Ibn al-Baytar

13th-century botanist whose pharmacological encyclopedia transformed Mediterranean medicine

Ibn al-Baytar (1197–1248) revolutionized medical botany with his monumental work Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-Mufradāt al-Adwiya wa-l-Aghdhiya (Compendium on Simple Medicaments and Foods). Traveling from Spain to Syria, he documented:

• Over 1,400 medicinal plants
• 300 original discoveries
• Cross-cultural remedies from Arab, Greek, and Berber traditions

His systematic classification influenced European botanists for centuries. The first scientific description of cinnamon's medicinal properties appears in his texts. This Andalusian scholar created the medieval world's most comprehensive pharmacological reference, bridging Islamic and European medical knowledge during the Crusades era.