Herbal - The Middle Ages and Arab World

The Middle Ages and Arab World

During the 600 years of the European Middle Ages from 600 to 1200 CE, the tradition of herbal lore fell to the monasteries. Many of the monks were skilled at producing books and manuscripts and tending both medicinal gardens and the sick, but written works of this period simply emulated those of the classical era.

Meanwhile, in the Arab world, by 900 CE the great Greek herbals had been translated and copies lodged in centres of learning in the Byzantine empire of the eastern Mediterranean including Byzantium, Damascus, Cairo and Baghdad where they were combined with the botanical and pharmacological lore of the Orient. In the medieval Islamic world, Muslim botanists and Muslim physicians made a major contribution to the knowledge of herbal medicines. Al-Dinawari described more than 637 plant drugs in the 9th century, in the 12th century Ibn Al-'Awwam described 585 fungi (55 associated with fruit trees), and Ibn Al-Baitar described more than 1,400 different plants, foods and drugs, over 300 of which were his own original discoveries, in the 13th century. Others associated with this period include Mesue Maior (Masawaiyh, 777–857 CE) who, in his Opera Medicinalia, synthesised the knowledge of Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Indians and Babylonians and this work was complemented by the medical encyclopaedia of Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 980–1037 CE). Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine was used for centuries in both East and West. During this period Islamic science protected classical botanical knowledge that had been ignored in the West and Muslim pharmacy thrived.