Unani
A Greco-Arabic medical tradition practised in South Asia that classes spices as hot or cold and dry or moist.
Also: Unani tibb, Greco-Arabic medicine, yunani, hakim tradition
Unani tibb is a tradition that came from Greek humoral medicine, developed by Arab and Persian scholars such as Ibn Sina, and settled in India under the Delhi sultanates and Mughals. Practitioners, called hakims, classify foods and drugs by temperament: hot, cold, dry or moist, in degrees. Spices such as pepper, ginger, clove and cinnamon are classed as hot, and fennel, coriander and tamarind as cool. Mughal kitchens followed these ideas to balance dishes, and some old recipes still reflect them, with cooling sherbets in summer and warm spiced dishes in winter. Unani is a traditional system; its claims are not medical advice here.