Scrutinizing the Poems of the Sixth Century (AH) Poets in the Area of the Herbal Medicines; Poppy

 The sixth century poems are usually considered as "technical poems". The poets of this era put aside simplicity and fluency of the poetry of the previous periods and used similes and metaphors in poetry to describe scientific information of that era such as astronomy, mysticism, music, medicine and especially herbal medicines, in a manner that one cannot comprehend the meaning and concept of poetry without having knowledge of these sciences. Medical information and common healing properties of plants have a wide reflection in poetry of this period. One of these medicinal herbs (herbal medicines) is poppy, whose active ingredients have been known to people and used by them through centuries under different names such as poppy, coke, opium and... The poets of this era attempted to create themes for medicinal and sleep inducing characteristics of the extract of this plant and used its taste, color and properties as the bases of advice, lyric, praise and mysticism.

 The present library based research study is undertaken to utilize descriptive and analytical approaches to extract medicinal reflections of opium from Khaghani, Sanai, Anvri and Khamsa Nizami divans, and then make an exploratory and investigative analysis based on the therapeutic properties listed in scientific articles, authentic traditional medicine books as well as books on modern medicinal plants.

Ethical Considerations:

 In this research, the ethical aspects of library study, including the authenticity of texts, honesty and trustworthiness, have been observed.

 The sedative, hypnotic and antidote medicinal properties of poppy correspond to its current usage.

 Opium was used therapeutically in the 6th century and was obtained from two plants of "poppy" and "wild lettuce". Poppy opium was referred to as "poppy" and lettuce opium was called "koke". Nowadays, there is not any "koke" opium, but wild lettuce is still used as a hypnotic agent in traditional medicine and herbal medicine books confirm its hypnotic properties.