Kitab al-Jami li-mufradat al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya
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| Author | Ibn al-Bayṭār |
|---|---|
| Language | Arabic |
| Composed | 13th century |
| Published | Arabic text printed at Būlāq, 1291 AH; French translation by Lucien Leclerc, 1877–1883 |
| Volumes | Leclerc's translation: three volumes |
| Volume | Leclerc, vol. III (Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale, tome XXVI, part 1) |
|---|---|
| Pages | 118–120 (nos 1845–1847) |
| Regions documented | Egypt (garden cultivation) |
| Varieties described | Qinnab (hemp); qinnab barrī (the wild hemp of Dioscorides); qinnab hindī (Indian hemp, called ḥashīsha in Egypt) |
| Preparations | Boiled leaves kneaded into tablets; dried and roasted leaves chewed with sesame or sugar; hemp-seed oil |
| Uses documented | Medicinal; intoxicant; fibre (cordage) |
| Digital facsimile | Leclerc, vol. III, on Gallica |
|---|---|
| Modern translation | Lucien Leclerc, Traité des simples (French, 1877–1883) |
The Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ li-mufradāt al-adwiya wa-l-aghdhiya (كتاب الجامع لمفردات الأدوية والأغذية, "the compendium of simple drugs and foods"), often called the Jāmiʿ, is an Arabic work on medicinal substances by Ibn al-Bayṭār, a 13th-century botanist from Málaga.[1]: 66, 69 Its entries on hemp quote earlier authorities by name and add the author's own observations.[2]: 118–120 Three consecutive entries are headed qinnab, hemp. In the third, on Indian hemp (qinnab hindī), Ibn al-Bayṭār wrote that he had met the plant only in Egypt, where it was sown in gardens and called ḥashīsha. He also described how it was eaten there.[2]: 119–120
Lucien Leclerc translated the work into French as Traité des simples (1877–1883).[3][2] Leclerc's notes set the 13th-century entry beside his own observations of cannabis in Algeria, so the French edition documents the medical writing of colonial North Africa and the Arabic text together.[2]: 120
The work and its editions
Ibn al-Bayṭār wrote in Arabic. The Arabic text was printed at Būlāq in 1291 AH.[1]: 66, 69 Leclerc numbered the entries of his translation and published it in three volumes of the Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale, the first in 1877 and the third in 1883.[3][2]
The entry on hemp opens with Dioscorides and Galen and goes on to Arabic physicians, among them Avicenna and al-Rāzī. In the entry on Indian hemp, Ibn al-Bayṭār's own remarks stand under the heading that Leclerc renders as L'auteur ("the author").[2]: 118–119
The hemp entries
The three qinnab entries are nos 1845 to 1847 in Leclerc's numbering, on pages 118 to 120 of his third volume.[2]: 118–120 Hemp seed has an entry of its own (no. 1271), under the names shāhdānaj and shāhdānak, which Leclerc takes from Persian.[2]: 119
Qinnab: hemp
The first entry, qinnab (قنب), is made up of quotations. From Dioscorides it takes a plant used to make strong cords, with leaves like those of an oak but fetid in smell, long hollow stems and round edible seeds, which in excess dry up the semen. In Avicenna hemp gives bad juices and little nourishment.[2]: 118 Al-Dimashqī calls it hot in the second degree and dry in the first. It dries the humours of the stomach, kills worms and clears the brain when its decoction is put into the nose.[2]: 118[1]: 66–67 Isḥāq ibn ʿImrān finds it hard to digest and bad for the stomach. It causes headache, turns the blood it makes into bile, gives off vapours that favour epilepsy, binds the bowels and makes urine flow.[2]: 118[1]: 67
Isḥāq ibn Sulaymān holds that the roasted seed does less harm, and that a draught of sweetened oxymel afterwards lessens it further. Rubbing the scalp with the juice of the pounded leaves clears the scales at the roots of the hair.[2]: 118 The entry closes with al-Rāzī's book on the correctives of foods: hemp goes to the head and weakens the sight; cold water, ice or sour fruit taken after it correct this.[2]: 118–119
Qinnab barrī: wild hemp
The second entry, qinnab barrī (قنب بري), is Dioscorides' wild hemp. Its stems are like those of the marsh mallow but black and smaller, about a cubit long. The leaves are like those of cultivated hemp but rougher and less dark, the flowers reddish. The seeds and root are like the marsh mallow's. Its bark is made into cords.[2]: 119 Leclerc identified Dioscorides' plant with Althaea cannabina. Galland and Sontheimer had made this entry and the next into a single chapter, which Leclerc thought a mistake.[2]: 119
Qinnab hindī: Indian hemp
The third entry, qinnab hindī (قنب هندي), is Ibn al-Bayṭār's own account. He wrote that there is a third kind of hemp called Indian, which he had met only in Egypt. There it was sown in gardens and also called ḥashīsha (حشيشة, "herb").[2]: 119 A small amount, one or two drachms, made its takers very drunk. Long use brought them to a state Leclerc renders as "les dernières limites de l'abrutissement". Some who used it lost their reason and ended in madness, a few in death.[2]: 119
He had seen fakirs, in Leclerc's word, take it in several ways. Some boiled the leaves with care and worked them for a long time between their hands into a paste, from which they made tablets. Others dried the leaves, roasted them and rubbed them between their hands, then mixed them with a little husked sesame or sugar and chewed the mixture for a long time. It made them excited, merry and drunk, at times close to mad.[2]: 119–120 A user who feared the effects of excess made himself vomit with butter and hot water to clear the stomach. The best results came from the syrup of ḥummāḍ, which Leclerc translates as patience (dock).[2]: 120
Hemp-seed oil
Elsewhere in the Jāmiʿ Ibn al-Bayṭār prescribed hemp-seed oil for "gases" in the ear, for hardening and contraction of the uterus and for pain in the nerves. A wax made with the oil was applied to hard swellings to dissolve them.[1]: 66, 68
Leclerc's notes
Leclerc's note to the entry on Indian hemp reads it beside the European literature of his day. He wrote that the plant still carried the name Ibn al-Bayṭār had given it, Cannabis indica. He reported that it was said to be taller than common hemp, while the plant he had seen in Algeria was generally smaller.[2]: 120 Silvestre de Sacy had printed the article in his Chrestomathie arabe, where the syrup became "boissons acides". He credited de Sacy with having shown that the use of hachîch gave the Ismailis the name hachîchîn, from which "assassins" comes.[2]: 120
In Constantine, Leclerc wrote, smokers of hachîch were called haschichiya. Prosper Alpin had seen the plant used in Egypt under the name Assis and remarked on what Leclerc called its "funestes effets", as Hasselquist did later. Sheikh Daoud, a contemporary of Alpin, also called it hachîcha in his Tedhkeret.[2]: 120
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Lozano, Indalecio (2001). "The therapeutic use of Cannabis sativa (L.) in Arabic medicine". Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics. 1 (1): 63–70. doi:10.1300/J175v01n01_05.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 2.21 Ibn al-Bayṭār (1883). Traité des simples. Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques, tome XXVI, 1re partie (in français). Vol. III. Translated by Leclerc, Lucien. Paris: Imprimerie nationale – via Gallica.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ibn al-Bayṭār (1877). Traité des simples. Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale et autres bibliothèques, tome XXIII, 1re partie (in français). Vol. I. Translated by Leclerc, Lucien. Paris – via Gallica.
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