The volume reviewed here is a revised version of Juliane Müller's doctoral thesis (Berlin 2015). She edits for the first time an important Medieval Arabic manual on the medical use of foodstuffs and beverages. Her excellent German translation and the accompanying studies on the Greek and Arabic context of al-Samarqandī’s food encyclopaedia make the understudied genre of Middle Eastern nutritional science accessible to a wider scientific public.

Modern scholarship has all too often focused on Arabic texts, which had a direct impact on Medieval European medicine. The books by Najīb al-Dīn al-Samarqandī (d. 1222), written in the Islamicate East shortly after the golden age of Arabic–Latin translations in Italy and Spain, were therefore usually neglected, although oriental medical practitioners used them extensively for centuries (cf. pp. 440–48). The best proof of this enduring practical use is the extraordinarily large number of more than 50 known manuscripts of al-Samarqandī’s “Book on Foods and Drinks”. Müller has diligently studied all accessible manuscripts, many of which were hitherto not listed in the usual bibliographical secondary literature. Her exemplary edition is based mainly on the most important examples of the families of manuscripts, including one “Leithandschrift” copied as early as al-Samarqandī’s lifetime. The author has carefully translated the Arabic text into correct, readable, and idiomatic German. The often difficult names of foodstuffs, vegetables, spices, dishes, sweets, beverages, perfumes, etc., are explained in a detailed commentary.

The edition of the Arabic text and the translation (pp. 20–309) are followed by a detailed study of al-Samarqandī and his food encyclopaedia. The chapter “Das Kitāb al-Aġḏiya wa-l-ašriba im Kontext” begins with an account of al-Samarqandī’s life and books (pp. 313–28). Since the biographical literature does not provide much information on him, it is to be welcomed that the author was able to trace new evidence found in the manuscripts of his treatises. This is followed by a diligently written overview of other medical texts by al-Samarqandī and their manuscripts and editions. The next subchapters (pp. 328–38) are dedicated to the sources of the K. al-Aghdhiya wa-l-ashriba, which are difficult to identify. Arab physicians writing in the Islamicate East did normally not explicitly mention the sources they used for the compilation of their own books. The editor (pp. 335–8) was, despite that, able to prove that al-Samarqandī consulted at least the following classical treatises, which he never mentioned explicitly: Ḥunayn's K. al-Aghdhiya, al-Rāzī’s Dafʿ maḍārr al-aghdhiya as well as his al-Manṣūrī, al-Majūsī’s Kāmil al-ṣināʿa, al-Balkhī’s Maṣāliḥ al-abdān wa-l-anfus, and a lost book on foodstuffs by Ibn Māsawayh. Müller could only make this important discovery by comparing al-Samarqandī’s text with a great number of other dietetic monographs – starting with Galen's De alimentorum facultatibus – and relevant chapters of medical handbooks, references to which were given throughout the commentary. Despite these huge efforts, a considerable part of al-Samarqandī’s text could not be traced in older sources. As suggested by the author (p. 336), he may have consulted further sources now lost. It is, on the other hand, also possible that he may have found some pieces of information in books belonging to other genres, such as pharmacognosy. An exhaustive analysis of the whole Arabic medical literature would, of course, have gone beyond the scope of the edition reviewed here.

The following chapter (pp. 339–439) is concerned with the foods, cooked dishes, beverages, and perfumes described in the K. al-Aghdhiya. Müller gave detailed accounts of each of the foodstuffs dealt with by al-Samarqandī and of their nomenclature. The deciphering of these terms is a great achievement, since many foods bear non-Arabic names often missing from the classical lexica. Many of them can barely be traced in the modern secondary literature, wherefore this commentary on the names of nourishments of the K. al-Aghdhiya is highly welcome to anyone interested in the nomenclature of plants, dishes, aromas, etc.

Al-Samarqandī belonged to the last creative epoch of Arabic medicine. It is not therefore surprising that explicit quotations from the K. al-Aghdhiya are very rare in the few important books written after the thirteenth century. In spite of this Müller is able to prove that the list of foodstuffs in al-Fārūqī’s sixteenth-century compendium consists mainly of anonymous quotations from al-Samarqandī (pp. 447 f.). The volume ends with indices, a detailed Arabic–German–English glossary – unfortunately not covering the commentary – and an English summary (pp. 525–8), which make the book accessible to readers with no knowledge of German.