Ibn al-Baytar
Andalusian Arab pharmacist, botanist, physician and scientist (1197–1248)
Diyāʾ al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Mālaqī, commonly known as Ibn al-Bayṭār (Arabic: ابن البيطار) (1197–1248 AD) was an Andalusian Arab physician, botanist, pharmacist and scientist. His main contribution was to systematically record the additions made by Islamic physicians in the Middle Ages, which added between 300 and 400 types of medicine to the one thousand previously known since antiquity. He was a student of Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati.
Life
Ibn al-Baitar was born in the city of Málaga in al-Andalus, Almohad Caliphate (now Province of Málaga, Spain) at the end of the twelfth century, hence his nisba "al-Mālaqī". His name "Ibn al-Baitar" is Arabic for "son of the veterinarian", which was his father's profession. Ibn al-Bayṭār learned botany from the Málagan botanist Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Nabātī with whom he started collecting plants in and around Spain.
In 1219, Ibn al-Bayṭār left Málaga, travelling to the coast of North Africa and as far as Anatolia, to collect plants. The major stations he visited include Marrakesh, Bugia, Constantinople, Tunis, Tripoli, Barqa and Antalya.
After 1224, he entered the service of the Ayyubid Sultan al-Kāmil and was appointed chief herbalist. In 1227 al-Kāmil extended his domination to Damascus (now Syria), and Ibn al-Bayṭār accompanied him there, which provided him an opportunity to collect plants in Syria.
The public source identifies “Ibn al-Baytar” as andalusian Arab pharmacist, botanist, physician and scientist (1197–1248). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around al-Baytar, Andalusian and Arab.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q335145. VIAF identifies the subject as 94095759. The Library of Congress control number is n83043343. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1197, 1248, 1219 and 1224.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ibn al-Baytar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.