Dr Shahina Ghazanfar has researched plants in Pakistan, West Africa, and the Middle East, with a focus on national and regional flora. For the Middle East, her main expertise is on the flora, vegetation, biogeography, restoration and conservation of plants of the Arabian Peninsula. She has also researched plants of medicinal, historical and economic importance in the Middle East and is currently working on the ‘Flora of Iraq’ and the ‘Medicinal plants of the Middle East’.

Shahina completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge, is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and was awarded the Linnean Medal for Botany in 2021.

Her talk will focus on plants mentioned in the Qur’an, discussing their medicinal use since ancient times and their cultural importance in the Islamic world and other religious texts.