Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 229

tury the centre of this ceaseless labour was
the caliphal court at Cordova where the
monk Nicholas who had come from Con-
stantinople, in collaboration with asdāy
b. · aprū and others, adapted the old
eastern Arabic version to the needs of
western Hispano-Arabic nomenclature, a
task which was continued by Ibn ⁄ ul ¡ ul,
Ibn Buklāri ª and others. A similar read-
aptation was carried out in the East by
usayn b. Ibrāhīm al-Natīlī who dedicated
his Arabic Dioscorides in 380/990-91 to
prince Abū Alī al-Sam ¡ ūrī of abaristān.
Now, if Arabic pharmacology reached its
apogee in al-Andalus with al- fi āfiī and
Ibn al-Bayar, not only was use made of
fragments of the text of Dioscorides, but
also Ibn al-Bayār (7th/13th century)
himself edited a Tafsīr Kitāb Diyusuridīs ,
a manuscript of which, with its glosses, is
preserved at Mecca. Later the polygraph
Abu 'l-Fara ¡ —Bar Hebraeus (7th/13th
century) wrote a résumé in Syriac entitled
Kethabha dhe Dhiosoridhus . On the whole,
the work of Dioscorides was known above
all in the fragmentary form preserved
by Ibn al-Wāfid, Māsawayh and others.
Latin versions which for the most part
were made in Toledo allowed mediaeval
Europe to become acquainted, through
the medium of two translations, with only
part of his work; and the complete text
of Dioscorides only became known in the
West at the Renaissance. But fragments
of the Arabic Dioscorides were also trans-
lated in the East, as is proved by the
Armenian pharmacology of Amīr Dawlat
(2nd half of the 15th century).
Any study of the materia medica of
Dioscorides is incomplete if his iconogra-
phy is omitted. Dioscorides himself used
botanical drawings by Cratevas (1st cen-
tury B.C.), whose sketches are preserved
in Greek and Arabic manuscripts. In their
illustrations these manuscripts contain an
additional element which may help to

determine their origins. As for the iconog-
raphy, in addition to the ancient source
already mentioned, it sometimes reveals
Byzantine traces, and at other times Ira-
nian influence; by the nature of things
the different Muslims schools of painting
are reflected, as for example the Ba ∞ dād
school or the later Persian schools. Partic-
ularly interesting as a Muslim botanist and
one of the most original is Ibn al-Sūrī (d.
639/1241), who when botanizing in Syria
took with him an artist who made draw-
ings of plants for him at different stages of
growth; it is astonishing that Ibn al-Bayār
does not quote this author who was his
contemporary. In the iconography of the
Arabic Dioscorides we have a proof that
Diyusuridīs became the point of fusion of
all the earlier traditions, enriched by the
Muslims' observations of nature.

(C.E. Dubler)

Ibn al-Bayār

Abū Muammad Abd Allāh b. Amad
al-Dīn b. al-Bayār al-Mālaī Ibn al-
Bayār was a botanist and pharmacolo-
gist, born in Malaga at the end of the
6th/12th century. He probably belonged
to the family of the same name whose
existence in Malaga is attested by Ibn
al-Abbār. He studied in Seville and col-
lected plants in the districts round the
town with his teachers Abu 'l-Abbās
al-Nabātī, Abd Allāh b. āli and Abu
'l-a ¡¡ ā ¡ . In about 617/1220 he emi-
grated to the East: after crossing North
Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia),
he visited Asia Minor and Syria and, on
his arrival in Egypt, he was appointed by
the Ayyūbid al-Malik al-Kāmil as head of
the herbalists ( raīs alā sāir al-a ªª ābīn ).
From Cairo he made several scientific
expeditions; he next settled in Damascus,