Medicinal Plants Mentioned In The Quran And Islamic Tradition:A Systematic Review Of Traditional Uses, Ethnobotanical Knowledge And Pharmacological Evidence

Abstract

Historical, ethnobotanical and pharmacological studies have been carried out on plants mentioned in the Quran and Islamic textual traditions. Plants mentioned in the Quran and the Islamic textual traditions have been the subjects of historical and ethnobotanical and pharmacological interest. Their botanical relationships, however, have not been so consistently synthesized, nor have the evidence for their medicinal properties. This systematic review gathers and standardizes the information from medicines collected for medicinal plants from different sources such as Holy Quran, Hadith collections, classical Islamic medical literature and relevant ethnobotanical resources. A total of 32 distinct medicinal plant species were identified in the review that are linked to Quranic and wider Islamic textual traditions. Some are Allium cepa L., Allium sativum L., Nigella sativa L., Olea europaea L., Phoenix dactylifera L., Punica granatum L., Ficus carica L., Vitis vinifera L., and Zingiber officinale Roscoe. The quantitative analysis revealed that the families with the highest number of species were Fabaceae (4 species), Burseraceae (3 species), and Amaryllidaceae, Asteraceae, Cucurbitaceae, Lamiaceae and Lythraceae (2 species each). The most common parts of plants were leaves, fruits and seeds (13, 9 and 8 species, respectively). Medicinal uses were grouped and the most popular were digestive disorders (21 plants), anti-inflammatory and analgesic uses (20 plants), respiratory disorders (14 plants) and reproductive health (13 plants). It is important to be able to isolate and identify the primary literature sources to make use of the traditional literature in a rigorous scientific manner, and to be able to distinguish primary literature sources from the modern experimental literature. The results offer a systematic basis for ethnobotanical, pharmaceutical, clinical and conservation studies. This study aimed to review the Quranic plants and Islamic medicinal traditions by examining the ethnobotanical and pharmacological activities of plant parts used in Islamic medicinal traditions. The objective of the present study was aimed at reviewing the Quranic plants and Islamic medicinal traditions by examining the ethnobotanical and pharmacological activity of the parts of plants used in Islamic medicine.