Introduction to Establishment of Pharmacy and Drug Sales Services in Islamic World

The pharmacy was used as a venue for the manufacture, prescription and sale of medicines in Islamic territories in different ways. Based on historical sources of medicine, this paper studies the history of drug sale in the Islamic world through a survey of selling practices, characteristics, structures and the way they were monitored, Khizāna al-Sharāb is the oldest word used for pharmacy. Apart from street vendors, the hospitals, ʿAttārīs and palaces of the kings were among the places where the prescription and sale of medicine took place. Pharmacies usually had their own organization, and the pharmacist, which was called Mihtar or Sharābdār, occupied a lower position than a physician. Some pharmacies in the Islamic world were also important for scientific and artistic reasons, because they were places where medical records and expensive utensils were kept.