Kitāb al-Ḥashāʾish (Arabic: كتاب الحشائش, Book of Medicinal Plants) is a medieval Arabic pharmacological and botanical book that deals with medicinal plants, minerals, and animal-derived substances. The work forms part of the Islamic scientific tradition of materia medica and reflects the transmission, translation, and expansion of Greco-Roman medical knowledge in the medieval Islamic world. It is based on De materia medica which was written by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted by revised herbals in the Renaissance, making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history and pharmacology books.
The manuscript copy of Kitāb al-Ḥashāʾish are preserved in the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Library.
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