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A History of Muslim Pharmacy:
The Pharmacy and Materia Medica of Al-Biruni and Al-Ghafiqi: A Comparison

The development of professional pharmacy, as a separate entity from medicine, started in Islam under the patronage of the early' Abbasiyyah caliphs. This first clear-cut separation of the two professions, and the recognition of the independent, academically oriented status of professional pharmacy materialized in and around the , Abbasiyyah capital and army installations shortly before 183/800. By that time special attention was directed towards the investigation of natural products and therapeutic agents in the Islamic world. Besides the studies of their practical medico- pharmaceutical applications, emphasis was focused on lexicographical, lexicological, and philological interpretations of accumulated data on natural history. This was evident in the works of many Arabic naturalist-philologists such as Abu Sa'id al- Asma'i (d. 212/828) and his contemporaries Abu 'Ubaydah and Abu Zayd al-Ansari. But most important to our topic is the partially extant work on plants by Abu Hanifah ad-Dinawari (d. ca. 280/849), which is the earliest, at least in part, available of such comprehensive texts.

Pharmaceutical Compendiums and Formularies in Arabic. Soon thereafter a great amount of pharmaceutical literary contributions became accessible to the Arabic reader. Much of it was spurred by the translations from the Greek during the first three quarters of the third/ninth century. These include the rendering of Dioscorides' Materia Medica (C. E. first century), and the writings on simple and compounded medications of Galen (second century), and the commentaries and compilations resulting from them. There were in addition translations from the Sanskrit, Syriac, and local legacies in the Fertile Crescent region.

As a result, a new trend developed ushering spontaneous writings of pharmaceutical compendiums such as those in the form of formularies. The earliest and best known of such formularies was Aqrabadhin al-Kabir by Sabur b. Sahl (d. 255/869). Soon after its publication it became, and for almost three centuries, a guide manual to pharmacists in hospitals as well as in privately owned pharmacy shops.  It was superseded by Aqrabadhin of Ibn at- Tilmidh of Baghdad in the mid-sixth/twelfth century.

It was only in the early fourth/tenth century that the great clinician Abu Bakr ar-Razi compiled a treatise on pharmacy and materia medica entitled as-Saydanah fit- Tibb.  This text was a useful innovation. It, however, fell short from the high standards expected from its author, containing very little personal observations. Thus it seems a disappointment if compared with his other writings on clinical medicine, psychotherapy, alchemy, physiology and the philosophy of science. Other medical encyclopedists such as al-Majusi (d. 384/995), his contemporary Ibn al-jazzar (d. ca. 373/984), and Ibn Sina (d. 428/1037) compiled similar treatises in their compendia.