1001 Journeys through Andalusian Cures
with Ibn al-baytar
Promoting Wellbeing and Healthy Balanced Living for all
NARRATIVE
This production takes audiences on a wondrous journey to Andalucía, in Southern Spain, when it was under Muslim rule. to uncover how wellness and wellbeing helped create a remarkably advanced and vibrant society.
TAKE PART
Make a difference through your actions. Explore the various ways in which you can take part in a journey through Andalusian Cures – whether through participating in an event, setting up an event near you, helping introduce new people to amazing history.
PARTNERS
1001 Journeys through Andalusian Cures is produced in partnership with 1001 Inventions.
NARRATIVE
WELLBEING FOR A VIBRANT SOCIETY
This production takes audiences on a wondrous journey to Andalucía, in Southern Spain, when it was under Muslim rule to uncover how wellness and wellbeing helped create a remarkably advanced and vibrant society.
1001 Journeys through Andalusian Cures is an educational initiative that introduces the fascinating legacy of healthcare from the creative golden age of science in early Muslim Civilisation and connected civilisations looking specifically at how a wholistic approach to living and wellbeing was achieved – through focus on physical health, psychological wellbeing, environment, good food, art and literature.
ASSETS
TRANS-MEDIA ASSETS
1001 Journeys reaches millions of people globally through employing trans-media production techniques – developing multiple assets for each production that appeal to different audience groups including medium of film, live shows, exhibits, live events, educational materials and books.
TAKE PART
TAKE PART.. MAKE A DIFFERENCE
Hosting an event, organising a school fair, watching a film, or organising an awareness campaign for your friends and family are all ways in which you can take part in 1001 Journeys through Andalusian Cures. Find out more details below.
THE CHARACTERS
IBN SINA
A famous 11th-century scholar, Known in the West as Avicenna. He built on knowledge from ancient civilisations creating a master reference work – his influential work, The Canon of Medicine.
IBN AL-BAYTAR
Ibn al-Baytar, from Malaga, was a pharmacist, botanist, physician and scientist. He wrote a dictionary of some three thousand plants and their uses. He travelled across to the East then later resided and died in Damascus. His botanical researches extended over a vast area including Arabia and Palestine.
AL-ZAHRAWI
Tenth-century physician Al-Zahrawi lived in Cordoba, and developed new surgical techniques and tools including the use of catgut systematically for sutures in surgery. He wrote a large medical encyclopedia, Al-Tasrif, or The Method of Medicine.
BINT ZUHR
Lived in the 12th century in Seville and is from the famous Andalusian Zuhr family who originate from Denia in Valencia in south eastern Spain.
She was known for her medical knowledge and treatments especially when it came to healing women. Her daughter followed in her footsteps too and they were both favoured physicians for the women in the royal court.
PRODUCTION ASSETS
LIVE SHOW
Exciting theatre performance that takes viewers on a fascinating journey to the past to appreciate how pioneers from the East contributed to modern-day healthcare and medicine.
WORKSHOPS AND ACTIVITIES
Wide variety of workshops and hands-on activities including practising ancient surgical techniques through cross stitching, creating structural models of viral diseases, healthy eating and digestion, importance of exercise in health and much more.
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
Available for school and classroom usage includes step by step guide to related workshops and activities.
EVENTS AND EXHIBITS
Fun live show incorporating theatrical performances, story telling and on stage audience engagement.
TAKE PART
HOST EVENT
Small or large, exhibition or live show. Get in touch with us and our team will work with you to cater for your needs.
RUN SCHOOL ACTIVITY
Using film assets and educational materials designed for schools. School events bookings are also possible in certain parts of the world. Contact us for details.
CREATE AWARENESS
Using materials available online from 1001 Journeys to create awareness in your school, work, neighbourhood.
WATCH FILM TRAILER
Watch film trailer and snippets from previous events to give you a flavour of children’s engagement in the activities.
READ BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Expand your knowledge by reading about healthcare, medicine and wellbeing from a golden age of knowledge. Click below for a full list of related articles.
Links to Articles – Cures
If you think medical advice on healthy living – good nutrients, exercise and stress free existence is a modern medical practice, you might want to think again and join us to discover 5 medical books from 1,000 years ago that explored those exact topics. Read full article.
From a simple cold to a serious illness, humans have always lived with the risk of catching diseases from one another. Pandemics affecting millions are fortunately rare, but the bubonic plague of the 14th century and the 1918 influenza outbreak have left a dark shadow on history.
During Muslim civilisation, people encountered plague and infectious diseases such as leprosy – but how did physicians then deal with issues of contagion? And are there any lessons we can learn? Read full article.
Human life was highly valued during the Golden Age of Muslim Civilisation. The core essence of healing at the time can be summarised by 11th- century Ibn Sina in his book Canon when he said:
“Medicine is a science, from which one learns the states of the human body… in order to preserve good health when it exists, and restore it when it is lacking.”
Read full article
Herbal medicine was not seen as an alternative medicine but was very much a part of medical practice. There are records from Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, and India that reflect a tradition that existed before we discovered writing. In the West, the first “herbal” (a book listing and explaining the properties of herbs) was Greek and written in the fourth century BCE by Diocles of Carystus followed by Crateuas in the first century CE. The only work that has survived, De Materia Medica, was written in 65 CE by Dioscorides. He remains the only known authority among the Greek and Roman herbalists. Read full article.
Contributions in Medicine and Healthcare from Muslim Civilisation tells the fascinating story of how generations of physicians from different countries and creeds created a medical tradition admired by friend and foe.
Read full article.
The Sheikh al-Ra’is Sharaf al-Mulk Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn b. ‘Abd Allah b. al-Hasan b. ‘Ali Ibn Sina, in Latin he is known as Avicenna and his most famous works are those on philosophy and medicine.
His philosophical views have engaged the attention of Western thinkers over several centuries, and his books have been among the most important sources in philosophy. Read full article.
The Anatolian Ottoman Turks knew about methods of inoculation. They called it Ashi, or engrafting, and they had inherited it from older Turkish tribes. Read full article.
The idea behind hospitals in the Muslim world a thousand years ago was to provide a range of facilities from treatments to convalescence, asylum, and retirement homes. They looked after all kinds of people, rich and poor, because Muslims are honour-bound to provide treatment for the sick, whoever they may be. Read full article.
“In the 1770s and 1780s, Brighton, England, was a blossoming beach resort and it was at this scene that Sake (Sheikh, but because of accents this became Sake) Dean Mahomed arrived. Sake Dean Mahomed was from a Muslim family in Patna, India, and in 1759 opened what was known as Mahomed’s Indian Vapour Baths on the Brighton seafront, the site of what is now the Queen’s Hotel. These baths were similar to Turkish baths.. Read full article.
Blue skies, lush greenery, and brightly-coloured flowers. A garden offers shade, serenity and inspiration whether it’s in the grounds of a luxurious palace or hidden within a modest courtyard. Add the soothing sounds of water gushing from a fountain, and the picture is complete.
During Muslim civilisation, garden-lovers from Lisbon to Lahore could enjoy splendid outdoor spaces. Gardens dripped with water features and were packed with exotic species of plants. But what made the fountains in these gardens so special? Read full article.
Al-Biruni’s definition of the pharmacist could have been written today. Along the road from sympathetic magic and shamanism to scientific method, much trailblazing was carried out over a few centuries by scholars, alchemists, physicians and polymaths of the Muslim Middle East, and their rules, procedures and expectations are, to a great extent, practiced almost universally today. Read full article.