Abu
Abdallah Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Abdallah Ibn Idris al-Qurtubi al-Hasani,
was born in Ceuta, Spain, in 1099 C.E. He was educated in Cordova.
Later he traveled far and wide in connection with his studies and then
flourished at the Norman court in Palermo. The date of his death is
controversial, being either 1166 or 1180 C.E.
Biographical notes on him are to be found rather rarely, and according
to F. Pons Boigues the underlying reason is the fact that the Arab
biographers considered al-Idrisi to be a renegade, since he had been
associated with the court of a Christian king and written in praise of
him, in his work. The circumstances which led him to settle in Sicily
at the court of Roger II are not on record.
His
major contribution lies in medicinal plants as presented in his
several books, specially Kitab al-Jami-li-Sifat Ashtat al-Nabatat. He
studied and reviewed all the literature on the subject of medicinal
plants and formed the opinion that very little original material had
been added to this branch of knowledge since the early Greek work. He,
therefore, collected plants and data not reported earlier and added
this to the subject of botany, with special reference to medicinal
plants. Thus, a large number of new drugs plants together with their
evaluation became available to the medical practitioners. He has given
the names of the drugs in six languages: Syriac, Greek, Persian,
Hindi, Latin and Berber.
In
addition to the above, he made original contributions to geography,
especially as related to economics, physical factors and cultural
aspects. He made a planishere in silver for King Roger II, and
described the world in Al-Kitab al-Rujari (Roger's Book), also
entitled Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq (The delight of him who
desires to journey through the climates). This is practically a
geographical encyclopedia of the time, containing information not only
on Asia and Africa, but also Western countries.
Al-Idrisi,
later on, also compiled another geographical encyclopedia, larger than
the former entitled Rawd-Unnas wa-Nuzhat al-Nafs (Pleasure of men and
delight of souls) also known as Kitab al- Mamalik wa al-Masalik.
Apart
from botany and geography, Idrisi also wrote on fauna, zoology and
therapeutical aspects. His work was soon translated into Latin and,
especially, his books on geography remained popular both in the East
and the West for several centuries.
