Ibn al-suri, physician and botanist of al-sham

Ibn al-Suri's personal talents and his travels to many countries where he became familiar with a variety of plant life, of scholars, and of herbalists are what gave him his broad scope of knowledge. He wished to transmit the experience that he gained to others as well. Ibn Abi Usaybi'a points out that the unique quality of Ibn al-Suri was that he described the plants that he specialized in investigating and that had not been mentioned by the ancients. Furthermore as part of the council of scholars that Ibn al-Suri established in Damascus on the subject of medicine, he put into writing new prescriptions for medicinal drugs which he tested during his service under the Ayyubid sultan Malik al-Mu'azzam 'Issa (between 1218–27). Ibn al-Suri's contribution was in the distribution of information about unique medicinal drugs and new prescriptions that were theretofore unknown to most of the public and to the scholarly community.