The Treasury of Medicines
مخزن الادویه
18th century (compiled c. 1770s)
The great late-Safavid pharmacopoeia — the most cited traditional Persian materia medica of the last three centuries.
Aghili Khorasani was a physician of the late Safavid / early Qajar period whose Makhzan al-Advia synthesized nearly a thousand years of Persian and Islamic pharmacology into a single reference organized alphabetically by drug. It became — and remains — the most consulted traditional pharmacopoeia in Iran.
The Makhzan gives each medicine a Persian and Arabic name, temperament, actions, indications, dose, and known substitutes. It is the direct ancestor of every modern Persian herbal manual, including 20th-century popular references like Sad Giah Hezar Darman.
We cite Aghili when we want the mature, late-tradition Persian consensus on a herb — the view a village hakim or a Tehran apothecary would have relied on in the 19th and 20th centuries.
What this text is known for
- Alphabetical, encyclopedic organization of the traditional Persian materia medica.
- Preserved dosage traditions and substitution rules used by working apothecaries.
- Direct ancestor of modern Persian herbal manuals.
Aghili represents the mature late-Persian tradition. Where possible we cross-check Avicennan and Razi-era claims against how Aghili had received them 700 years later.
Traditional Persian sources describe how a herb, food, or ritual was understood — never on their own a claim about modern outcomes. Where modern trials agree or disagree, the Living Library labels the difference clearly.
Further reading
- Makhzan al-Advia — Tehran University Press edition (2008) — Tehran University of Medical Sciences
- Encyclopædia Iranica — ʿAqīlī Ḵorāsānī — Iranica Online
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