Penelope Johnstone

Penelope Johnstone is an academic with specialized expertise in the history of Arabic medicine and pharmacology, holding a doctorate in the history of Arabic medicine and herbals. She is a lecturer in Arabic at Oxford University, where her teaching and research engage the classical Arabic scholarly tradition. Her doctoral specialization in Arabic medical and botanical texts made her well-suited to translate Medicine of the Prophet (al-Tibb al-Nabawi) by Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya for the Islamic Texts Society, a work that brings together prophetic guidance on health, diet, and natural remedies. The translation preserves the technical vocabulary of classical Arabic medicine while remaining accessible to contemporary readers, and includes English-Arabic technical and materia medica glossaries.