Persian Source Library · Classical era — 9th to 13th century
Ibn al-Baytar
Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn ibn al-Bayṭār (ابن البیطار)
The work
Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-Mufradāt al-Adwiya wa al-Aghdhiya
کتاب الجامع لمفردات الأدویة والأغذیة
c. 1197–1248 CE
The Andalusian botanist who compiled the largest single-medicine catalog of the Islamic world — 1,400+ herbs, foods, and minerals.
Ibn al-Baytar was born in Malaga and traveled the Mediterranean and Near East collecting and observing plants firsthand. His Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ (The Compendium) lists over 1,400 simples — herbs, foods, and minerals — drawing on 260 earlier authors, whom he cites by name and often corrects from personal observation.
Though Andalusian by birth, his work was quickly integrated into the Persian and eastern Islamic pharmacopoeial tradition, and later editions were used as reference alongside the Canon and Al-Hawi.
In the Living Library, Ibn al-Baytar appears when we want the broadest historical description of a herb — the range of uses, regional variations, and disputes among earlier authors — rather than a single-author view.
What this text is known for
- The most comprehensive materia medica of the classical Islamic world.
- Practiced early field botany — direct observation and correction of earlier sources.
- Preserved the views of hundreds of otherwise lost authors.
Ibn al-Baytar is our historical breadth source — used when a herb needs the full range of classical opinion, not just one physician's view.
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
- Encyclopædia Britannica — Ibn al-Bayṭār — Britannica
- Traité des simples — Leclerc French translation (1877–1883) — Bibliothèque nationale de France
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