Lytton John Musselman earned a Ph.D. in botany from the University of North Carolina and was chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, where he is the Mary Payne Hogan Distinguished Professor of Botany. For many years he has studied plants of the Bible and Qur’an and has been a Visiting Professor in Sudan, Palestinian Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Most recently he worked at the American University of Iraq-Sulaimani and is presently a Visiting Professor at Universiti Brunei Darussalam where he is researching plants of the Qur’an and Hadith.

Plants of the Bible (about 80 species) and the Qur’an (about 30 species) have been studied for thousands of years, most are well known, especially food plants. These and lesser-known plants are reviewed. Numerous plants in the sacred Scriptures originate from geographical areas far from where the Holy books were birthed, so original readers were botanically unfamiliar with the plants. Bible examples include species of Aquilaria confusingly translated into English as aloe. In the day of The Prophet Mohamed camphor was originally derived from a rain forest tree, Dryobalanops camphora, but shortly after that era virtually all camphor was harvested from an unrelated tree (Cinnamomum camphora).

The correct identity of some plants in both the Bible and Qur’an remain uncertain. In both books, the determination of the plant translated as mustard is debatable. In the context of the Holy Scriptures, some plants and plant products must be considered as miraculous, literary devices. This includes the gourd in the story of the Prophet Jonah in both the Qur’an and the Bible as well as manna, also mentioned in both books. While the precise identity of such plants is unknown, local people name elements of their local flora after these mysterious plants. Examples include zaqqum, the tree of Hell in the Qur’an. In parts of Turkey this is oleander (Nerium oleander) and in eastern Sudan zaqqum is Euphorbia abyssinica. Essential in establishing any planting or garden is accurate identification based on botanical research, not just tradition or practice.