2 Ibn Al-Baitar: The Pioneer of Botanist and Pharmacist By: 1 Nor Afifah Borhan, 2 Nuramirah Mohd Nor, 3 Aminuddin Ruskam 1,2 Faculty of Electrical Engineering, 3 Faculty of Islamic Civilization Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Abstract Ahmad Ibn Al-Baitar was one of the greatest scientists of Muslim Spain and also a well-known botanist and pharmacist of a Middle Ages. By using all the knowledge he learnt from Abu Al- Ábbas, he start collecting plants in and around Andalusia before he left Spain for plants collecting expeditions and travel along the North African coast before he authored his valuable books at Egypt. Ibn Al-Baitar’s major contribution, Kitab Al-Jame’, described about the basic medicines and nutrients derived from plants, animals, and minerals which hold a high status among botanist up to 18 th century. He did not write something without first having observation and he had full confidence in inferences and deductions. Besides that, Ibn Al-Baitar was the first who specifies the timing of medicines, which one to be taken during the night and which were to be taken during the day. Keywords: Botanist, Pharmacist, Al-Jame’, Islamic medicine, Muslim scientists INTRODUCTION 1.1 Project Background Botany can be defined as the science of plant life and a branch of biology. It also can be called as plant sciences or plant biology. A person who studies plants will be known as a botanist or a plant scientist. Nowadays, botanists study approximately 400 000 species of living organisms of which some 260 000 species are vascular plants and about 248 000 are flowering plants (Addelson, Barbara December 2003). Herbs are group of plants that are used for medical purposes. Thus, botany and herbs is related to each other. Botany originated in prehistory as herbalism with the efforts of early humans to identify and later cultivate, edible, medicinal and poisonous plants, making it one of the oldest branches of science. (Acharya, Deepak; Anshu, Shrivastava 2008) Among the Muslim botanists, Ibn Al-Baitar is known as the pioneer of botanists and pharmacist. Previously, when the Roman Empire disintegrated, its tributary economy disappeared, civilization collapsed and all development stagnated. This dismal prevailed until the establishment of Islam when the Muslim Agricultural Revolution transformed and the essentials of life and its environments. Ibn Al- Baitar like to create a phenomenal repertoire in the field of botany. The progress of Muslim scientific knowledge then continued uninterrupted for several centuries. CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Institutional Repository