Perso Indica

[Preliminary Entry] A work on the Indian materia medica by Muḥammad Šarf al-Dīn ibn Qāżī Šams al-Dīn (d. 1809-10). The author came from a small village near Kannauj (in modern-day Uttar Pradesh), and his Mufradāt-i hindī (1221/1806-7) was intended for the treatment of villagers and the poor. The work is a dictionary of simple drugs accompanied by an introduction (muqaddama) and a conclusion (ḫātima) that both discuss various pharmacological subjects. The properties of the drugs are often presented according to the Muslim pharmacological tradition, and the work relies chiefly on earlier Persian texts, such as Yusūf ibn Muḥammad’s Riyāż al-adwiya (1539-40) and Muḥammad Šarīf Ḫān’s Ta’līf-i Šarīfī (q.v.).

F. S.