Islamic Arts and Crafts: An Anthology 9781474409162, 9781474409193, 9781474409179, 9781474409186

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Islamic Arts and Crafts An Anthology

Marcus Milwright

Islamic Arts and Crafts An Anthology Marcus Milwright

Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com Selection and editorial material © Marcus Milwright, 2017 The texts are reprinted by permission of other publishers Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 10/12pt JaghbUni by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978 1 4744 0916 2 978 1 4744 0919 3 978 1 4744 0917 9 978 1 4744 0918 6

(hardback) (paperback) (webready PDF) (epub)

The right of Marcus Milwright to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498). Published with the support of the University of Edinburgh Scholarly Publishing Initiatives Fund.

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements  Notes for the reader  Image and text acknowledgements  Introduction 

v vi viii x 1

PART 1  FOUNDATIONS   1. Theoretical formulations 

19

PART 2  HUMAN DIMENSIONS   2.   3.   4.   5.

The organisation of labour  Rituals, songs and poems  Biographical information  The lives of artisans and artists 

29 40 49 57

PART 3  RESOURCES   6.   7.   8.   9. 10.

Raw materials I: minerals  Raw materials II: plants  Raw materials III: animals  Mining and metal preparation  City descriptions 

65 72 75 81 86

PART 4  INORGANIC MEDIA 11. Copper  12. Iron and steel  13. Other metals: gold, silver and tin 

95 101 107

iv  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s 14. Pottery  15. Glass 

113 122

PART 5  ORGANIC MEDIA 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Wood  Basketry and matting  Leather  Spinning, bleaching and dyeing  Weaving  Rugs, carpets and felt 

129 136 141 146 152 157

PART 6  WRITING AND PAINTING 22. Papyrus and paper  23. Calligraphy  24. Painting 

165 170 178

PART 7  ARCHITECTURE AND ENGINEERING 25. Building techniques  26. Vaulting and architectural decoration  27. Engineering 

189 199 205

PART 8  ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS 28. Recycling and repair  29. Crafts in an age of competition and change 

215 222

Glossary  Names of craft activities in Arabic and Persian  Bibliography  Index 

232 237 239 254

Figures

  I.1 Map of the main towns and cities of the Middle East and Central Asia   2.1 Plan of the city of Baghdad and the surrounding areas in the early Abbasid period    4.1 ‘Bobrinsky Bucket’. Cast brass vessel inlaid with silver and copper, Herat, Afghanistan, 559/1163; a) view; b) last section of the dedicatory inscription on the rim    6.1 Creating jewellery with turquoise in Nishapur, Iran, 2015    8.1 Bedouin grazing sheep and goats on stubble after the harvest, near Lake Assad, Syria, 2001  10.1 Pressed clay pilgrim tokens (muhr) from the Pa Minar Mosque in Zavareh, 2001  11.1 Design for a doorway. Simplified version of drawing in a manuscript of al-­Jazari, Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-­ḥiyal al-­handasiyya, Diyarbakir, 1206  12.1 Captain Massalski’s diagram for the manufacture of a gun barrel (1841)  16.1 Mother-­of-­pearl inlaid wooden clog, Damascus, Syria, nineteenth century  19.1 Interior of a dyeing workshop in Kashan, Iran, 2015  24.1 ‘Damascus Room’, Syria, eighteenth century  25.1 Aerial view of Shibam, Yemen, taken c. 1966  26.1 Muqarnas vault inside the tomb of ʿAbd al-­Samad, Natanz, Iran, 1299–1312  27.1 Diagram showing a mechanism for pumping fresh air into wells, from Banu Musa, Kitāb al-­ḥiyal  29.1 Brass platter inlaid with silver and copper in the ‘Mamluk Revival’ style, Cairo, 1914 

5 31 50 66 76 87 96 105 130 147 179 190 200 208 223

Acknowledgements

I have long been interested in researching the traditional manual crafts of the Islamic world. It is a topic I have addressed from the perspectives of archaeology, art history and the study of primary texts. Craft practices also form part of my teaching at the University of Victoria, and I am grateful to my graduate and undergraduate students for their continued interest and insightful observations relating to this rich area of study. These fruitful interactions have informed both the presentation and approach taken in this book. Having collected numerous written descriptions of craft activities over the years, it seemed timely to bring them together in a single volume. This process of collection has involved many pleasant hours in the McPherson Library at the University of Victoria, and I would like to thank the staff of the library for their assistance in locating books and arranging for interlibrary loans. I am also grateful to Nicola Ramsey for her encouragement to publish this anthology. She and Ellie Bush have given me much wise advice in the preparation of the text. I also benefited from the comments and critiques of the anonymous reviewers. My thanks to Elizabeth Welsh for her meticulous copy-­editing of the book. Most of the work on this book was done in piecemeal fashion, during lunch breaks and between lectures. I was, however, able to devote a more sustained period of time to the writing and collation of the chapters during a research leave in 2013. Texts on the crafts cannot be studied in isolation, of course, and I have gained greatly from time spent with objects in public and private collections of Islamic art from Stuttgart to Hawaii. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the kind, gracious help that I have received during these visits from Mariam Rosser Owen, Moya Carey, Venetia Porter, Fahmida Suleman, Zeina Klink-­Hoppe, Annette Kraemer, Mohammad Khaleeq, Keelan Overton and Dawn Sueoka. This book is reliant upon this vast body of scholarship, and I am indebted to each and every scholar, living or dead, whose work appears on the following pages. I am most grateful to the following, who have allowed their field observations and translations to be reproduced in this book: James Allan, Terry Allen, Adel Allouche, Aisha Bewley, Carmela Baffioni, Ronald Buckley, Amnon Cohen, Jim Colville, Salma Samar Damluji, Randi Deguilhem, Willem Floor, Robert Hoyland, Mahmood Ibrahim, Jane Jakeman, Nazif Mohib Shahrani, Parviz Tanavoli, Wheeler Thackston, A. L. Udovitch and Stephen Vernoit. Thanks also to Doris Behrens-­Abouseif, Sheila Blair, Peter Miglus, Michael Morony, Jennifer Scarce and Helga Seeden for their help. Copyrighted material has also been reproduced courtesy of numerous publishers, and these are listed and acknowledged accordingly. Other assistance relating

acknowledgements 

vii

to copyright requests was provided by Svetlana Adaxina, James Black, Robin Bligh, Perry Cartwright, Sharla Clute, Yi Deng, Yasmine El Hajjar, Christiane Gruber, Andrea Johari, Evyn Kropf, Hans-­Jeorg Mayer, Nancy Micklewright, Anastasia Mikliaeva, Alice Orton, Pamela Quick, Fran Roper, Marlis Saleh, Kalpana Sharma, Melinda Jane Tomerlin, Charles Watkinson and Tara Woolnough. My thanks to Seyedhamed Yeganehfarzand for checking the Persian terminology employed in the main text and for making numerous additional observations about craft activities. Several new translations were produced specifically for publication in this book, and I particularly thank Wesley Thiessen for his contributions. Mary Milwright read and commented on a draft of the complete text. As ever, my research has been supported by my wife, Evanthia, and my children, Loukas and Clio. This book is dedicated to my mother, Mary.

Notes for the reader

This book includes accounts largely drawn from the Arabic-­and Persian-­speaking areas of the Middle East and Central Asia. In the texts that accompany the primary source materials (i.e. the introduction, the opening notes to each of the following chapters and the glossary) I have followed the transliteration system adopted in the International Journal of Middle East Studies and the third edition of the Encylopaedia of Islam. Personal names and toponyms are, however, given without the dotted consonants and the macrons over the long vowels. ‘Ayns (ʿ) and hamzas (ʾ) have been maintained in most cases. I have also employed these conventions in the new translations from Arabic that are included in this anthology. Arabic and Persian words that are in use in English (such as hajj) are left un-­italicised. Places are always given in the form they are best known in English language publications (Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, Cairo, Aleppo and so on). The source texts in this anthology come from a wide variety of sources written over a long period of time. Many writers seek to render Arabic and Persian terms into Latin script. The conventions employed in this process are, predictably enough, highly varied, and in numerous instances there is insufficient information to be able to reconstruct the original given Arabic or Persian word with any certainty. This problem is compounded by the fact that dialect words used to describe aspects of craft practices and the rituals associated with guilds are not well represented in published dictionaries. In some cases authors have given their own approximated transcriptions of oral testimony. Hence, it would be perilous to offer a definitive transliteration, let alone an English translation. As a result, I have not attempted to regularise the Arabic and Persian words or phrases recorded in the source texts. They have been left largely as they appear in the original publications (the only exception being the replacement of special characters, such as č, ġ, š and z·, with ones that accord with the transliteration system employed in this book). There are some differences in the transliteration of Arabic and Persian vowels and diphthongs, the feminine ending (tāʾ marbūṭa) appears as −a, −ah and −eh and the Persian izāfa appears both as −i and −e (and −yi / −ye). A glossary has been provided at the end of the book as a means to clarify the meanings of commonly occurring craft terminology. Where necessary, I have included the variant spellings that appear in the source texts. All of the source texts have been translated into English. The translators are given in the endnotes associated with each source text. In cases where no name is given, the translation was done by the present author. The source texts originally written in English have been ­reproduced as they were first published. I have, however, made some minor editorial changes

notes for the reader 

ix

(for example, to italicisation and capitalisation), in order make them appear relatively consistent throughout the anthology. Missing words are contained in square brackets and clarifications regarding the meanings of words or expressions are contained in parentheses. Ellipses indicate a section of the original text that has been omitted (usually because the section is not germane to the topic under discussion or simply repeats information already provided). Unless stated otherwise, the dates are given according to the Common Era. Hijrī dates are sometimes noted in translations of inscriptions and Arabic primary sources.

Image and text acknowledgements

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the sourceholders for permission to reproduce illustrative material. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity. images

Figures I.1, 6.1, 19.1 Courtesy of Seyedhamed Yeganehfarzand. Figure 2.1 From Guy LeStrange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900). Source: Wikimedia. Figure 4.1 Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg: IR-­2268. Figures 8.1, 10.1, 26.1 Photographs and drawings: Marcus Milwright. Figure 11.1 Drawing: Atri Hatef Naiemi. After Topkapı Museum Library Ms. 3472, fols. 167r and v. Figure 12.1 Drawing: Naomi Shields. After Allan and Gilmour, Persian Steel, Figure 18. Figure 16.1 Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawai’i: 67.25. Courtesy of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. Figure 24.1 Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawai’i. Courtesy of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art. Figure 25.1 Photograph: R. Digby Milwright. Figure 27.1 Drawing: Naomi Shields. After drawing by Donald Hill. Figure 29.1 Courtesy of Mohammed Khaleeq. text

§ 1. 2, 23. 5 By permission of Princeton University Press. § 1. 3, 1. 4 Michael Bonner. § 1. 5, 11. 1, 28. 3 Bernard Lewis. § 1. 6, 9. 6, 12. 2, 12. 3 Courtesy of Robert Hoyland By permission of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Fund.

image and text acknowledgements 

xi

§ 1. 7 Courtesy of Adel Allouche. § 1. 8, 20. 1 Courtesy of Gwendolyn Goldbloom and Michael Morony. § 1. 9 By permission of Harrassowitz Verlag. § 1. 10, 1. 11 Courtesy of A. L. Udovitch. § 2. 2 Copyright © 1970, Wayne State University Press. By permission of Wayne State University Press. § 2. 5 Courtesy of Randi Deguilhem. § 2. 6, 13. 4, 18. 5, 20. 3 Courtesy of R. P. Buckley. § 2. 8 Courtesy of Amnon Cohen. § 2. 11, 3. 2, 14. 1, 14. 3 By permission of the American University of Beirut Press. § 2. 12, 6. 1, 19. 6, 20. 4, 20. 5 By permission of the University of Michigan Press. § 2. 13 Peeters Publishers. § 2. 14, 29. 11 By permission of Edition Hansjeorg Mayer. § 3. 1 By permission of the Hakluyt Society. § 3. 4, 16. 10, 25. 7 Ronald Lewcock. § 3. 7, 26. 6 Courtesy of Salma Samar Damluji. § 3. 8 By permission of Klaus Schwarz Verlag. § 3. 9 By permission of Penguin Random House. § 3. 11, 18. 7 By permission of Rhodos International Science and Art Publishers. § 4. 2 Courtesy of Peter Miglus. § 4. 3 Rachel Ward. § 4. 6 Courtesy of Terry Allen. § 4. 10, 21. 2, 29. 5 Courtesy of Parviz Tanavoli. § 4. 11, 19. 7, 21. 4 By permission of Gerald Duckworth and Co. § 5. 1, 5. 2, 6. 6, 14. 9, 24. 11 Courtesy of Wheeler Thackston. § 5. 3 Courtesy of Mahmood Ibrahim. § 5. 4, 7. 4, 14. 12, 19. 5, 25. 9 Courtesy of State University of New York Press. § 6. 7 Courtesy of Jane Jakeman. § 8. 3 By permission of Rowman & Littlefield. § 8. 5 Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. § 8. 6 Courtesy of Nazif Mohib Shahrani. § 9. 2, 18. 3, 21. 5 Copyright © 1967, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By permission of the MIT Press. § 9. 4, 9. 5, 11. 2, 12. 4, 12. 7, 14. 11 Courtesy of James Allan. § 10. 4 Franciscan Press, Jerusalem. § 11. 3, 27. 1, 27. 3 By permission of Springer. § 12. 8, 16. 7, 18. 6, 19. 3, 20. 2, 24. 3, 25. 1 By permission of the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Fund. § 13. 1 Oxford University Press. § 13. 2 By permission of Cambridge University Press. § 13. 3 Courtesy of Aisha Bewley. § 15. 4, 16. 8, 22. 7 Courtesy of Willem Floor. § 17. 2, 19. 2, 25. 3 Reprinted with the permission of the University of Pennsylvania Press. § 19. 4 By permission of Princeton University Press. § 21. 1 Elsevier Press. § 21. 3 Copyright © Anthony Smith, 1953. § 22. 1, 22. 3 By permission of Archetype Publications and the Don Baker Memorial Fund.

xii  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 22. 2 By permission of Edinburgh University Press. § 22. 4, 23. 2 Copyright © 1970, Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. § 22. 5, 23. 9, 26. 8 Courtesy of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. § 23. 3, 23. 7, 24. 2, 25. 11, 28. 6 By permission of Brill. § 23. 10 By permission of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. § 23. 12 Copyright © 2000, Columbia University Press. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. § 24. 4 Courtesy of Stephen Vernoit. § 26. 2 Mazda Publishers. § 27. 2 Scientific American. § 28. 1 Courtesy of Jim Colville. § 28. 7 By permission of the Altajir Trust. § 29. 2, 29. 13 Oxford University Press, USA. § 29. 12 By permission of the Chicago University Press.

Introduction

I am a slave to anyone who teaches me the crafts (man ʿallamanī ḥirafan kunt ʿabdan lahu).1 The Islamic world is justly famed for the quality of the portable arts and architecture produced between the seventh century and the present. Museums and private collections contain countless examples of glazed and decorated ceramics, inlaid metalwork, carved and painted woodwork, stucco work, enamelled glass and illustrated manuscripts that demonstrate the innovative nature of the skilled artisans operating across an area encompassing the Iberian Peninsula, many parts of Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. Some of the most enthusiastic accounts of Islamic arts and crafts come from European visitors to the Middle East and North Africa in the medieval and early modern periods. One fourteenth-­century traveller, Simone Sigoli, makes a particularly extravagant claim in his description of the markets of Damascus. He writes: ‘[T]here are such rich and noble and delicate works of every kind that if you had the money in the bone of your leg, without fail you would break it to buy all of these things’.2 It is common to find descriptions of Islamic objects among the inventories of European rulers and nobles. Most of these were bought as luxury items in their own right, but others came to Europe as containers for valued commodities, ranging from medicaments and spices to the relics associated with saints. Some objects were incorporated into church ­treasuries – often with decorative additions that somewhat obscure their original provenance and function – while others were treasured within private residences. Another significant practice, especially associated with the Italian city of Pisa but also encountered elsewhere around the Mediterranean, is the setting of Islamic glazed bowls into the façades of medieval churches.3 We can also appreciate the value of Islamic luxury goods through the excavation of medieval ports, cities, castles and elite residences across Europe. There is abundant archaeological evidence for the importation of manufactured items from North Africa, Islamic Spain and the Middle East. Archaeology also makes an important contribution to the study of the distribution of Islamic objects – especially ceramics and glass – to other parts of the world. Islamic glass has been located within elite burials in China, while Iraqi glazed pottery of the late eighth and ninth centuries (both blue and white wares and lustre-­painted) have been recovered from sites in East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka and southeastern China. The development

2  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s of trading links with China also had a profound impact upon the craft traditions of the Middle East. For example, it is impossible to write a history of Islamic ceramics without acknowledging the influence of imported glazed stoneware and porcelain from Southeast Asia.4 The arts and architecture of the Islamic world have been the subject of many general surveys, and there are now also synthetic accounts of the principal archaeological discoveries. The student of Islamic visual culture can also seek out detailed studies devoted to objects in a specific medium or to those made in a specific period or region. Some scholars have also focused their attention upon the techniques employed in the manufacture of portable objects and buildings. This can be achieved through a variety of approaches – most importantly, ethnographic observation and archaeological science.5 Although primary documentation is relatively sparse, particularly before the nineteenth century, the study of craft practices (and of Islamic art in general) can also be supplemented by primary written sources. These texts are often difficult to access, and it was with a view to improving this situation that this volume was put together. Those wishing to study the written responses to the art and architecture of the Islamic world can already consult an anthology of primary sources. The book, entitled Islamic Art and Visual Culture: An Anthology of Sources, is edited by Dede Fairchild Ruggles.6 This valuable collection brings together well-­known and less familiar accounts of Islamic art and architecture written by Muslim and non-­Muslim authors. The reader is left with a sense of the ways in which objects and buildings were appreciated for their aesthetic qualities, as well as some aspects of their socio-­cultural roles in pre-­modern Islamic societies.7 The central concern in Islamic Art and Visual Culture is with texts that address the impact and function of objects (in their widest sense) and buildings in the different regions of the Islamic world before the twentieth century. In this respect, it is focused upon primary sources that elucidate dominant issues in art history: aesthetics, patronage, reception and iconography. The area that receives much less attention in the anthology is the production of art and architecture. While there are a few accounts by artisans themselves (for example, the description of the techniques involved in the manufacture of glazed ceramics by the fourteenth-­century Persian Abu al-­Qasim) and some biographical notices relating to famous painters and calligraphers, the perspective of the artisan is fairly sparsely covered. These comments should not be construed as a criticism of the Ruggles anthology, but as a general reflection upon the nature of the available source material. In general, pre-­modern Islamic authors were not much concerned with visual and material culture, and when they do choose to address it, they are most interested in the patrons for whom the objects were made, their monetary value and the functions they were designed to perform. Inscriptions on objects and buildings are also much more likely to name the patron and/or recipient than those responsible for making them. Most artisans were illiterate, and thus not in a position to express their opinions in written form. The context of production is, however, essential in the study of Islamic crafts. A full understanding of the artistic achievements of the Islamic world requires an appreciation of the materials and techniques employed in the manufacture of portable artefacts and monumental architecture.8 Islamic art is characterised by its profoundly experimental quality, both in its aesthetic characteristics and its modes of manufacture. Indeed, these two elements are closely connected, because it was often technical advances that gave birth to, or at least suggested, new visual effects (in everything from ceramic glazes to structural systems in architecture). Conversely, crafts also had their conservative dimensions, and it is apparent that many practices remained stable over long periods of time (often stretching back before the birth of Islam in the early seventh century ce). The intrinsic properties of raw materials and the availability

introduction 

3

of fuel resources could establish parameters for the production process. Thus, Islamic art history will not adequately fulfill its goal of interpreting context and meaning if it does not take into account the complex interplay of factors (logistical, technical, socio-­economic and cultural) that exist at the level of production. How can we study the production process and reconstruct the ways in which craftspeople negotiated between the desires of the private patron or the open market on the one hand and the intrinsic constraints established by materials and habitual practice on the other? Objects themselves present a range of possibilities, from the scientific study of manufacturing techniques to the visual analysis of surface treatments, vessel shape and ornamentation (motifs, inscriptions and so on). Excavations of production centres (pottery kilns, glass workshops, metal foundries, lime kilns and so on) have yielded further valuable information. Sites of these sorts allow scholars to isolate the varied procedures involved in the manufacture of different media, particularly those involving the application of intense heat. Using a range of scientific techniques, it is now possible to look at issues including the firing temperatures and atmospheres in kilns, the types of mineral colourants used in glass and glaze, the composition of metal alloys (such as steel, brass and bronze) and changes in flux technologies.9 The other major source of information on craft practices is the written record. For the pre-­ modern periods this comprises a wide range of genres, from official documents and contracts to chronicles, geographical encyclopaedias, treatises on Islamic law and the accounts of travellers through Islamic lands. As mentioned above, there are a few treatises written by artisans themselves. The crafts are also occasionally mentioned in poetry and prose fiction. From the mid-­nineteenth century there emerges a more self-­consciously scholarly observation of craft practices; this subdiscipline can be defined as a branch of ethnography. In a Middle Eastern context this activity can probably be traced back to the written descriptions and documentary illustrations of contemporary craftsmen and everyday life that appear in the monumental Description de l’Égypte (1809–29).10 This project developed out of Napoleon’s occupation of Egypt (1798–1801) and was undertaken by a huge team of scholars, engineers, architects, artists and printers collectively known as the Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Égypte. Prominent among these men was Dominique Vivant Denon (d. 1825), whose two-­volume Voyage dans la basse et l’haute Égypte (1802) was a seminal contribution to the early history of Egyptology. The principal characteristics of these written sources are addressed in greater detail in the concluding section of this chapter. In the following paragraphs the goals of this anthology are outlined, as well as the types of questions able to be investigated through the study of primary texts. First and foremost, this book is intended to provide a convenient point of reference for those wishing to investigate the crafts and manufacturing practices of the Islamic period as they are represented in texts dating from the seventh century to the early years of the ­twenty-­first century. All of the texts assembled in this book have been published previously in the form of books, scholarly articles and chapters, but I felt it was important to bring them together in a single publication, because many are relatively scarce and can only be found in major research libraries. Some have not previously been translated into English, and thus this book provides the perfect opportunity to bring these to a wider audience. There have been some prior studies that have concentrated on primary sources relating to the specific media (these works are often also bounded in chronological or dynastic terms), but there is, to the best of my knowledge, no earlier publication that brings together a relatively complete range of manual crafts.11 This book does not attempt to cover the entire geographical extent of the Islamic world. The Arabic-­speaking and Persian-­speaking parts of the Middle East (see Figure I.1) are

4  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s the main focus of attention. These comprise Egypt, the Arabian peninsula (modern-­day Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman and the Gulf States), Greater Syria (comprising modern-­day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and parts of southeastern Turkey), Iraq and Iran. Ethnographic observations of craft activities in the modern state of Israel have not been included, though there are accounts from the period of the British Mandate in Palestine (1920–48). Material from the area of modern-­day Turkey has also been omitted, with the exception of some texts dealing with sites (such as Antioch) near the southern border that have strong cultural links to Greater Syria. The definition of the Persian cultural domain extends beyond the borders of modern Iran, and this book has drawn upon primary sources and ethnographic studies from Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Omitted from consideration are descriptions written by natives of the Middle East and Central Asia about the production of art and architecture in non-­Islamic regions. Examples of this genre include the accounts of the manufacture of Chinese porcelain by Arab travellers and the well-­known tribute to ‘Rūmī’ (Greek) painting by the Iraqi satirist al-­Jahiz (d. 868–9).12 problems and questions

Primary sources can be used to examine all aspects of the production process, from the gathering of raw materials to the creation of the finished object, as well as questions relating to the socio-­cultural context of the crafts in Islamic society. If we start with raw materials – organic and inorganic – texts can allow us to examine the distribution and exploitation of the commodities needed by artisans. In some cases, access to raw materials was restricted by factors such as government policy or the costs associated with the extraction and transport to the point of manufacture. High transport costs would often stimulate the search for cheaper alternatives that made use of more readily available plant, animal or mineral sources. Some raw materials – such as silk, gold, rock crystal and ivory – were imbued with cultural meaning in pre-­ modern societies, and this could delimit the functions they performed and the craftspeople who were able to make use of them. There might also be a preference for certain luxury materials in the lands controlled by a particular dynasty. These preferences would lead to the creation of centres of specialisation, such as the ivory working of Umayyad Spain (756–1031) or the carving of rock crystal in Fatimid Egypt (969–1171). Many raw materials had to go through stages of processing before they were suitable for use. Each of these technical processes contains both essential aspects (procedures that cannot be omitted) and secondary activities that serve to differentiate a coarse product from one of higher quality. Thus, the decision to add or omit non-­essential procedures can be a matter of maintaining a low cost for the consumer or it might be a product of specific circumstance, such as the differences between rural and urban environments or commercial and non-­commercial modes of production. Other practices become culturally ingrained – for example, the spinning of thread in a clockwise or anticlockwise direction – and can be used to distinguish the products of specific regions or ethnic and confessional groups. The example of spinning thread is important in this respect, because ethnographic observations have demonstrated that the preference for clockwise (‘z-­spun’) or anticlockwise (‘s-­spun’) orientations is defined by gender within some rural communities. Religious considerations also had an impact upon the handling of some raw and processed items; this was especially significant where there might be contact with the blood and organs of animals, but also extended to other inorganic materials

Figure I.1  Map of the main towns and cities of the Middle East and Central Asia. Created by Seyedhamed Yeganehfarzand.

6  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s that were considered to be ritually ‘unclean’ by a given confessional community (discussed further in the final section of this chapter). The manufacturing processes of many of the key Islamic crafts are well documented in primary written sources dating from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries, and the observations gathered in the book cover a range of periods and regions. The sources also reflect upon the types of craft activities practised in urban and rural areas, with the latter encompassing both sedentary and nomadic groups. Some areas of manufacturing were the preserve of a specific religious group. The textual sources allow the researcher access to decisions made by craftsmen and craftswomen at the different phases of making objects or buildings. Ethnographic research has shown that some decisions are simply personal preferences, though these again might be further reinforced by generations of habitual use.13 There are insights into regionally or culturally specific aspects of manufacturing and the ways that technologies adapt and transform over time. Additionally, one can apprehend some of the ethical considerations that impinged upon craft activities, particularly with reference to the use of ‘unclean’ or forbidden materials and the proper performance of the obligations of a contract with a client. The crafts were also subject to external scrutiny and administration. Thus, the crafts came under the purview of Islamic law. As with all other aspects of Islamic legal practice, the foundations for the regulation of the crafts were based on the ḥadīth (the recorded saying and actions of the Prophet Muhammad and of his companions). While the ḥadīth dealing with manufacturing and materials are not plentiful, there are guidelines that evolved from them that had an enduring impact upon the most pertinent dimension of juridical writing, ḥisba (market law).14 The market inspector’s (muḥtasib) role was to uphold morality within the public areas, particularly the market place and manufacturing zones of the city. Numerous treatises on market law were written throughout the medieval period and these are rich, if rather problematic, sources of information on the crafts (see below). What these texts provide is a kind of ‘ideal’ system as it was envisaged by Islamic jurists, as well as indicating the principal areas of ethical and legal concern. This balance between ideal practice and reality is also at play in other legal writing, including the discussion of the contracts that might be drawn up between artisan and client or within workshops where two or more skilled workers decided to pool their capital and tools. Such collaborations must have been fraught with potential difficulties, as business agreements can be today. In this context the seemingly theoretical character of Islamic contractual law takes on a more tangible value. Finally, written sources allow one to understand some of the ways in which artisans sought to organise themselves and how they could be organised by others. The importance of familial and confessional connections has been alluded to above, and there is little doubt that specialised crafts would have possessed a rather clannish character in many urban environments; it was simply impossible to enter some crafts unless one came from a designated socio-­cultural group. Other crafts might be considered as undesirable for religious reasons; for example, in rural areas, low status crafts (such as blacksmithing and tinning) were often practised by specific tribes or by itinerant Christians, Jews or gypsies. There were different ways in which such low status could be expressed in everyday life: pay, marriage restrictions (i.e. men or women from these groups could not marry into tribes with higher social standing) and exclusion from the legal process (they were unable to provide testimony in a criminal case). The most visible form of organisation was the guild (see Chapter 2). The guilds were established to represent all forms of skilled labour in towns and cities of the Islamic world. They were in existence by the eleventh century, though their early history is still the subject of considerable debate.15 For present purposes, the importance of the guilds is that they repre-

introduction 

7

sented the means by which the artisans engaged in a particular craft protected their interests. They possessed their own internal governance and established regulations for their members, particularly in the elevation of status from apprentice to journeyman and, ultimately, master. The guilds also provided a point of contact between potential clients and craftsmen, as well as mediating the relations with the state officials (such as the qāḍī and muḥtasib). In most cases, the heads (shaykhs) of individual guilds were answerable to the chief of all the guilds. In many respects, these structures are similar to those of the guilds of European cities, but the Islamic ones are distinguished by two main factors. First is their spiritual dimension, sharing many features with Sufi institutions, such as the dervish lodges. The guilds had their own secret rituals, which are known only through a few textual sources. Second, the guilds of the Islamic world had a civic role as one of the mechanisms of administration within towns and cities (scholars have often noted that the traditional ‘Islamic city’ lacks many of the civil offices that were standard features of classical towns and of urban centres in medieval Europe).16 The importance of the guilds in the formation of Islamic urban life should not be minimised; indeed, it has been the subject of many books and articles. These studies have tended to focus on the history, evolution and ritual practices of these corporations of craftsmen and on their role as quasi-­governmental structures in towns and cities. Curiously absent, however, is a full consideration of what the guilds can tell us about the practice of the crafts themselves. Questions that might be asked in this respect include the following: to what extent did the guilds regulate the actual manufacturing practices in individual workshops?; what sorts of skills did artisans have to demonstrate in order to rise in rank within the guild?; did the guilds have a role in maintaining the supplies of vital raw materials needed by their members?; how did the guilds establish the boundaries of their competence? It is possible that many of the regulations that applied to actual craft practice were transmitted orally. The guild-­related texts contained within this book concentrate upon the practical dimension.17 The organisation of skilled labour can also be appreciated from other perspectives. The smallest units were the workshops. One commonly encounters the division of tasks and responsibilities between the master and his journeymen and apprentices. The first of these orchestrated the tasks of the other two groups and also took on the most skilled jobs. Examples include the programming of the warp threads for a complex woven textile, establishing the outlines of inlaid or chased decoration on metal vessels and the stacking of a kiln prior to the firing of a consignment of pottery. Profits accruing from craft activities were not, of course, shared equally among all the workers, and the most skilled received a proportionately higher reward. It is worth noting in this context that the owners of workshops might not actually be practising craftsmen. They would, however, take a substantial portion of the revenue. The physical spaces in which workshops operated could also form part of the charitable bequests (singular: waqf or waqfiyya) of religious institutions. The rent paid by the workshop would form part of the income of the institution.18 At the other end of the spectrum was the organisation of skilled and unskilled labour for the state. Islamic rulers had the ability to command extensive resources of workers for large-­ scale projects, such as civil engineering, mining, fortifications and monumental architecture. Unskilled labour could be raised through corvée (work given in lieu of taxation), the employment of the professional army in times of peace or the use of slaves and prisoners-­of-­war. In these cases, the primary costs were those of housing and feeding the workers at the site (soldiers received a salary in any case). Skilled workers would have to be paid according to their level of expertise. For particularly large projects they might be transplanted – willingly or unwillingly – from other regions. These sorts of projects are well documented in primary sources dating from the eighth century to recent times. Royal courts might also support

8  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s full-­time workshops of the most skilled craftsmen, particularly those adept at working with luxury materials and the arts of the book. To some extent, this represented the most privileged domain of craftsmanship, but the relative comfort of their lives was offset by a lack of personal freedom. Courts sometimes commissioned work from the open market. Rulers and their entourages usually expected preferential treatment over other private clients. They could also be tardy in paying their bills, however, and might even reimburse workshops in materials rather than money.19 definitions, terminology and sources

In this book, those who practised the different modes of manufacturing are generally referred to using the gender-­neutral ‘artisan’; where the gender is known, ‘craftsman’ and ‘­ craftswomen’ are utilised (where appropriate, specific terms, such as potter, tinsmith, painter, dyer and tanner are also used). The separation of the world of material culture (i.e. those portable objects and monumental items made by human hand) into the two categories of ‘art’ and ‘craft’ must be regarded as a theoretical construct, and one that does not have universal applicability. Most cultures established means of making qualitative distinctions (on aesthetic grounds or according to other factors, such as the perceived rarity of the materials or the time taken over the manufacture and ornamentation) within the totality of material culture. According to a modern viewpoint, ‘art’ is something that transcends, or even rejects, pure functionality. The viewer is presented with meanings that are extrinsic to the object and is encouraged to have an emotional engagement with the visual properties of the piece. By contrast, ‘craft’ is usually defined by its continued allegiance to the notion of utility. An object may succeed in being beautiful, but it must have been designed primarily to perform a function (as a jug, a saddle, a piece of furniture and so on). Therefore, the viewer approaches a piece of craft with fewer expectations that it will provoke an emotional impact or communicate specific iconographic concerns. Traditional modes of manufacturing encourage the repetition of learned decorative motifs over large numbers of objects. This repetition is often viewed as diluting the art-­historical significance of these patterns, however appealing they might be in purely visual terms. The division of material culture into the categories of ‘art’ and ‘craft’ is not universally applicable, however. For example, museums and private collections devoted to ‘Islamic art’ are filled with beautifully fashioned and ornamented objects designed to perform practical purposes. The ornamented surface is often made up of repeated and interlocking motifs ­(representational and abstract) that do not allow for straightforward iconographic ­interpretation. Another challenge exists in the terminology employed in Middle Eastern languages to describe visual and material culture. For example, Arabic possesses the term fann (pl. funūn),20 which can be broadly translated as ‘art’, but it is more common in texts written before the modern period to come across words such as ṣināʿa and ḥirfa (both meaning ‘craft’).21 The semantic range of these terms is considerable and extends beyond the idea of manual production implied in the English word, craft, to mean any sort of specialised activity from which a person can earn a living (or some part of a living). The great theorist of Islamic society Ibn Khaldun (d. 1405) includes midwifery among his list of essential crafts required in a complex city (see Chapter 1).22 Writers in the Islamic world did not tend to make qualitative distinctions between ‘art’ and ‘craft’. By the same token, one does not come across references to ‘artists’, with all practitioners usually being described according to their particular specialism (potter, basket maker,

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bookbinder, painter and so on). The only exceptions to this general pattern are the scribes responsible for the writing of the Qurʾan and, in the Persian-­speaking domains from the ­sixteenth century onward, the painters responsible for illustrating manuscripts.23 We can tell that these scribes and painters were starting to be appreciated in a different way by the appearance of biographies. These are usually fairly terse, but the mere existence of such accounts is significant, given the scarcity of information about the lives of most artisans working before the late nineteenth century. Second, it is apparent that connoisseurs were collecting the works of the finest painters and scribes, both during their lifetimes and in later decades and centuries (see Chapters 4, 23 and 24). We can offer a broad generalisation about the low status accorded by the writers of the Islamic world to those men and women engaged in the production of visual and material culture (see Chapters 1, 4 and 5). Looking to other periods of history and to other cultures, it is apparent that this viewpoint is not particularly unusual. For example, the Greek scholar Plutarch (d. 120 ce) makes the memorable observation: ‘[N]o well-­born youth, having seen the Zeus at Olympia, would wish to be Phidias’. Plutarch is referring to one of the most magnificent and famous statues of antiquity, but it is clear that he regards the proper subject of admiration to be the chryselephantine image of Zeus and not the sculptor, Phidias (d. c. 430 bce), responsible for creating it.24 While it is often difficult to the move to the level of the individual, it is possible to examine other aspects of identity within the groups engaged in specialised manufacturing. This sort of identity can be defined in confessional terms, in that there are numerous examples of crafts that were the preserve of one religious community within a given city or region. The reasons these confessional divisions occurred within the crafts are not always easy to fathom. In some cases, the preference for a particular craft was a matter of status. For example, early Islamic sources sometimes express the view that weavers were untrustworthy, and this prejudice seems to have coloured later legal writings regarding the craft. Blacksmithing was also commonly regarded as a demeaning way of earning a living and only fit for the less privileged groups in Islamic society. In this respect, it is notable that in rural areas it was often gypsies who worked as the itinerant blacksmiths. Furthermore, there were some crafts that were regarded as ‘unclean’ (for example, due to the need to handle ritually impure substances, such as blood or bodily organs) by a given religious community and shunned for that reason.25 The sense of shared identity within groups of skilled artisans was probably strong, with the institution of the guild helping to cement the bonds between them. The other major issue of identity that should be addressed is that of gender. We possess much less information about the activities of women engaged in crafts than about men. This disparity in the source material is not because women were not substantially involved in the manufacture of objects. Rather, it is to be explained in the context of craft production. In urban life (and almost all of our pre-­modern sources concern themselves with towns and cities, rather than the crafts operating in villages) craftsmen were simply more visible than their female counterparts. Men were organised in commercial workshops in the markets or in extra-­mural industrial zones. It would have been unusual for a woman to work in such environments. Women tended to be involved in commercial activities that could be carried out within the home: dyeing, weaving and carpet manufacture are among those recorded in writings of the medieval period. A further divide can also be suggested between commercial and non-­commercial manufacture. This area of inquiry has been greatly aided by the growth of ethnographic research, because it illuminates aspects of domestic life – both in urban and rural contexts – that are

10  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s poorly documented prior to the late nineteenth century. Non-­commercial craft activities are those that are undertaken by men, women and children to account for their personal needs. Basketry, textiles, unglazed ceramics and even leather can be produced using relatively simple tools and chemical agents. While it is the case that men were engaged in some non-­commercial crafts, this is an aspect of production that is dominated by women. Studies of handmade pottery manufacture in late twentieth-­century rural Jordan indicate that technical skills and the vocabulary of decorative motifs are passed from mother to daughter. The collection of clay was a communal activity among the village women and was done on an annual basis. Observations from North Africa in the 1960s show the same basic modes of manufacture and transmission of information. This, too, was a largely non-­commercial craft, though an exception existed for widows who lacked the financial security of an extended family. These women would make some pots for sale in the local markets.26 The example of non-­commercial (and partially commercial) modes of manufacture also highlights a fundamental challenge in the interpretation of much of the primary source material collected in this book. Quite simply, the descriptions of the crafts made prior to the nineteenth century were written principally by a privileged class of literate men. This is not to suggest that their observations are invalidated by virtue of their socio-­cultural status, but rather to acknowledge that they bring to their descriptions certain biases. Literacy rates were low among the populations of all societies prior to the modern age, and in the Islamic world we rely largely upon the records provided by members of the political elite and religious scholars. These men were not centrally concerned with the crafts, and few of them would have possessed practical knowledge about how objects were made. Although some examples have been included in the following chapters, it is relatively rare to encounter technical manuals or other texts produced by artisans themselves. Travellers to the Islamic Middle East and Central Asia prior to the nineteenth century also came from a limited spectrum of society. Merchants, diplomats, mercenaries, pilgrims and priests make up the bulk of the list. The situation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is somewhat different, both in terms of the range of men and women writing about the crafts, but also in terms of the genres represented. Most significant in this respect is the notion that human activities of all sorts, past and present, should be subject to ‘scientific’ observation. It is this change of approach that leads to the evolution of the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology and ethnography. While all three aspired to the goal of objectively reporting evidence, the historical study of these disciplines reveals the enduring presence of biases, both in the initial formation of research projects and in the presentation of data in published reports.27 This issue has been discussed elsewhere, but some of the key points can be summarised here. There is a tendency in much of the research conducted in the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries to search for parallels between contemporary craft practices and those of more ancient periods. While it is true that crafts, and particularly those in rural environments, can be inherently conservative, this dominant emphasis on long-­term continuity often lacked an evidential basis. In other words, researchers chose to collapse long time periods, ignoring contrary evidence in the archaeological record and failing to account for the social and cultural circumstances informing craft production in specific contexts. These methodological lapses contributed to the idea of a cultural and technological stagnation that supposedly occurred during the Islamic period and fits into a larger discourse of Orientalism.28 These are generalisations, of course, and it should be emphasised that not all European and North American research of this period was affected by such prejudices. A wide range of literary genres is included in this book. The sources also cover all periods

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from the inception of Islam in the seventh century to the early years of the twenty-­first century. Material from recent times has been included in order to emphasise that manual crafts continue to be a significant part of contemporary Islamic societies. The recording of the working practices of craftsmen and craftswomen remains an essential academic task, as many activities are threatened with extinction, because of changing tastes and competition with mass-­produced material culture. The techniques of modern ethnographic observation have been mentioned above, but more discussion is needed about the other genres represented in the following chapters. First, there are texts that can be defined as religious in character. The Qurʾan is the fundamental text for Islam and is held by Muslims to be a divinely revealed message transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad in a series of revelations. It is not a work that dwells extensively upon material and visual culture, however, and few passages are relevant to the understanding of the Islamic crafts. As with many aspects of social and economic life, it is the ḥadīth (the recorded sayings and actions of the Prophet and his companions) that form the ethical and legal foundations of Islamic attitudes to the crafts. Some examples of ḥadīth dealing with the crafts are included in the book, but more attention is given to the legal tradition that emerges from the interpretation of these exemplary anecdotes. The most important Islamic legal texts for the study of the crafts are the manuals of ḥisba (market law), mainly composed between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries. Ḥisba manuals provide a valuable insight into the regulation of manufacturing and commerce in Islamic urban society, but cannot be understood simply as documentary evidence on the practices of craftspeople and merchants. The authors of ḥisba texts are particularly concerned with the identification of fraudulent practices (such as the use of cheaper materials) and specialised activities involving the employment of ritually unclean substances. Ḥisba manuals are a fine demonstration that the distinctions between the religious and the secular domains are not always clear-­cut. Thus, Arabic, Persian and Hebrew ‘secular’ texts included in this book remain informed by religious principles to a greater or lesser extent. Documentary sources are the most significant for the reconstruction of craft activities and for the ways in which artisans were organised within Islamic urban society. These include tax records, contracts, accounts of legal disputes, official descriptions of work undertaken on architectural projects or by court workshops, ‘signatures’ on objects and buildings and the technical manuals produced by craftsmen (sadly, few of the last category survive before the twentieth century). Crafts are also described in writing of a more academic character, including chronicles, geographical encyclopaedias and topographical histories. The information contained within these sorts of texts is often rather brief, though the collation of information contained within topographic works has yielded important results.29 These sorts of texts also exist at one remove from the crafts themselves. Even further removed from the everyday activities of artisans are the genres of adab (belles-­lettres), poetry and philosophy. Special mention should be made of two works – one in Arabic and the other in Persian – that focus their attention on the craft activities in specific cities. The first is entitled Qāmūs al-­ ṣināʿāt al-­shāmiyya (‘Dictionary of the Damascene Crafts’) and was composed between about 1890 and 1908 by three scholars in the Syrian capital, Muhammad Saʿid al-­Qasimi, Jamal al-­Din Qasimi and Khalil al-­ʿAzm. The second is the Jughrāfiyā-­yi Isfahān (‘Geography of Isfahan’) by Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar, completed in 1891. Several passages from these works are included in this anthology. Both works are unusual for the emphasis they place on the crafts of the respective cities, focusing both on the actual activities of the artisans and their economic situation at the time of writing. These approaches are not a common feature of

12  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s earlier Arabic topographic histories and geographical works. Perhaps the closest links can be made with the economic geographies of the Middle East being produced by European scholars during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.30 The Qāmūs al-­ṣināʿāt al-­shāmiyya is particularly detailed, including more than 400 chapters, each devoted to a specific craft. These are, again, the reflections of scholars upon the world of manual labour, but the value of works of this nature lies in their attempt to encompass the totality of crafts operating in a single location in one historical phase. The scope of this enterprise compares favourably to seminal ethnographic studies, such as Hans Wulff’s The Traditional Crafts of Persia (1966). Considerable use has been made here of accounts by European and North American travellers. The selection is not necessarily representative of the entire spectrum of travel writing on the Middle East and Central Asia, though examples from many periods have been included. The main emphasis is on the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as this period produced many scholarly and insightful accounts of the socio-­economic life of urban and rural communities across the Middle East and Central Asia. The human dimension of the Islamic world is much in evidence in these texts, and there are interesting descriptions of quotidian aspects of the lives of villagers and townsfolk. This was a period when travel to Islamic regions became more widespread and open to a rather larger section of society. As a result, one encounters a wider range of perspectives, including a larger number of texts written by female travellers. Travel texts written by army officers are particularly useful for their technical understanding of issues such as mining and the extraction of metal from ores (see Chapter 9). The primary sources presented in the remainder of the book are organised into thematic chapters. The introductory comments provide some explanation of the readings chosen in the given chapter. Also included are some broader observations about the craft or other theme drawn from archaeological, art-­historical and ethnographic research. Issues considered in these introductions include: the availability of resources; the principal technical innovations in the crafts; the evolution of the crafts; the existence of spatially or temporally defined styles and modes of manufacture; and the socio-­cultural and economic factors affecting the crafts. The citations are intended as a starting point for a more detailed examination of any one of the themes covered in this book. The first part (Chapter 1) provides the foundations for the evaluation of the manual crafts. These chapters deal with the theoretical, ethical and legal background of craft activities in Islamic society. The collected sources introduce some of the ways in which crafts intersected with the religious, legal and commercial dimensions of the pre-­modern Islamic world. While the selected passages are taken from works composed in the Middle East or Central Asia, most are also relevant to other Islamic regions. These texts were penned by the literate elite. Their interest was to look at the crafts as one component (and not necessarily a particularly important one) within a complex system governed under the religion of Islam. Notably, the conceptualisation of urban society also drew upon the writings of ancient Greek scholars. This adoption of Greek learning was part of a larger process that lasted from the eighth to about the eleventh century and is commonly known as the ‘Translation Movement’.31 The second part (Chapters 2–5) considers the human dimensions of the Islamic crafts of the Middle East and Central Asia. The first chapter is concerned with the ways in which labour (unskilled and skilled) was organised. At one level this can consist of the amassing of artisans and labourers for state-­sponsored projects. Smaller commissions might also require the assembling of teams of workers. The other crucial issue addressed in this chapter is the creation of bodies that would represent the interests of artisans themselves, especially in urban contexts. Commonly known as guilds, these confraternities were an important aspect of city

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life. Chapter 3 considers the role of ritual within the guilds and within other parts of the lives and activities of craftsmen and women. Also included here are poetic representations of the crafts. The remainder of this part of the book looks at evidence of the personal identities of artisans in Islamic society. Chapter 4 draws together biographical information about individuals engaged in different craft specialisms. This ranges from the signatures added to portable objects to short sketches of the careers of notable artisans (biographical information also appears in other readings in later chapters). The final chapter (Chapter 5) of this part comprises primary sources that deal with aspects of everyday life for individuals and groups of artisans in urban and rural contexts. The third part (Chapters 6–10) of the book looks at the questions of resources and centres of specialism. The first four chapters (6–9) surveys the raw materials that were required by artisans working in the manual crafts. The first of these considers the acquisition of mineral resources and the ways in which the collection and distribution of these commodities was regulated by the state. Mineral resources often had to be mined, and this required considerable expenditure (for materials, manpower, fuel and the creation of a transport infrastructure). The techniques involved in mining and the smelting of metal ores are the subject of Chapter 9 ­(metalworking techniques are discussed in Part 4). The next chapter (Chapter 7) brings together primary sources about the plant materials used by craftsmen. Particularly important in this respect are wood and fibrous plant materials (used for the creation of objects like mats and textiles), though plants might also be employed for dyeing (see Chapter 19). The last group of raw materials are those gathered from animals. Chapter 8 considers some of the animals that provided skin for leather and parchment and fur/wool for the production of felt and woven or knotted fabrics. Also included here is the harvesting of silk (on this activity, see also Chapters 19 and 20). The last chapter in this part is devoted to descriptions of towns and cities across the Middle East and Central Asia. The passages are chosen to illustrate the ways in which localities came to be specialised in specific crafts. The fourth part of the book is devoted to the crafts making use of inorganic materials: metals, ceramic and glass (on stone, see Chapter 6). The discussion of metalworking is split into three chapters (11–13). The first of these deals with the manufacture of objects in copper and copper alloy. This includes the methods of casting and beating, as well as techniques of surface ornamentation, such as chasing and inlay. Chapter 12 is concerned with the use of iron and steel. These materials were employed for a wide variety of mundane tools, but were also important in the manufacture of weaponry (swords, knives, axes, spears, handheld firearms and cannons). Steel was the favoured material for weapons, and the surface of blades was often ornamented through the process of watering. Chapter 13 is concerned with other types of metal – most importantly, gold, silver, tin and zinc – used by Islamic artisans. This chapter includes readings devoted to a variety of objects, ranging from coinage to jewellery. The following chapter (Chapter 14) comprises primary sources relating to the fashioning of vessels from clay. The chapter is arranged according to relative technical complexity and starts with the manufacture of handmade pottery in the countryside and concludes with the methods used in the manufacture of glazes for stonepaste wares. The chapter also addresses the techniques involved in the manufacture of objects such as drainpipes and the heads of tobacco pipes (the chibouk). Glassworking is the subject of Chapter 15. The fifth part of the book contains Chapters 16–21, which are concerned with the working of organic materials. Chapter 16 looks at the different ways in which wood was fashioned by carpenters and other types of woodworker. There are readings that discuss the technique of spinning, as well as the ornamentation of wood using inlaid metal and mother-­of-­pearl. The

14  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s following chapter (Chapter 17) also looks at the production of mats, baskets and other portable objects using reeds, river grasses and wicker (on the use of reeds in architecture, see Chapter 25). Leather and related materials are the subject of Chapter 18. The readings look at the processes involved in the production of leather (flaying and tanning) and then move on to consider the types of artefact made from processed skins. The next three chapters (19–21) assemble readings that deal with aspects of the production of textiles. Woven textiles, knotted carpets and felt are all manufactured in both urban and rural contexts, and the selected readings encompass the activities of sedentary and nomadic peoples in the countryside, as well as the practices of urban workshops. The first of these chapters looks at the spinning of thread and the techniques of bleaching and dyeing. The second chapter concentrates on the weaving of plant and animal fibres into different types of fabric. The third chapter looks at the production of flat-­weave rugs, knotted carpets and felts. The sixth part (Chapters 22–4) gathers primary sources relating to paper and other writing surfaces, as well as the arts of calligraphy and painting. The first chapter looks at the techniques involved in the production of papyrus and paper in various regions of the Islamic world. The latter became the pre-­eminent writing material in Islamic culture, and numerous centres of specialism developed from the mid-­eighth century onward. Chapter 23 considers the art of the written word, including discussions of the cutting of reed pens and the mixing of inks to the different modes of calligraphy adopted by Muslims and non-­Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia. The chapter also addresses the textual representations of the most influential scribes of Islamic history. The final chapter of this part looks at painting within Islamic society. This encompasses both the arts of the book and monumental forms of painting on architecture. The sources range from the condemnatory (such as the ḥadīth and legal texts) to those that celebrate the achievements of great painters, past and present. Also included are appreciations of Islamic painting by European observers (often somewhat negative) and an account of the practice of house decoration in rural Egypt in the late twentieth century. The seventh part (Chapters 25–7) assembles primary sources dealing with the building crafts and with engineering. Chapter 25 looks at the different ways in which houses, mosques and other forms of architecture were constructed. The chapter starts with the simplest forms of construction (reeds and mud brick) and then considers greater levels of complexity. The following chapter (Chapter 26) is devoted to vaulting and the ornamentation of architecture with materials such as stucco and tiles. The addition of painted decoration is mentioned here, but is also included in the chapter on painting (see Chapter 24). The third chapter in this part looks at aspects of engineering, ranging from the manufacture of the animated figures of a water clock (clepsydra) to the sealing of a breach in a levee. The eighth part of the book comprises two chapters (28–9). The first considers the evidence for recycling and repair in the craft sectors of the urban centres of the Islamic world from medieval to modern times. The second looks at the changing position of the Islamic manual crafts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These centuries presented significant challenges to the artisans engaged in traditional modes of manufacturing, and many crafts disappeared during this period. One of the main causes was competition with cheaper industrially produced goods from Europe and North America, but craftsmen and women also had to adapt themselves to changing tastes among their clientele in the villages, towns and cities of the Middle East and Central Asia. Lastly, the coverage of themes and materials in this book is dictated by the characteristics of the available literature. For example, the practices of carving – ivory, marble, rock crystal, wood and so on – are not well represented in the following chapters (although see the writings of Nasir-­i Khusraw and al-­Biruni in Chapter 6). This is not because these were unimportant

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activities in the Islamic world, but because I was unable to locate primary sources that gave substantial detail about them. The methods and media involved in building are also somewhat patchy, though interested readers are encouraged to consult the more plentiful material on this topic that exists in writings produced in Ottoman-­period Turkey.32 In a few cases it has been necessary to include a text beyond the boundaries of the Middle East and Central Asia (for example, ones dealing with the production of paper), to address an obvious technological gap in a chapter. In order to draw sources from the widest range, limitations have been placed on the number of passages drawn from a single publication. This meant omitting numerous interesting observations from particular sources. Those interested in pursuing further study of specific Islamic crafts should consult the primary and secondary sources employed in the remaining chapters anthology. There is much more in these sources than can be included in the remaining chapters. notes   1 Arabic inscription on a copper alloy plate, c. 1900, Egypt or North Africa. Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawai’i: 54:78. Translation and transcription by Wheeler Thackston. For more on the inscribed objects in this collection, see Thackston, ‘Shangri La’.   2 Pilgrimage of Simone Sigoli (fl. late fourteenth century). In Bellorini and Hoade (trans.), Visit to the Holy Places, pp. 182–3.   3 On these objects, see Berti and Tongiorgi, I bacini ceramici medievali; Abulafia, ‘The Pisan Bacini and the Mediaeval Mediterranean’. For a general discussion of the archaeology of Mediterranean trade in the medieval period, see Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology, pp. 164–8.   4 For example, see contributions in Richards (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia; Watson (ed.), The Westward Influence of the Chinese Arts. Also Carswell, Blue and White.   5 Ethnographic and scientific studies are cited in the notes to later chapters. For a discussion of approaches to inorganic materials, see Henderson, The Science and Archaeology of Materials.   6 Ruggles (ed.), Islamic Art and Visual Culture.   7 Similar anthologies of primary texts already exist for other fields of art-­historical study. The most pertinent to the study of Islamic visual and material culture is Mango (trans.), The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453.   8 Similar approaches have been taken in the study of the material culture of other periods. For example, see Strong and Brown (eds), Roman Crafts.   9 For example, see Henderson, The Science and Archaeology of Materials, pp. 83–90; Mason, Shine like the Sun; Bernsted, Early Islamic Pottery. 10 For examples, see the plates and captions illustrated in Anderson and Fawzi (eds), Egypt in 1800, pp. 155–73, pls. 135–53. 11 References to these specialised studies can be found in the footnotes to the following chapters. 12 Primary accounts (European and Islamic) of the manufacture of porcelain are collected in Carswell and Mudge, Blue and White, pp. 13–26. For a translation of al-­Jahiz, see Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam, p. 44. Also Milwright, ‘Rum, Sin and the Idea of the “Portrait”’. 13 For a general discussion of the anthropology of manufacturing practices, see Lemonnier, Elements for an Anthropology of Technology. 14 The best introduction to the genre of ḥisba is Ghabin, Ḥisba, Art and Craft in Islam. See also comments in the Glossary. 15 The literature on Islamic guilds is extensive. A good introduction to this topic with a useful bibliography can be found in Raymond et al., ‘Ṣinf’; also, Raymond, ‘Guilds’. 16 Stern, ‘The Constitution of the Islamic City’. 17 On the issues of governance and ritual, see Lewis, ‘Islamic Guilds’; Baer, Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times; Ibish, ‘Economic Institutions’.

16  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s 18 19 20 21 22 23

For a general introduction, see Peters, ‘Waḳf’. For example, see Atasoy and Raby, Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, pp. 63–4. On this term, see Mestyan, ‘Arabic Lexicography and European Aesthetics’. For an excellent discussion of writing about crafts in Islamic culture, see Ghabin, ‘Ṣināʿa’, pp. 625–9. Rosenthal (trans.), The Muqaddimah, II, pp. 309–16. For example, see the biographical data about scribes and illuminators collected in James, Qurʾāns of the Mamlūks, passim. On later Persian painters, see Thackston (trans. and ed.), Album Prefaces and other Documents; Welch, Artists for the Shah; Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image. 24 Vickers and Gill, Artful Crafts: Ancient Greek Silverware and Pottery, p. 95. For the authors’ discussion of the social status of potters and metalworkers in ancient Greece, see pp. 93–101. 25 See comments in Serjeant, The Islamic City, pp. 130–1. 26 Balfet, ‘Ethnographic Observations in North Africa’. For a wide-­ranging discussion of this topic, see Johns, ‘The Rise of Middle Islamic Hand-­made Geometrically-­painted Ware’. 27 Silberman, Between and Present; Asad, ‘Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter’; Vernoit, ‘The Rise of Islamic Archaeology’; Hull, ‘Orientalism: Islamic Archaeology and its Colonial Context’. 28 The classic formulation of this idea is Edward Said’s, Orientalism. For critiques and commentaries, see contributions in Macfie (ed.), Orientalism, a Reader. For a detailed refutation of the content and approach of Said, see Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, pp. 277–309. 29 For example, Elisséeff, ‘Corporations de Damas’; Denoix, Décrire le Caire Fusṭāṭ-­Miṣr d’après Ibn Duqmāq et Maqrīzī. 30 For example, Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie; Syrie, Liban et Palestine. 31 See Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. Also Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam. 32 For example, Crane and Akın (trans.) and Necıpoğlu (ed.), Sinan’s Autobiographies: Five Sixteenth-­ century Texts.

PART 1

Foundations

CHAPTER 1

Theoretical formulations

Although manual craft can hardly be said to be a central concern for the scholars of the Islamic world, the subject does feature in a wide range of religious and legal writing from the eighth century onward. The activities of artisans are also briefly addressed in the Holy Qurʾan and in the ḥadīth (saying attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions). Some of these probably reflect attitudes toward crafts that prevailed in the Hijaz prior to the emergence of Islam, such as the low regard for weavers and blacksmiths.1 Painters and other makers of representational imagery are accorded particularly harsh treatment in the ḥadīth, but this seems to reflect specifically Islamic concerns about the role of two-­and three-­dimensional figural art in idolatry (shirk, meaning the association of gods with the true God, Allah). The ḥadīth provided scholars with the authority of the Prophet when they wrote in condemnation of the creation and use of figural art, but this did not actually stop many Muslims from commissioning paintings and portable objects with representations of people and animals (i.e. those things possessing a spirit, or rūḥ). The same collections of traditions also contain warnings against eating or drinking from vessels made of gold and the wearing of silk by men, but both practices seem to have been prevalent throughout Islamic history (for those wealthy enough to do so).2 Thus, we should not employ legalistic and other theoretically oriented writing as an accurate guide to what actually occurred within workshops or the marketplaces across the pre-­modern Islamic world. The authors of the texts reviewed below generally possessed very little knowledge about the techniques of artisans in specific crafts. The one exception to this pattern is the genre dealing with ḥisba, or market law; these manuals were directly concerned with the acceptable practices among merchants and artisans. The technical expertise of the market inspector (muḥtasib) was relatively limited, and he appointed specialist overseers (ʿarīfs) for each of the craft guilds.3 The manuals are concerned with those issues that touch on Islamic law (such as the use of blood or the organs of animals), but do not mention many other technical matters associated with the manufacture of items. Where these texts are more interesting is in the clues they give about how members of the literate elite thought about crafts and the sources they relied on in the formulation of those opinions. The influence of the classical world can be seen in the theoretical discussion of the urban environment and the role of manufacturing (see below). This is part of a larger phenomenon in which the intellectual achievements of the ancient Greek world were integrated into Islamic culture between the late eighth and the eleventh centuries.4 The first reading consists of two short passages from the Qurʾan. This fundamental work of Islam actually has little to say about crafts (although manufactured items, such as fine

20  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s textiles, metalwork and rock crystal, do occur periodically throughout the text).5 The first of the two passages chosen here reflect on the nature of Allah as a ‘bestower of forms’. This is significant because it establishes the primary role of God as maker of physical things, both animate and inanimate. Thus, artisans had to be mindful not to be seen to be competing with God when making objects. Notably, it is in the ḥadīth that one encounters the notion that the artist/craftsperson who makes a representation of an animate being will be asked to breathe life into it on the Day of Resurrection (yawm al-­qiyāma; on these passages, see Chapter 24). The second passage appears at first to contradict this position, in that it records Jesus (ʿIsa b. Maryam) breathing life into a clay figurine of a bird. The point being made, however, is that this act is allowed to happen only through divine sanction. The second reading is a selection of passages from the greatest sociological work of medieval Islam, al-­Muqaddima (the prolegomenon), written by the North African polymath Ibn Khaldun (d. 1405). The author is particularly concerned with the relationship between the creation of complex urban society and the proliferation of specialised crafts. It is only when a society is fully developed that one can expect to see the full range of crafts within the urban environment. His understanding of ‘craft’ (ṣināʿa) encompasses a range of activities that extends beyond manufacturing to encompass teachers of performing arts, those involved in food preparation and even midwifery.6 He is aware that the appropriation of craft expertise tends to become ingrained within a person, making it difficult to develop other areas of expertise. The same themes are apparent in reading three, an Arabic translation of a lost Greek work entitled Oikonomikos, attributed to the classical scholar known as Bryson. This work also considers the implications of craft specialisation, and sees this as a reason for the interrelationships that exist between skilled artisans in cities. The interreliance of artisans and their place within a stratified Muslim society is the theme of the passage drawn from the Kitāb al-­Kasb, a book on the ethical dimensions of the acquisition of wealth attributed to the influential jurist al-­Shaybani (d. 805). Reading five comes from the Epistles of the True Brethren, composed in Basra in the second half of the tenth and the early eleventh centuries. The eighth letter, or epistle (risāla), is concerned with the manual crafts. The chosen passage reflects on the role of teachers in the mastering of the technical aspects of crafts. Although it is not stated specifically, this tutoring would often take place within an apprenticeship system (on which, see Chapter 2). The sixth reading is a reflection on the different activities involved in the manufacture of a sword and was written by the Iraqi satirist al-­Jahiz (d. 869). Aside from its valuable references to specific techniques (for more on swordsmiths, see Chapter 12), his comments are important in highlighting the extent of collaboration that existed between artisans working in cities and larger towns. Like Ibn Khaldun, the Egyptian scholar al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442) is concerned with the stratification of Islamic society.7 Reading seven comes from his famous Treatise on Famines and is an attempt to articulate the main socio-­economic divisions in society. Particularly important in this respect is the low status accorded in his model to ‘the artisans and salaried persons who possess a skill’. They exist only one rung above the needy and beggars and considerably below the merchants (see above). A less considered hierarchy of activities, attributed to caliph al-­Walid I (r. 705–15), is presented in the eighth reading. The ninth reading presents a more positive view of craft as something bequeathed to Adam by Allah. This ḥadīth was of dubious veracity, however, and probably carried little weight in legal discourse. The last two readings (ten and eleven) are drawn from Islamic law. The first of these is written as a dialogue between Sahnun (d. 854) and Ibn al-­Qasim (d. 806), though it seems unlikely on chronological grounds that this can have actually taken place. Whatever the precise origin of

theoretical formulations 

21

these opinions, the passage is a good demonstration of the engagement that some scholars had with financial matters associated with the urban crafts. In the same text it is argued that equal partnership is also permissible between two craftsmen of different levels of skill. Ibn al-­Qasim notes, however, that some people will always be more skillful than others. Reading eleven is written by the important eastern Islamic jurist al-­Sarakhsi and concerns a type of contractual arrangement between client and manufacturer. In essence, the salam contract is one in which a price is paid in advance and the delivery of the merchandise is made at a later date. * * * § 1. 1. He is God, the Creator, the Evolver, the Bestower of forms (muṣawwir), to Him belong the most beautiful Names: Whatever is in the heavens and on earth, doth declare His praise and glory: and He is the exalted in might and wise. God creates what He will. When He decrees a thing He does but say to it ‘Be’, and it is. And He will teach him [Jesus] the Book, the Wisdom, the Torah, the Gospel, to be a messenger to the people of Israel saying, ‘I have come to you with a sign from your Lord. I will create for you out of clay the likeness of a bird; then I will breathe life into it, and it will be a bird, by the leave of God. I will also heal the blind and the leper, and bring life to the dead, by the leave of God’.8 § 1. 2. When civilization flourishes and the luxuries are in demand, it includes the refinement and development of the crafts. Consequently, [these crafts] are perfected with every finesse, and a number of other crafts, in addition to them, is added, as luxury customs and conditions demand. Among [such crafts] are those of the cobbler, the tanner, the silk weaver (ḥarrār), the goldsmith and others. When civilization is fully developed, these different kinds [of crafts] are perfected and refined to the limit. In the cities, they become ways of making a living for those who practice them. In fact, they become the most lucrative activities there are, because urban luxury demands them. Other such crafts are those of the perfumer, the coppersmith, the bath attendant, the cook, the biscuit maker, and the pastry baker (harīsa), the teacher of singing, dancing, and rhythmical drum beating. There are also the book producers who ply the craft of copying, binding, and correcting books. This [last mentioned] craft is demanded by the urban luxury of occupation with intellectual matters. There are other similar [crafts]. They become excessive when civilization develops excessively. Each particular kind of craft needs persons to be in charge of it and skilled in it. The more numerous the various subdivisions of the craft are, the larger the number of people who [have to] practice that craft. The particular group [practicing that craft] is colored by it. As the days follow one upon the other, and one professional coloring comes after another, the craftsmen become experienced in their various crafts and skilled in the knowledge of them. Long periods of time and the repetition of similar [experiences] add to establishing the crafts and causing them to be firmly rooted. This happens mostly in cities, because cities have a highly developed civilization and their inhabitants are very prosperous, . . .9 § 1. 3. Although the power to invent or to learn every craft has been made in man, no single individual can invent or learn [all] that, because of the brevity of his life: in order

22  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s to invent or learn one single craft he must neglect the inventing or learning of others. And even if he were capable of learning many of them, still he could not learn them all . . . And the crafts are also comprised in one another (muḍamman baʿḍuhā bi-­baʿḍ). Thus the builder needs the carpenter and the carpenter needs the craft of the smiths, and the craft of the smiths needs the miners, and that craft needs the builder. And even if every one of those crafts were perfect in itself, it would still need the others, just as the links of a chain need one another; if one craft falls away, the rest are rendered useless. Thus, since every individual, for the carrying out of his affairs, requires various kinds [of crafts] through which he is fed and clothed, he thereby requires all the crafts. And since no individual can master all the crafts, all the people came to need one another for providing their livelihood. For this reason, people need to found cities and to gather in them, so that they can assist one another with the crafts.10 § 1. 4. [Shaybani] said: ‘And God has decreed people’s livelihood through means (asbāb) regarding which there is confirmed knowledge’. This means that each individual is unable to learn all that he needs in his life, and if he occupied himself with that, his life would vanish before he [could] learn [it all]; and he is unable to produce for himself whatever he has not learned. The conditions in which people make their livelihood were connected to this (wa-­qad taʿallaqa bi-­hādhā maṣāliḥ al-­maʿisha lahum). And God has made it easy to learn a type of that (nawʿ min dhālika, i.e. a type of crafts?), so that he may attain what he needs of that type through his knowledge, and so that others may also attain what they need of that through his knowledge. The Prophet alluded to this in his saying: ‘The believers are like a building, each part of which fortifies the rest’. And proof of this is in God’s saying [Qurʾan 43:32]: ‘And we raised some of them over others by degrees’, etc. This means that the poor man needs the rich man’s wealth, while the rich man needs the poor man’s labor. And here too, the cultivator needs the weaver’s labor, so that he may get clothing for himself; and the weaver needs the cultivator’s labor in order to obtain food, and the cotton from which he gets clothing for himself. Each of them establishes [proximity to God] from labor which is intended for others [than himself], by virtue of its [being performed for the sake of] proximity and obedience [to God]. The ability to establish proximity to God is achieved through this . . . And it is the same whether or not this labor is performed in exchange for compensation specified for it (bi-­ʿiwaḍ shuriṭa ʿalayhi). If [the person’s] intention is as we have explained, then his labor contains within it the sense of obedience . . .11 § 1. 5. And know, O, brother, that every human craftsman requires a teacher (ustādh) from whom he learns his craft or his science, and that his teacher in turn requires a teacher before him, and so on until one is reached whose knowledge does not derive from any human being. And this can be in one of two ways – we can say, as do philosophers, that he invented it himself by the powers of his own soul, through, vision, and effort, or we can say, as to the prophets, that he inherited it from one who was not human.12 § 1. 6. Before a sword is put on by its wearer or wielded by its bearer, it has passed through many hands and various classes of craftsmen, none of whom can do another’s work or excel in it, and indeed would not claim or undertake to do so. For the man who smelts and refines the metal of a sword is other than the one who draws it out into shape; the latter is other than the one who forges it, smooths its broadside, and adjusts its blade;

theoretical formulations 

23

the latter again other than the one who quenches and sharpens it. Yet another man fits its pommel and rivets the tang in; the one who makes the studs for the tang, the pommel, and the blade is different from the one who carves the wood of the scabbard, and he from the one who tans the leather for it, and the latter from the one who decorates it; and the one who decorates it and fits its tip is different from the one who pierces the holes in its carrying-­straps.13 § 1. 7. Know – may God guard you with His sleepless eye and His fearsome might – that the population of Egypt is divided on the whole into seven categories. The first category embraces those who hold the reins of power. The second [is formed of] the rich merchants and the wealthy who lead a life of affluence. The third [encompasses] the retailers, who are merchants of average means, as are cloth merchants. This also includes the small shopkeepers. The fourth category embraces the peasants, those who cultivate and plow the land. These are the inhabitants of the villages and of the countryside. The fifth category is made up of those who receive a stipend (al-­fuqarāʾ) and includes most legists, students of theology, and most of the ajnād al-­ḥalqa and the like. The sixth category [corresponds to] the artisans and salaried persons who possess a skill. The seventh category [consists of] the needy and the paupers; and these are the beggars who live off the [charities of] others.14 § 1. 8. You should put the weaver and the shoemaker on one rank, the cupper and the veterinarian on another, the junk dealer and the money changer on another one, and yet another one the schoolteacher and the eunuch, and the slaver and Satan on the same rank.15 § 1. 9. God taught Adam, peace on him, one thousand crafts and said to him: ‘Tell your sons and descendants if they have no patience, they may seek this World by the crafts but never religion. Religion is purely for Me alone, woe unto him who seeks this World by religion, woe unto him’.16 § 1. 10. I said: In your opinion, is a partnership permissible between two blacksmiths, two fullers, two tailors, two cobblers, two saddlemakers, two bankers, or between any two people engaging in similar work? He said: Malik said that if their trade is the same, be they two blacksmiths, or two bakers, or two tailors, or two fullers, and they formed a partnership on the condition that they both work in the same stall, this is permissible. It is not permissible, however, that they form a partnership in which one works in this and the other in that stall, or this one village and his colleague in another village. Similarly, a partnership is not permissible between two people, one of whom is a blacksmith and the other a fuller; it is permissible only if both are blacksmiths, or both are fullers, and in the manner which I described to you. I said: What is your opinion of a work partnership between two fullers who were not in need of any capital, with one third of the work assigned to one partner and two thirds to the other, on the condition that the former be entitled to one third of the income while providing one third of the dye, and the other be entitled to two thirds of the income while providing two thirds of the dye? He said: There is nothing wrong with this arrangement: it is like a partnership in dirhams. For if two people formed a partnership on the basis of the work of their hands, their labour is to be considered in the same category as dirhams. Anything which is permissible in a partnership formed with dirhams is permissible in one

24  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s based on the work of their hands. I said: According to Malik, is the same applicable to a partnership formed by a group of fullers or a group of blacksmiths working in the same stall? He said: Yes.17 § 1. 11. If an artisan took another man into his stall with the intention of assigning all the work to the latter on a half profit basis, this arrangement is, by analogy, invalid. This is so, because the investment of the stall-­owner consists of intangible property, and intangible properties are not suitable for partnership investment. If it is the stall-­owner who accepts the work, the artisan is his hired man on a half profit basis. This last sum, however, is indefinite, and ignorance of the wage invalidates a hire contract, If, on the other hand, the artisan accepts the work, he becomes the lessee of the stall to the extent of one half of the proceeds of his work. This sum, again, is unknown, and the lease contract is, therefore, invalid. By exercising juristic preference (istiḥsān), he (referring to Shaybani) permitted this arrangement because of its continuous use in the affairs of men without any disapproving voice being raised against it. Objecting to transactions which are in common use among the people is itself a type of offense. In order to avoid this offense, this contract is permissible. For there is no explicit text (naṣṣ) nullifying it, and the people have need for this contract. For example, if an artisan arrives in a certain town, its inhabitants would not know him and would not entrust him with their merchandise. They would, however, entrust their merchandise to the stall-­owner, whom they do know. As a rule, the stall-­owner would not gratuitously provide the likes of this service to the artisan. The validation of this contract achieves the desired ends of all parties concerned. The artisan receives compensation for his labor; the people derive the benefits of his services; and the stall-­owner receives compensation for the use of his stall. The contract is permissible. The stall-­owner is entitled to a share of the profit because he has taken the artisan into his stall and given him some help with his merchandise. He may perhaps help in some aspect of the work, as for example, a tailor who accepts cloth, oversees its cutting, and then hands the material over for the completion of the tailoring to another artisan on the basis of half profit. For these reasons the stall-­owner is entitled to a share of the profit. The basis of the permissibility of this contract is like that underlying the permissibility of the salam contract; for in relation to this contract, the requirements of the law yielded in the face of the people’s need for it.18 notes  1 Serjeant, The Islamic City, pp. 126–47.   2 On precious metals, see Juynboll, ‘The Attitude towards Gold and Silver in Early Islam’, pp. 107–15.   3 On the practices of ḥisba, see Ghabin, Ḥisba, Art and Craft in Islam. For biographies of authors on ḥisba, and for more on the muḥtasib’s role in urban governance, see Essid, A Critique of the Origins of Islamic Economic Thought, pp. 123–72.   4 On the translation of Greek literature in the early Islamic world, see Gutas, Greek Thought, Arabic Culture. Also Rosenthal, The Classical Heritage in Islam.   5 On the issue of aniconism in Islamic art, see Dodd, ‘The Image of the Word’; Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art, revised edition, pp. 72–98.   6 Ibn Khaldun, Abu Zayd ibn ʿAbd al-­Rahman ibn Muhammad (d. 1405), al-­Muqaddima. Rosenthal (trans.), The Muqaddimah, II, pp. 309–16 (for more on his ideas about specific crafts, see II, pp. 346– 401).

theoretical formulations 

25

  7 On the status of the crafts, see also Rezq, ‘The Craftsmen of Muslim Egypt’; ‘Crafts and Industries in Mediaeval Egypt’; Abdul Jabbar Beg, ‘A Contribution to the Economic History of the Caliphate’.   8 Qurʾan 59.24; 3.43. The second passage comprises words spoken by God to Maryam (Mary). Qurʾanic passages according to the translation by Yusuf ʿAli.   9 Ibn Khaldun, al-­Muqaddima. Rosenthal (trans.), The Muqaddimah, II, pp. 347–8 (excerpt from ‘The Crafts are perfected only if there exists a large and perfect sedentary Civilization’); II, pp. 286–7 (excerpt from ‘Sedentary culture in cities comes from dynasties. It is firmly rooted when the dynasty is continuous and firmly rooted’); II, pp. 354–5 (excerpt from ‘The Person who has gained the Habit of a particular Craft is rarely able afterwards to master another’). 10 M. Plessner, Der Oikonomikos der Neupythagoreers ‘Bryson’ und sein Einfluss auf die islamische Wissenschaft (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1928). Translated in Bonner, ‘The Kitāb al-­Kasb attributed to al-­ Shaybānī’, p. 421. 11 Kitāb al-­kasb. Translated in Bonner, ‘The Kitāb al-­Kasb attributed to al-­Shaybānī’, p. 422. 12 From the eighth epistle of the first series of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-­Ṣafā. Translated in Lewis, ‘An Epistle on the Manual Crafts’, p. 151. 13 Al-­Jahiz, ʿAmr ibn Bahr (d. 869), Manāqib al-­Turk, pp. 71–2, in ʿA.-­S. M. Harun (ed.), Rasāʿil al-­Jāḥiẓ (Cairo, 1964), I, pp. 5–86. Translated in Hoyland and Gilmour, Medieval Islamic Swords and Swordmaking, pp. 6–7. 14 Al-­Maqrizi, Ahmad b. ʿAli (d. 1442), Ighāthat al-­umma bi-­kashf al-­ghumma. Translated in Allouche, Mamluk Economics, p. 73. Ajnād al-­ḥalqa refers to that part of the cavalry made up of free-­born men. 15 Attributed to Walid ibn ʿAbd al-­Malik, from a message sent to a governor. In al-­Raghib al-­Isfahani (d. 1108), Muḥāḍarāt al-­udabāʾ (Cairo 1287/1870), I, p. 284. Translated in Goldziher, ‘Die Handwerke bei den Arabern’, pp. 203–5. English translation by Goldbloom as ‘The Crafts among the Arabs’, p. 148. 16 Al-­Hubayshi, al-Wisabi, al-Baraka fī faḍl al-sa‘ī wa’l-ḥaraka (Cairo, 1886), p. 6. 17 Al-­Tanukhi, Sahnun ibn Saʿid ibn Habib (d. 854–5), Mudawwana, XII, pp. 62–5. Translated in Udovitch, ‘Labor Partnerships in Early Islamic Law’, p. 77. Repr. Morony (ed.), Manufacturing and Labor, p. 320. The other scholar referred to is Malik ibn Anas (d. 795), the founder of the Maliki school of law. 18 Al-­Sarakhsi, Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Abi Sahl Abu Bakr (d. c. 1096), Mabsūṭ, XI, p. 159. Translated in Udovitch, ‘Labor Partnerships in Early Islamic Law’, pp. 70–1. Repr. Morony (ed.), Manufacturing and Labor, pp. 313–14.

PART 2

Human Dimensions

CHAPTER 2

The organisation of labour

One of the most conspicuous features of the ‘traditional’ Islamic city is the market, usually known as the bazaar or souk (in Arabic, sūq). These areas were established for the sale of all manner of foodstuffs and manufactured items. Many artisans also occupied the markets, and it is striking that those engaged in a given specialised activity usually clustered in one sector. This sort of internal organisation according to specialisation has been preserved in some urban markets through to recent times, most famously in the souk of Aleppo. Some aspects of urban craft organisation were due to internal governance, and others were imposed by external authorities. Through these mechanisms, the consumer could expect to buy goods of a uniform standard and be confident that a contract drawn up with a producer would be honoured in full. The most visible form of craft organisation in the towns and cities of the Islamic world was the guild (in Arabic, usually ṭarīqa or ṭāʾifa). The early history of these associations of artisans is unclear, though they seem to have been operating in the tenth or eleventh centuries.1 The guilds seem to have had some similarities to dervish (Sufi) lodges. There was also common ground with the futuwwa orders that became popular among young men in many urban areas during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.2 Guilds tended to evolve their own internal rituals (including those for initiation into the guild) and would sometimes parade through the streets during annual festivals or to celebrate the marriages of members of the ruling elite (see Chapter 3). These parades are illustrated in Ottoman manuscripts.3 The guilds were organised under the authority of a senior master. In Damascus, he was known as the shaykh al-­mashāʾikh (other names were used elsewhere in the Middle East). This individual was not versed in any specific craft, but had the responsibility of confirming the appointments of the other guild masters (in Arabic, shaykh). He would also judge cases brought before him by the guilds and, prior to the nineteenth century, could even pass the death penalty for the most serious offences.4 Within each guild there was a hierarchy beneath the presiding shaykh. Those wishing to join the guild had to pass through a long apprenticeship in order to rise to the position of journeyman (ṣanīʿ). Wages for the journeyman were low, and only those who could demonstrate a high level of expertise could expect to be elevated to the position of master. Every sort of skilled labour was formed into a ṭarīqa, and even beggars and thieves might belong to what can be loosely termed as guilds. It was only in the twentieth century that the influence of the guilds started to break down, due the pressure of industrialisation and the growth of trade unions (see Chapter 29).

30  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s While many objects were bought ready made in the markets or direct from extra-­mural workshops, it was not uncommon for objects to be commissioned. Islamic jurists concerned themselves with the responsibilities of patron, producer and purveyor in cases where an initial contract was established (see Chapter 1). The rulers of Islamic polities possessed the financial means to commission the most ambitious artistic and architectural projects. These might be done by artisans employed within a court workshop or through commissions sent to private groups. Working for the sultan could be highly profitable, but it also carried distinct disadvantages. Documents connected with the famous potteries at Iznik in Turkey illustrate that the Ottoman court expected their commissions to take priority over other work. In addition, the court was often slow in paying, leaving the skilled potters in financial difficulty.5 There is also evidence for craftspeople being moved from their homes in order to work on state-­sponsored projects.6 Corvée labour might be demanded of peasants and others when large numbers of unskilled workers were required (slaves and prisoners-­of-­war were other potential sources of manpower). The first three readings deal with the organisation of unskilled and skilled labour for major building projects of the early Islamic period. The first appears in the History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria and concerns a palatial structure commissioned by an unnamed Umayyad patron (thought to be al-­Walid ibn Yazid, who ruled as caliph Walid II, 743–4). The site itself is unknown, but was evidently in an arid location, as the account illustrates the importance of having water supplies close to the site.7 Reading two recounts a more successful and ambitious project: the construction of Baghdad by the Abbasid caliph, ­al-­Mansur (r. 754–75). The famous round city (also known as Madinat al-­Salam, or ‘City of Peace’) was built between 762 and 766 (see Figure 2.1) and required a massive influx of skilled artisans from different regions of the empire. The third reading describes the planning of Samarra. The militarised character of caliph al-­Muʿtasim’s (r. 833–42) urban project is indicated by the fact that one of his first acts was to allocate plots of land to his Turkish generals. Like al-­Mansur before him, al-­Muʿtasim had to gather men and materials from across his regions for the building phase. The movement of luxury materials (such as marble and teak) to the site required an efficient transport infrastructure that made use of both land and water routes.8 Skilled workers were not always relocated by choice. Reading four is by the Castilian ambassador, Ruy González de Clavijo (d. 1412), and illustrates the common fate of the finest artisans in times of conflict; they would often be treated as booty which could be appropriated by a successful ruler when a city fell. This practice is well documented during the Mongol conquests. The fifth reading is a nineteenth-­century document from Damascus listing the skilled labourers required for a building project. This is the sort of register that was assembled on a regular basis for official commissions, though they seldom survive from earlier phases of Islamic history. It is worth noting the designation of some men as muʿallim (master) and the range of wages paid according to seniority and the value of the activity itself. Readings six to eleven all deal with the formal structures established in most towns and cities to administer the crafts. This includes the division of the specialised activities into self-­ governing corporations commonly known in scholarship as guilds (in Arabic, ṭarīqa), though they are not identical to their European counterparts. Reading six is from the introduction to a manual of ḥisba (market law) written in the late twelfth century. Many crafts were highly specialised, and it was beyond the competence of the market inspector (muḥtasib) to oversee the practitioners. Hence, each guild was required to appoint ʿarīfs from among their own to report back to the inspector.9 The seventh reading is a short passage by a fourteenth-­century Italian

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31

Figure 2.1  Plan of the city of Baghdad and the surrounding areas in the early Abbasid period. From Guy LeStrange, Baghdad during the Abbasid Caliphate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900). Source: Wikimedia.

trader and talks about the establishment of a master (shaykh) who would govern each guild. The eighth reading is an official document from Jerusalem in the late eighteenth century outlining the responsibilities of the master of the guild of goldsmiths and silversmiths. The ninth reading is by Sir John Chardin (d. 1713) and describes the apprenticeship system that operated in Iran at the time of his visit to the country. Reading ten is an account of the guild system that existed in Egypt at the end of the nineteenth century. The description is particularly useful for its discussion of the responsibilities of the heads of the guilds. Reading eleven is a list of the punishments employed in late nineteenth-­century Damascus against those craftsmen who had transgressed the rules of the guilds. The twelfth reading concerns the regulation of the high quality inscribed textiles (ṭirāz) made in Egypt and brought into Cairo in the early thirteenth century. Reading thirteen relates to guild practices in Yemen and illustrates the operation of a ‘closed shop’ system that offered a degree of financial security to artisans. The practices within a specific workshop in Damascus in the late twentieth century are the subject of the fourteenth reading. This passage is important for its demonstration of the division of jobs between master and his assistants. The final reading (fifteen) moves to the rural environment. Here, activities are arranged between

32  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s different tribal groups according to their relative status. Notable, too, is the gender division that exists between tanning and weaving in one such tribe. * * * § 2. 1. Then Hisham died, and the government of the empire was undertaken by a man called Al-­Walid, son of Yazid, son of ʿAbd al-­Malik. Since, however, his people hated him, he began to build a city named after himself in the desert, for he gave his name to it; but the water was fifteen miles distant from it. He collected workmen from all quarters, and built that city by means of forced labour; and on account of the multitude many died every day from the scarcity of water; for though the water was carried thither by twelve hundred camels daily, yet this was not enough for them; the camels being divided into two bands, six hundred carrying water one day, and six hundred the next. Then Al-­Walid was attacked by a man named Ibrahim, who killed him, and seized the government instead of him. Ibrahim released the enslaved workmen, who departed each to his own place;. . .10 § 2. 2. I received an account that when he decided to build the city, al-­Mansur summoned the engineers, architects, and experts in measuring, surveying, and the division of plots. He showed them the plan which he had in mind, and then brought in ordinary laborers, diggers, blacksmiths, and others. The Caliph allotted them their salaries, and then wrote to every town asking them to send inhabitants with some knowledge of the building trade. But he did not begin construction until the number of craftsmen and skilled laborers in his presence reached many thousands. Then he traced the city plan, making the city round. They said that no other round city is known in all the regions of the world. The foundations were laid at a time chosen for al-­Mansur by Nawbakht, the astrologer. Muhammad b. ʿAli al-­Warraq and Ahmad b. ʿAli al-­Muhtasib – Muhammad b. Jaʿfar al-­Nahwi – al-­Hasan b. Muhammad al-­Sakuni: Muhammad b. Khalaf: Muhammad b. Musa al-­Qaysi – Muhammad b. Musa al-­Khuwarizmi, the mathematician. Abu Jaʿfar went from al-­Hashimiyyya to Baghdad, ordered the construction of the city, then returned to al-­Kufa one hundred and forty-­four years, and five days after the hijra. He continued: Abu Jaʿfar finished building the city, settled in it with his troops and named it Madinat al-­Salam one hundred and forty-­five years, four months, and eight days after the hijra. Muhammad al-­Khuwarizmi: The enclosure wall of Baghdad and all the work connected with the city were completed one hundred and forty-­eight years, six months, and four days after the hijra.11 § 2. 3. Then he had architects brought and told them to choose the most suitable positions [for certain sites], and they selected a number of sites for palaces. He gave each of his [principal] followers a palace to build. He gave to Khaqan ʿUrtuj Abu al-­Fath ibn Khaqan the building of al-­Jawsaq al-­Khaqani, to ʿUmar ibn Faraj the building of the palace known as al-­ʿUmari, to Abu al-­Wazir the building of the palace known as al-­Waziri. Then he had plots of ground marked out for the military and civilian officers and for the people, and likewise the Great Mosque. And he had the markets drawn out round the mosque with wide market rows, all the various kinds of merchandise being separate, and the various sorts of people by themselves, according to the arrangement after which the markets of Baghdad were designed. He wrote for workmen, masons and artificers, such as smiths and carpenters, and all other craftsmen to be sent, and for teak and other kinds of wood, and for palm-­trunks to be brought from Basra and from

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the adjoining region, namely Baghdad and the rest of the Sawad, and from Antioch and other towns on the Syrian coast, and for marble workers and men experienced in marble paving to be brought. And workshops for working marble were established in Latakia and elsewhere. . . . Then al-­Muʿtasim made people come from every country who were able to practise a craft or any art connected with agriculture, sowing, date growing, planting trees or vines, hydraulic engineering, measuring water, bringing it up to the surface, and in securing its sources in the ground. From Egypt he had brought people who could make papyrus and other things; from Basra he had people brought who could make glass, pottery, and matting; from Kufa people who could make pottery and who could make paint of various kinds, and from the rest of the provinces every kind of industry. They were established with their families in places and given plots of land there, and al-­Muʿtasim appointed markets there for the craftsmen in the town.12 § 2. 4. . . . [Tamerlane/Timur Lenk] carried away with him the weavers of that city (Damascus), those who worked at the silk looms. Further the bow-­makers who produce crossbows which are so famous: likewise armourers: also craftsmen in glass and porcelain, who are known to be the best in the world.13 § 2. 5. Wednesday, yawm al-­arbaʿ 16 Jumada al-­Awwal 1260 (3 June 1844), a total of 28 persons: qanāyyita (sic) (drainpipe layers) at 7 piastres/day muʿallim Niqula muʿallim ʿAbduh Mawsali Shahdan Himsi Butrus Hamawi miʿmār (masons) at 7 piastres/day ʿAysa Qarzun muʿallim Jirjis Waddah muʿallim Abu ʿAbduh al-­Aʿsani muʿallim Mustafa Mawsali muʿallim faʿʿālā (skilled labourers) at 4 piastres/day Yusuf Najʿʿani Husayn Kharrab Muhammad Abu Yasin Muhammad Badawi Ilyas b. Suyun Husayn ʿAlī Mustafa Yabrudi Ahmad al-­Buli Mahmud b. Salih al-­Badawi Qudur al-­Saydawi najjār (carpenters) at 7 piastres/day Yusuf al-­Hamawi Salih b. ʿUmar al-­Dahhan

34  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s

Mustafa Mawsali Muhammad al-­Idlibi kallās (lime-­kiln operators/plasterers) at 7 piastres/day Mustafa ʿAmudi Mahmud ʿAmudi faʿʿālā (skilled labourers) at 4 piastres/day ʿAli Ghabur ʿAtiyya Misri Ahmad Badawi Shaykh ʿAysa14

§ 2. 6. When the muḥtasib is unable to understand the people’s occupations, to each trade he may appoint an ʿarīf who is a virtuous fellow tradesman, is experienced in their trade, aware of their swindles and frauds, and is well known for his trustworthiness and reliability and who will oversee their affairs and acquaint the muḥtasib with what they are doing. The ʿarīf must inform the muḥtasib if all the commodities and merchandise brought into their markets and their current prices, as well as other matters of which the muḥtasib ought to be aware. It is related that the Prophet said: ‘Over each trade seek the assistance of a virtuous fellow tradesman’.15 § 2. 7. There were in Damascus the official master craftsmen for every craft, for gold, silver, iron, cotton, linen, glass, copper, brass, and almost every craft under the sun.16 § 2. 8. [1] Written with a legal (sharʿī) permission. [2] It has been an old custom in Jerusalem in order to maintain [public] order and comfort for the people [living] in it, that the akhī bābā should be the person who speaks for [3] and controls all guilds and crafts in it. One of them is the guild of gold-­and silver-­smithing (ṣiyāgha), and it is the most important craft in it, [4] because it is from silver and gold that jewelry and gold and silver articles are produced for whoever wants [them]. It needs loyalty, integrity, honesty [5], and perfect skill, and their producers are protected people from among the Christians. It has been customary for the akhī bābā to choose from among them a trustworthy person, [6] expert in it, skillful in its alloy, who can spot the false [articles] from among them [and differentiate between] the good and the counterfeit. If he sees a piece of jewelry [7] he can advise as to its adequate price, its [weight] rate, and the rate of its alloy, so that no damage will befall the buyer or the seller. If [8] a breach of faith originates from him, the akhī bābā will reprimand him as circumstance[s] require. All of this [was prescribed] in accordance with decrees and orders [9] of the sultan, and this is a general custom (ʿurf) which is valid in all large Muslim cities.17 § 2. 9. As to the Polity of the Persian Tradesmen, which is my fifth Observation, I will inform you of one thing only, That the Trades have every one a Head to the Company elected out of their Body, who is appointed by the King; and that’s all their Government. Yet strictly speaking, they do not form a regular Body, for they never meet. They have neither Guards, nor Visitors, but some few Customs only, which the Head of the Trade Causes to be observed; as for Example; That there always be a due Distance between the Shops and Tradesmen of the same Trade, except in the Places which are particularly designed for one sort of Work. Whoever is about to set up a Shop in any Trade, goes to

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the Head of the Trade, gives his Name and Place of Abode to be set down in the Register, and pays some small Fee for it. The Head never enquires what Country the Tradesman is, nor who was his Master, nor whether he understands his Trade. The Trades likewise have no Restrictions, to hinder him from incroaching upon another. A Tinker makes Silver Basons, if they are bespoke; everyone undertakes what he pleases and they never Sue one another upon that Account. There is likewise no binding of Apprentices among them, and they learn their Trades for Nothing; Far from it; the Boys that are put out’Prentices with a Master, have Wages the very first Day they go to him. The Parents make an Agreement between the Master and the ’Prentice for so much per Day the first Year; a Half-­penny or a Penny a Day, according to the Age of the ’Prentice, and the Hardship of the Trade; and the Wages encrease now and then, according to the ’Prentice’s Improvement. The Thing is without any mutual Confinement, with respect to Time, as I have said; the Master always having the Liberty to turn away his ’Prentice, and the ’Prentice to leave his Master. There it is indeed that Knowledge must be stolen; for the Master thinking on the Profit he may reap by his ’Prentice, more than on teaching him his Trade, doth not trouble himself much with him but employs him only in those things that relate to his Profit. The Trades are bound to the King’s Average, i.e. to do the King’s Work when they are order’d; and the Trades which are not employ’s in that Work, as Shoe-­makers, the Cap makers, the Drawer makers, pay a Tax to the Place call’d Cargh Padch, i.e. the King’s Expence.18 § 2. 10. The great majority of the forty or so trades practiced in Egypt form separate esnafs or guilds, membership of which is obligatory on all who work at the respective crafts. This system of ensafs, which also obtains in Turkey, is said to have originated during the Baghdad Caliphate; but a similar organization prevailed among the ancient Egyptians, and it is probable therefore that these trade corporations of Alexandria and Cairo – to which and a few other large towns the industrial population of the country is chiefly confined – are in the main native relics of the old time. At any rate, the system has been in immemorial use, and is probably maintained for the facilities it affords in the collection of personal taxes, as well as for the guarantee it is made to offer for the due execution of works ordered by the Government. Each esnaf is presided over by a sheikh, who is in practice chosen by the higher members of the craft, but is formally appointed by the Government, to which he pays a nomination fee of about 20l. He is, in fact, the ruler of the guild, admitting members, fixing the scale of wages, directing the manner in which contracts shall be carried out, and selecting the workmen by whom they shall be executed. He also collects the taxes payable by the guild, and is responsible to the Government for all matters connected with it. The members of the guild receive on admission certificates stating their proficiency and the rate of wages it entitles them to demand. They are, as a rule, restricted to a particular trade of the guild; or, if as is rarely the case, allowed to follow two crafts, or even separate branches of the same one, they are charged an increased tax, unless they can arrange matters privately with the sheikh. They may contract to do piecework, but if employed by the day they can only ask for the wages fixed in their certificate. Besides these guild regulations, however, there is little or no legislation specially affecting the industrial classes.19 § 2. 11. The penalties have been devised with the object of maintaining the solidarity of the trades or of protecting the possessions of the people. They are many and varied; I propose to mention those I was able to find out about.

36  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s 1. In most of the guilds the traitor and the thief are expelled utterly; they are no longer received by other members of the guild, who, indeed, sometimes go as far as to wage war without quarter against them to ensure that they do not get work of any kind. 2. If it established that a master has produced a piece of cloth that falls short of the customary standards as regards length and breadth, the Sheikh of the Guild gets hold of it, cuts it in pieces and hangs it up in the market as a warning to all. 3. If a member of a guild is found guilty of deceit in the practice of his trade the Sheikh sends the Shawish to shut up his shop, which he can only open again with the approval of the Sheikh and members of the guild. 4. If a goldsmith is found guilty of adulterating his metal the Sheikh of the Goldsmiths overturns his anvil so that he is unable to work until the Sheikh gives his permission. 5. If it is established that a master has prejudiced the solidarity of the guild he is presented with a green twig as a sign that he is expected to give a banquet. This is considered equivalent to a monetary fine, and is the penalty most frequently imposed.20 § 2. 12. The ṭirāz. This service (muʿāmala) has an inspector (nāẓir), and overseer (mushārif), a controller (mutawallī), and two accountants (shāhid). Now if any sort of article is required to be manufactured, a list is made by the Dīwān al-­Khizāna (‘Office of the Wardrobe’), and sent to them along with the required (or computed) money, and gold thread (dhahab maghzūl) for their expenses. When the chests (safaṭ) are brought back, they are compared with the chits that went with them, and checked. If the value comes to more than has been spent on it, the excellent value of the workmen is inferred from that, but they derive no benefit from it at all – that is to say the surplus. If the value is less than the expenditure, the extent of the deficiency is elucidated and the requisition is made from the Dīwān, and the employees are required to pay it. The employees take responsibility of payment on themselves, and extract it from the gold embroiderers (raqqām). A series of happenings of this kind in what they bring, indicates the dishonesty of their characters.21 § 2. 13. There is a law (qānūn) among the carpenters, (and one similar among the ­builders), that if you tired of your carpenter, or fall out with him, or find that he is not doing his job properly, you give him quṣūʿah, and then dismiss him. Unless you do so, you will find that another carpenter will not come and work for you. If you tried to employ a different carpenter the latter would ask about the first carpenter and make sure that he obtained his quṣūʿah before he left you. The Bā Sumbul (or Sumbil) who make stone querns, pestles, and work stone of all kinds, and the Baqqārah (cattlemen, ­ploughmen) will not allow you to change the particular member of their group who works for you at all. The only exception made is if you have to dismiss the man you were employing, for laziness, incompetence, or disobedience; then you inform the next man you wish to employ of your reason for dismissing his predecessor. The new employee in turn ascertains from the man you have just dismissed that what you say is true, and if your case is just, he will come and work for you. The system is however confined to the two classes mentioned only. The poet ʿAskūl says: –

the organisation of labour 



Wa’rdjaʿ takhabbar ʿala ’l-­waqqār Lī šāll mawqaruh li-­’l-­aḥdjār Bā Šumbul illī yabīʿ al-­sufūn.



Come ask about the stone worker Who to the stones bears his hammer Ba Sumbil who sells column drums.

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This fakhīdah of the Bā Sumbil has the monopoly in making stones for columns (safan), pestles (quṣrah), etc. They live in the suburb known as ʿAidīd. They do not allow any one else to carry on this work, and I am informed that they can even take people to court for infringing on their monopoly. The Baqqārah too have a similar monopoly in their profession.22 § 2. 14. In the past – that is, in the time of Maurice’s father – the fundamental rule was that the basic pattern had either to be floral or geometric, and the choice then determined the whole appearance of the object. The filling of the surfaces between the basic pattern would then be floral in the case of a geometric basic pattern, or geometric in the case of a floral one. The surface was articulated by means of borders and roundels. The articulation apparently follows strict rules. If Musa receives the instruction from Maurice to make, for example, a tray with a geometric border or central roundel, he can vary the rest of the ornament in accordance with these rules. Musa says, and one can believe him, that he has several hundred designs in his head. There are no pattern books. Complicated and expensive pieces commissioned by important customers are made entirely by Musa himself. In these cases he does not make any preliminary drawings. Simpler patterns are drawn by Musa in Indian ink on the piece and he leaves them to be executed by other workers. A clear division of labour, such as I have seen in Maurice’s workshop, seems to be the rule. The chief craftsman makes the preliminary drawing. One worker lifts out the marked lines with a burin. Another hammers copper and silver wires into these engraved lines. The wire is not cut off but torn off with a powerful blow with the hammer. This part of the production demands the greatest dexterity, and for this reason it seems that girls and women are preferred. Another craftsman then goes over the lines of inlay with a very sharp chisel cutting away the edges of the inlay which overlap the surface of the piece. The piece is then finished off by being polished with fine sand or chalk. Pieces made of thin metal are bedded in a base of putty to prevent the ground from springing back and causing a warp in the engraving or inlay. As regards the quality of craftsmanship the pieces produced today can stand comparison with those of the Mamluk period. They differ mainly in their mixture of different styles of ornament, . . .23 § 2. 15. Of the arts but little is known among the Aenezes: two or three are blacksmiths to shoe the horses, and some saddlers to mend the leather-­work, are the only artists found even in the most numerous tribes. These workmen are called szona: they are never of Aeneze origin, because their occupations are regarded as degrading to a free-­born Aeneze. Most of them are found in the villages of Djof, which are wholly peopled by workmen, some of whom in spring disperse themselves among the Bedouins, and return in winter to their families. An Aeneze never marries his daughter to a szona, or any descendant of

38  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s a szona family; the latter intermarry among themselves, or take the daughters of Aeneze slaves. The arts of tanning and of weaving are practised by the Aeneze themselves; the former by men, the latter by women.24 notes   1 Lewis, ‘Islamic Guilds’. Also Baer, Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times. Baer deals with the question of terminology on pp. 16–17.   2 On the futuwwa of the Egyptian capital, see Irwin, ‘Futuwwa: Chivalry and Gangsterism in Mamluk Cairo’.  3 Atil, Levni and the Surname.   4 Qudsi, ‘Notice sur les corporations de Damas’. On the shaykh al-­mashāʾikh, see pp. 10–12 [Arabic text]. Summarised in Lewis, ‘Islamic Guilds’, pp. 32–4 and translated in Ibish (trans.), ‘Elias Qudsi’s Sketch of the Guilds of Damascus’, pp. 43–4.   5 Discussed in Atasoy and Raby, Iznik: The Pottery of Ottoman Turkey, revised edition, pp. 23–4, 64–5.   6 Bell (ed. and trans.), Greek Papyri in the British Museum. Volume IV: The Aphrodito Papyri, nos. 1403, 1408, 1411 and comments on p. 286, n. 48. Also Küchler, ‘Moschee und Kalifenpaläste Jerusalems’.   7 The site was once identified with Mshatta, though this seems unlikely. See Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, p. 211.   8 On the logistics of bulk transport in this period, see Milwright, ‘Fixtures and Fittings’, pp. 87–8, 99.  9 On ḥisba, see Ghabin, Ḥisba, Art and Craft in Islam. 10 Evetts (trans.), ‘The History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria. Part III’, pp. 114–15. The authorship of this text is complex. On this issue, see Hoyland, Seeing Islam As Others Saw It, pp. 446–8. The Hisham mentioned in the text is Hisham b. ʿAbd al-­Malik (r. 724–43). 11 Khatib al-­Baghdadi (fl. eleventh century), Taʾrīkh Baghdād (Cairo, 1931), pp. 66–7. Translated in Lassner, The Topography of Baghdad, pp. 45–6. The author also writes about the techniques employed in the construction of the outer walls (pp. 49–54). Madinat al-­Salam (‘City of Peace’) is a title for Baghdad. 12 Ahmad al-­Yaʿqubi (d. 897–8), Kitāb al-­buldān, (ed.) M. de Goeje (Leiden: Brill, 1892), pp. 258, 264. Translated by Arthur Rhuvon Guest in Creswell, Early Muslim Architecture, II, pp. 229, 231. Sawad refers to the south of Iraq, encompassing the fertile irrigated lands around the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. 13 De Clavijo (d. 1412), Embassy to Tamerlane, 1403–1406, pp. 287–8. Porcelain should be understood in this context to mean glazed stonepaste wares. 14 Excerpt from a register dated 1260/1844: Awāmir sulṭāniyya series, register no. 5, 1844–5 (Damascus, Markaz al-­Wathāʾiq al-­Tārīkiyya). Translated in Deguilhem, ‘Shared Space or Contested Space’, p. 275. 15 Al-­Shayzari, ʿAbd al-­Rahman b. Nasr (fl. twelfth century), Nihāyat al-­rutba fī ṭalab al-­ḥisba. Buckley (trans.), The Book of the Market Inspector, pp. 36–7. 16 Translated in Fischel, ‘A New Latin Source on Tamerlane’s Conquest of Damascus’, p. 226. Bertrandon de Mignanelli (d. 1455 or 1460) was a merchant from Siena. 17 The document is Sijill 266: 34, dated 1199/1785. Translated in Cohen, ‘Gold and Silver Crafting in Ottoman Jerusalem’, pp. 64–5. Repr. Cohen, Studies in Ottoman Jerusalem. 18 Chardin (d. 1713), Travels in Persia, pp. 250–1. 19 McCoan, Egypt, pp. 316–18. The Arabic term used here for guild is ṣinf (pl. aṣnāf) and the currency is the lira. 20 Qudsi, ‘Notice sur les corporations de Damas’, pp. 32–3. Translated in Ibish (trans.), ‘Elias Qudsi’s Sketch of the Guilds of Damascus’, pp. 61–2. The shāwīsh (literally, sergeant) was the deputy of the shaykh of a guild. The green twig (this could also be a sprig of an herb, such as basil) was also used to indicate that an initiate to a guild was expected to provide a banquet for the established guild members (see Ibish, pp. 50–1).

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21 Ibn Mammati, Qawānīn al-­dawānīn (Cairo 1318/1900–1), pp. 24–5. Translated Serjeant, ‘Material for a History of Islamic Textiles’, p. 104. 22 Serjeant, ‘Building and Builders in the Ḥadramawt’, pp. 279–80 (slightly adapted). Quṣū‘ah is a type of wooden bowl. 23 Johannes Kalter, ‘Urban Handicrafts’, in Kalter, Pavaloi and Zerrnickel (eds), The Arts and Crafts of Syria, p. 71. 24 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, I, p. 65.

CHAPTER 3

Rituals, songs and poems

Like all aspects of human life, the manual crafts can take on a ritualistic character, ranging from the chants and songs performed during repetitive or physically arduous activities to the ceremonies associated with professional organisations (on the guilds, see Chapter 2). The recitation of short rhythmic phrases might have the effect of regulating time or even have a spiritual and meditative connotation for those working in a particular discipline. The ceremonies associated with particular guilds were often known only to the members of that association, though there were ceremonies that brought the practices of the guilds out into the public domain of the city. For example, there were occasions when members of guilds would parade through the cities of the Islamic world, sometimes actually performing aspects of their craft.1 The erection of buildings was a common locus for rituals (as it still is today). The types of animal sacrifice attending the completion of the foundations of buildings may derive from pre-­Islamic practices. Crafts also attracted the attention of members of the literate elite. This interest tended not to be practical in character, with poets and writers of entertaining literature (in Arabic, adab) thinking about the crafts in metaphorical terms. Craft activities could stand for qualities possessed by the lover regarding the beloved. Another example is shadow puppetry, which was discussed at length by Sufi writers, including Ibn ʿArabi (d. 1240) and ʿUmar ibn al-­Farid (d. 1235). For them, the animation of figures behind a screen could stand as a metaphor for the soul’s clouded understanding of the majesty of God.2 The first reading comes from the medieval traveller Leo Africanus (Hasan b. Muhammad al-­Wazzan al-­Fasi, d. c. 1554) and records the triumphant procession that was accorded to any craftsman deemed to have created something innovative or particularly challenging. Whether a flea had, indeed, been bound in chains is rather open to question, however. Reading two is taken from an account of guild practices in late nineteenth-­century Damascus written by Elias Qudsi, the Dutch consul. The spoken words form part of the complex ritual in which an artisan is initiated into a guild. The third reading comes from the Orientalist scholar Stanley Lane-­Poole (d. 1931). He writes about the elaborate processions that accompanied the weddings of members of the Cairene elite. Lane-­Poole’s information is mainly derived from the writings of the Egyptian historian al-­Jabarti (d. 1825).3 Reading four is a short description of the animal sacrifices that occurred on the completion of the foundations of houses in the Yemeni city of Shibam.4 The next three readings (five to seven) deal with different types of work song used to keep

rituals, songs and poems 

41

time during repetitive activities (cf. the making of felt, as described in Chapter 21). The first of this group appears in a description of the life of a Palestinian family in the early twentieth century and comes after an account of a lament sung by one of the women. The words accompanying the loading of a lime kiln are only tangentially related to the specifics of the activity and were probably chosen more for their internal rhythms. Reading six discusses the presence of music and singing in the streets of Tehran in the nineteenth century. The strongly sectarian character of the Shiʿa bricklayer’s song is directed at the ʿUmar b. al-­Khattab (r. 634–44). The seventh reading records the repetitive chants used by labourers in Shibam when crushing nodules of heated limestone after they have been removed from the kiln. The next three readings (eight to ten) come from poetry or adab. The first of these comprises excerpts from a long Persian poem about the urban crafts, in which the theme of love is linked to some aspect of the craft itself. Reading nine comes from the famous Rubāʿiyyāt (Rubaiyat, i.e. quatrains) of the Persian scholar and poet ʿUmar Khayyam (d. 1131). The verses reflect on the potter’s use of a material, clay, from which man is supposed to have been formed by God (cf. Qurʾan 37:11; 38:71–2). The tenth reading is from a fifteenth-­century Arabic text and makes metaphorical use of the goldsmithing techniques of casting, hammering and the quenching of metal. The eleventh reading comes from an undated and anonymous Pashtun work known as the Kesb Nāma and lists the mythical line of carpenters from the time of Adam, the first man (cf. the discussion of early calligraphers in Chapter 23). * * * § 3. 1. Among the artizans whosoeuer is the first inuentour of any new and ingenious deuise is clad in a garment of cloth of gold, and carried with a noise of musitians after him, as it were in triumph from shop to shop, hauing some money giuen to him at euery place. I myselfe once saw one carried about with solemn musicke and great pompe and triumph, because he had bound a flea in a chaine, which lay before him on a piece of paper for al men to behold.5 § 3. 2. He [the shāwīsh] then proceeds to open the business, reciting:

I have opened the gate of the way, hoping for blessings from the Creator of all Creation, the Lord of Souls I have come after asking permission; with the fātiḥa I crave forgiveness for my sins and transgressions; This is for the administering of pledges, the keeping of which brings the greatest of blessings; From its place of origin the pledge came to your father Adam, Oh free man, so take good note; And from Seth and the initiate Idris, and thence to all God’s prophets; Their seal is the Lord of the Two Worlds, our Muhammad, Light of the Law, lofty in glory and magnanimity; The pledge was brought by Sacred Verses; he who keeps it will receive blessings and bounties; He who betrays it, his trade will not succeed, and what punishment will be his on the Day of Judgement.

42  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s He then turns to the initiate and says: I charge you, you who are being received in brotherhood and receiving the pledge, fear the Lord of the Worlds; your pledge and your initiation will be your witnesses on that Day when we all stand perplexed. He who keeps it will be in the keeping of the Lord of Heaven; he who betrays it will be numbered among those who are far from God. I seal my orders by reciting the praises of Muhammad the Elect, the Imam of the Worlds. Amen. This is followed by a recitation of the fātiḥa.6 § 3. 3. In Cairo the bridal processions of people of very high rank are conducted with singular display. The train is usually headed by buffoons and musicians, and a water-­ carrier, loaded with a goat’s-­skin filled with water and sand, of very great weight, which is often borne for many hours before, as well as during, the procession, merely to amuse the spectators by this feat of strength. Then follow (interrupted by groups of male and female dancers, jugglers, and the like) numerous decorated open waggons or cars, each of which contains several members of some particular trade or art engaged in their ordinary occupations, or one such person with attendants: – in one, for instance, a Kahwejy, with his assistants and pots and cups and fire, making coffee for the spectators; in a second, makers of sweetmeats; in a third, makers of pancakes (fatîrehs); in a fourth, silk-­lace manufacturers; in a fifth, a silk-­weaver with his loom; in a sixth, tinners of copper vessels at their work; in a seventh, whitewashers, whitewashing over and over again a wall; – in short, almost every manufacture and trade has its representatives in a separate waggon. El-­Jabarty describes a procession of this kind, in which there were upwards of seventy parties of different trades and arts, each party in a separate waggon, besides buffoons, wrestlers, dancers, and others, followed by various officers, the eunuchs of the bride’s family, ladies of the harîm with their attendants, then the bride in a European carriage, troop of memlûks clad in armour, and a Turkish band of music. It was a procession of which the like had not before been seen.7 § 3. 4. Elaborate rituals were observed in the building of a house. For instance, a goat or sheep was slaughtered as soon as the stonework of the foundation was finished to a full height, and the blood was spilt over one or more corners of the building. A devout man usually attended the ceremony and the carcass of the slaughtered animal was afterwards divided, most of it going to the stonemason and the other workmen, and a fifth to the owner of the house. A similar sacrifice is reputedly to be made at the beginning of the whole building ­operation, after the trenches had been excavated and the animal dung and salt laid in place. The owners provided several feasts for the builders at various stages in the erection of the lintels and floor beams, and on the completion of the building.8 § 3. 5. A few months later another death took place, – that of Miriam’s mother. The girl was so overcome with grief that she refused food. But when her father took another wife she regarded herself as a stranger in her own home, once so dear to her, and looked for comfort in her best friend, – song. Many a time did she sing these lines:–

rituals, songs and poems 



43

I passed by the house of my beloved (mother). A stranger had taken her place. I greeted her and she did not answer, Though it was surely my mother’s house. I knew the lime and the clay which she plastered. I lived there now but am now a stranger. If the beloved ones (her father and stepmother) are living in happiness; If they joyfully walk on palms Others sit in sorrow and weep, And remember the day of separation. But sometimes they laugh for the days of meeting (again).

Abdallah was now the head of his family. He worked in collaboration with a number of other young men of his own age, gathering brushwood and thistles for a lime-­kiln which they had built. Whilst cutting the wood or carrying the big bundles of thorns, singing was the order of the day. Heaps of brushwood as high as houses were gathered, and when the fire was put to the entrance of the kiln, with a ‘Bism Illah!’ the men by twos constantly shoved in the fuel, singing antiphonally the following lines, which, if not profoundly sensible, rhymed and served as encouragement:–

1st Singer 2nd Singer 1st Singer 2nd Singer 1st Singer 2nd Singer

In it goes At the fiercest moment. Where are we? At the henna road. The way of briars. Trefoil plant

When the lime was burned they carried it on their camels to the building-­places of Jerusalem. There they found the workers singing over their task. The gangs as they went up with stones or mortar responded to those coming down:–

1st Gang 2nd Gang 1st Gang 2nd Gang

Master! Give us freedom Else we shall run away. Master! Give us baksheesh Else we’ll not come again.9

§ 3. 6. In passing through the streets of Tehran, one would be disposed to consider the Persians a very musical race. From all sides melodious sounds, somewhat monotonous, it is true, constantly strike the ear. And yet they cannot be called a musical people; far from it. The combination of a second tenor and bass is unknown to them, and unison is all they aim at, no matter what number of voices, or of fiddles, guitars, harps, or dulcimers, form the concert. A lad warbling in his throat, at his highest and loudest scream, in imitation of a nightingale, is the perfection of vocal music, which they will listen to with pleasure for hours, and beguile the longest day’s journey with the same dulcet strains. But the street music I allude to is a different thing: it proceeds from the bricklayers. In bricklaying in Persia the brick is thrown from hand to hand until at length it is pitched to the oostad, the master mason. To relieve his monotonous labour the oostad had recourse to a chant, full as

44  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s monotonous as his work, but sweet in tone. In general he combines a little polemical casuistry and devotion with his psalmody, by directing a vast quantity of abuse against Omar, the second caliph after Mahommed, whom the Persians regard with bitter enmity, as being the leader in the exclusion of Ali from the caliphate. He sings the words in this style:

Khishtee bideh mara janum Laamat illahee ber Oma-­a-­ar. (Give me a brick then my life, And the curse of God light on Omar.) Yekee deeger bideh binum azeezum Inshaallah kheir neh beened Oma-­a-­r. (Give me another, now, my darling, Please God, Omar will not have any luck.)

On the day on which Omar was assassinated, the powers of the bricklayers in poetical and melodious imprecations wax stronger. It is a strange circumstance that a man should daily suffer maledictions twelve hundred years after his death. Judas Iscariot is better off.10 § 3. 7. The process, requiring force and perseverance, becomes rhythmical rather than monotonous, with singing verse that is repeated by the same workers to accompany the beat of their rods to the ground. When in Shibam, in 1985, I recorded one of these verses, as I came across the nūrah workers carrying out the sbāṭah in situ while renovating the old school, it went like this:

ʿal masābīt ḥinnū w argilū w lā tī khallū fil ghashrah ṭaʿām

The meaning they explained thus upon (handling) the beating rods: masābiṭ be gentle and stern – and don’t leave chaff upon the grain (ghashrah:qishrah and ṭaʿām:bur wheat); The parable here being: purify it to that same degree you would while separating the grain from the husk, so that the nūrah acquires a fine texture with the sbāṭah process. For the 30 minutes we stood to watch, the same verse was repeated sometimes with variations in the intonation, and at others with the replacement of ḥinnū (be kind/gentle) with ghannū (sing).11 § 3. 8. The Tailor (khayyāṭ) What shall I say about the tailor who makes such close-­fitting robes? I am stamped by the garment he sewed, just as the ground is stamped by a foot-­step. His glance leaves imprints on my heart, In the same way that tailors draw threads through wax. His shop has the semblance of a public bath, Since there are Zoroastrian (gabr) as well as Muslim customers to it. The Goldsmith (zargar) My complaint about the goldsmith is well founded, For that fire-­clay crucible has melted me.

rituals, songs and poems 

You can infer who has caused my fever, From the seal, like a signet-­ring, on my lips. The Blacksmith (naʿlband) I have fallen into this state because of the blacksmith, Who resembles the new moon and sheds stars from his eyes. He never hammers a cold horse-­shoe, He speaks warmly, for he has tested his breath in the furnace. The Carpenter (najjār) If the carpenter shows you favour, Your eyes will shake like the storm which brought Noah’s flood. With a stroke of the plane, his sharp hand, Will remove the wrinkles from his admirer’s face. The Turner (kharrāṭ) How shall I describe the turner, Whose face and hair made my heart spin like a ball. Sometimes he produces a [wooden] bowl, sometimes a goblet, Sometimes pain, sometimes joy. The Coppersmith (misgar) The coppersmith and his cheerful face Echoed in my head like the noise of a copper workshop. Even before he had beaten out those ladles and scoops, All [the customers] gave him allegiance. The Goldbeater (ṭalā-­kūb) I adopted the style of my friend; My pale face has been stamped with gold [leaf], Like Majnūn he has stamped his imprint on the desert of my heart, The same way that he skilfully stamps [the title in gold] on the gazelle-­leather binding [of a book]. The Gold Wire Drawer (zarkash) My friend the gold wire drawer becomes a fiery red rose, When he draws gold from my pale [face]. My idol performs his craft so skilfully, That he could trap a fairy with these hairs [of gold wire]. The Mud Brick Maker (khisht-­māl) The mud brick maker silenced my mouth with his loud argument, As he might have done with a handful of brick-­moulding mud. The Comb-­Maker (shāna-­i tarāsh) Ever since I came across the adorable comb maker, You can see that my days and nights have resembled the teeth of a comb.12

45

46  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 3. 9. 69. I passed by a potter the day before last, He was ceaselessly plying his skill with clay, And, what the blind do not see, I could – My father’s clay in every potter’s hand. 70.

Stop potter, if you have any sense, How long will you debase man’s clay? You have put Feridun’s finger and Kaikhosrau’s hand On the wheel – what do you think you are doing?

71.

I watched a potter in his work-­place, Saw the master, his foot on the wheel’s treadle; Unabashed, he was making a jug’s lid and handle From a king’s head and a beggar’s hand.

72.

This jug was love-­sick like me, Tangled in a fair girl’s locks; This handle you now see on its neck Was his hand on the neck of a girl.

73.

I was in the potter’s shop last night, And saw two thousand jugs, some speaking, some dumb; Each was anxiously asking, ‘Where is the potter, and the buyer and seller of pots?’13

§ 3. 10. You have placed me as a melting pot (būtaqa), and you have worked me every hour with the manjah tool; you cast (sabaka) me until I was thin and could pass through a ring. You purified me (ṣaffa) to the end or until I was cast. You then hammered me round and round as if the anvil (sindan) within me were my heart. You knocked (ḍaraba) a round jewel (ḥalq) into me and you are not coated (inṭalā). You! Hey! Dirty cupbearer! Hey! Give us a drink as you have given drink to all the people, and we shall give you a bishkās.14 § 3. 11. Chapter 3: The Book of Carpenters First of all I praise Allah, then his messenger who is the greatest of all prophets. After praising, listen carefully to what I tell you: From the time of Adam until the time of our own prophet Mohammad, there have been 1,070 carpenters. Some of them were lamp-­owning saints, others were prophets in their own right. One of the saints was Abdul Jalil Mashriqi. The second was Abdul Rahim, the third was Abdul Karim, the fourth was Abdul Aziz Amin. The fifth was Najbuddin, sixth was Nuruddin of Samarqand, seventh Abdul Nabi Fazel, eighth Habib Tamozi, ninth Niamat Kandahari, tenth Habibullah Kashefi, eleventh Shaykh Latifullah, twelfth Abullah, thirteenth Hyder Mohammad Sikandar, fourteenth Abu Jafar from Turkestan, fifteenth Shamsuddin, sixteenth Shamsuddin Yousufi, seventeenth Wahid Baghdadi, eighteenth Ali Khorasani. The masters of the profession are altogether 3,003. The first was Adam and the

rituals, songs and poems 

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second was Nuh [Noah]. If you are asked ‘Who made the different tools used by ­carpenters?’, you shall say that God ordered Jibrail [Gabriel] to bring them down from Heaven. As the latter was also carrying verses along, it is therefore necessary to recite verses during all stages of the work process. And if you do not want to learn the verses which a carpenter should recite while working, then do not practise the profession either, because otherwise on Resurrection Day your face shall be black and you shall feel shame; the angels might say: ‘Oh God, who is this black-­faced man? Tell us!’ And God will say: ‘He was a carpenter who practised his profession without learning the verses assigned for carpentry’. Not only on Resurrection Day shall he be punished, but even on earth he will be crippled. So when you take the saw, recite the following verse: ‘In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Indeed He has knowledge of whatever is hidden and whatever is publicly known’. [In Arabic] And when you take the chip-­axe, say ‘[verse from the Qorʾan]’, and when you take the drill say ‘[verse from the Qorʾan]’, and the drill says ‘[verse from the Qorʾan]’, and the plane says ‘[verse from the Qorʾan]’, and the chip-­axe says ‘[verse from the Qorʾan]’.15 notes  1 Atil, Levni and the Surname; Prochazka-­Eisl, ‘Guild Parades in Ottoman Literature’.   2 Discussed in Milwright, ‘On the Date of Paul Kahle’s Egyptian Shadow Puppets’, pp. 62–3, n. 89.   3 The chronicle is translated in its entirety. See Philipp and Perlemann (trans.), ʿAbd al-­Raḥmān al-­ Jabartī’s History of Egypt. For a translation of a section dealing with a parade, see Moreh, Live Theatre and Dramatic Literature, p. 78.   4 For example, see Ingrams, ‘House Building in the Hadramaut’; Serjeant, ‘Building and Builders in the Ḥadramawt’.   5 Leo Africanus (Hasan b. Muhammad al-­Wazzan al-­Fasi, d. c. 1554). See Brown (ed.), The History and Description of Africa, III, p. 884.   6 Qudsi, ‘Notice sur les corporations de Damas’, p. 23. Translated in Ibish (trans.), ‘Elias Qudsi’s Sketch of the Guilds of Damascus’, pp. 54–5. The shāwīsh (deputy to the shaykh of a guild) speaks these words prior to the girding of the initiate with a knotted belt. The fātiḥa is the opening chapter (sūra) of the Qurʾan.   7 Lane-­Poole, Social Life in Egypt, p. 34. Qahwajī (Kahwejy in the text) is the maker and seller of coffee.  8 Lewcock, Wādī Ḥaḍramawt and the Walled City of Shibam, p. 100.  9 Baldensperger, The Immovable East, pp. 267–9. 10 Lady Mary Leonora Woulfe Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia (London: John Murray, 1856). The quoted passage is reproduced in Blow, Persia through Writers’ Eyes, pp. 258–9. Omar (ʿUmar b. al-­Khattab, r. 634–44) was the second caliph. Bism Allāh (basmala; literally, ‘in the name of God’) is the standard Muslim invocation. 11 Damluji, The Valley of Mud Brick Architecture, pp. 378–9. 12 Excerpts from Mirza Tahir Vahid (fl. late seventeenth century), Dīvān-­i Riz· vān (Central Library of the University of Tehran, ms. 4344. Catalogue vol. 13, p. 3300). Translated in Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life in the Late Safavid Period, pp. 263–95 (Appendix 2). Shāna-­i tarāsh could also be transliterated as shānih-­tarāsh. 13 ʿUmar Khayyam (d. 1131). Avery and Heath-­Stubbs (trans.), The Ruba’iyat of Omar Khayyam, p. 61. Feridun (Firiydūn) and Kaikhosrau (Kiykhusraw) are both significant characters in the Shāhnāma. 14 Fakhr al-­Din Ibn al-­Mukanis, Risāla tashtamilu ʿalā muḥāwara bayna arbaʿa wa-­khamsīn nafaran

48  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s (Cairo, Taimūriyya, adab 582, fol. 5). Translated in Sadan, ‘The Art of the Goldsmith’, p. 470. Bishkās may be a type of tool, though the meaning is not clear. 15 Translated by Mohammad Azim Safi in Olesen, Afghan Craftsmen: Three Cultures of Itinerant Communities, p. 296 (from Appendix 1, ‘The Kesb Nāma’, pp. 291–309). The Qur’anic verses are not specified in the translation.

CHAPTER 4

Biographical information

The discipline of art history has, since its inception, maintained a strong interest in biography. This biographical emphasis is rooted in the belief that the creative artist (understood in the broadest sense) brings an individualised quality to the creation of visual and material culture. It is common to see books and exhibitions devoted to the collected works (and life stories) of individual artists. This elevation of the role of the artist is a social construct that was rather less meaningful in many traditions prior to the modern period. In the Islamic cultural context, for example, we find very little evidence for the creators of visual and material culture seeking to announce themselves publicly within their societies. However, authors in the pre-­modern Islamic world were interested in the lives of significant men and, to a lesser extent, women. There are many individual biographies (the foremost of which are those devoted to the life of the Prophet Muhammad) and biographical dictionaries. The latter genre (known as ṭabaqa, pl. ṭabaqāt) was particularly popular in medieval Islam, and many multi-­volume works of this type are known.1 Craftspeople are largely absent from these biographical works, only appearing when the person in question was notable for some other reason.2 An exception can be made for the finest scribes of the Qurʾan (see Chapter 23), as these men were tasked with one of the most important jobs in Islamic society. The picture changes somewhat in the sixteenth century with the emergence of short descriptions of the lives and works of major painters (usually forming prefaces to albums of paintings in royal libraries).3 This new trend was a product of the Persian-­speaking domains and perhaps reflects an increased level of connoisseurship among wealthy patrons in the eastern regions of the Islamic world (see Chapter 24). The names of artisans appear occasionally in other contexts. The earliest examples are found on metalwork and glazed pottery in the eighth and ninth centuries. Whether these names signified the actual makers of the pieces or just the owners of workshops is not clear, however. These inscriptions do suggest that certain workshops were sufficiently well known that the presence of a given name would ensure the object sold for a higher price (rather like a modern brand name). Unfortunately, we usually have no other information about the artisans themselves.4 Where more than one object is ‘signed’ in this way it is sometimes possible to track the movement of skilled craftsmen as they moved from one city to the next.5 A useful marker of identity in this respect is the nisba, an epithet that usually indicates a person’s place of origin (qudsī for an inhabitant of Jerusalem, mawṣilī for Mosul, dimashqī for Damascus and so on). There are even cases of objects being marked with the name of one craftsman and

50  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s his son (for example, glazed pots found in Cairo inscribed with the names Ghaybi and Ibn Ghaybi), presumably signifying the process of the workshop being handed from father to son. Some later sherds carry only the name Ibn Ghaybi, probably indicating that the son was now in sole charge of the operation. These inscribed objects are rare among the totality of complete objects and archaeological finds. Most artefacts, even those of the highest quality, carry no information at all about their makers. The first set of readings (one to five) are all ‘signatures’ of the types discussed above. The first is the earliest dated example on a metal object and comes from a bird-­shaped bronze aquamanile in the Hermitage. The name of the town/city is missing from the inscription (which is located around the neck of the bird), though it might well have been Basra in southern Iraq. The second example is a relief-­moulded unglazed vessel found in Raqqa, Syria, but made in the Iraqi settlement of Hira. This late eighth-­century piece carries an inscription stating that it was made for one of the sons of the caliph (known here by his honorific, ‘commander of the faithful’). The third text is more extensive and comes from an inlaid bronze vessel known as the Bobrinsky Bucket (see Figure 4.1). The vessel dates from Muharram 559 (December 1163) and is believed to have been made in Herat, Afghanistan. The inscription is significant for the number of names, including that of a prominent merchant, the ‘maker’ of the vessel and the person probably responsible for the addition of the decoration.6 The fourth text is from an elaborate inlaid brass stand (these are often known as kursīs) produced in Egypt in 728/1328. The name and titles of the sultan al-­Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun (r. 1293–4, 1299–1309, 1310–41) appear across the stand, while the information about the maker is relegated to a series of small panels directly above the six legs. He describes himself as a master (ustādh) of his

Figure 4.1  ‘Bobrinsky Bucket’. Cast brass vessel inlaid with silver and copper, Herat, Afghanistan, 559/1163; a) view; b) last section of the dedicatory inscription on the rim. Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg: IR-­2268.

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craft, but also a ‘poor slave’ when asking for the clemency of God. The last of the ‘­ signatures’ (reading five) belongs to an eleventh-­century Qurʾan. Inscriptions placed at the end of manuscripts (known as colophons) often give information about the scribes and illuminators.7 The sixth reading comes from a thirteenth-­century biographical dictionary devoted to the lives of noted physicians. The man in question, Abu’l-­Fadl ibn ʿAbd al-­Karim, was also well regarded as an engineer (muhandis) and used his knowledge of geometry to great effect in his woodworking. The account also demonstrates the enduring impact of classical Greek scholarship (in this case Euclid, fl. 300 bc) on the Islamic world. Reading seven is a European account of the practical interests of the Safavid ruler, Shah ʿAbbas (r. 1587–1629). There are other descriptions of Muslim rulers pursuing craft activities (calligraphy was a particular favourite) and some were also patrons of guilds, but Shah ʿAbbas is unusual in the breadth of his apparent talents. The eighth reading comes from the historical writings of the Persian Muhammad Khwandamir (d. 1534) and records the lives of two notable painters. Although both are lauded for their skills, the author draws a contrast between the characters of the two men, one faithful and the other willing to abandon his patron when the need arose. The next two readings (nine and ten) deal with metalworkers. The first is an account of a patten (wooden clog) maker from Damascus who would take the hajj (pilgrimage) road to Mecca each year as a porter. This arduous trek supplemented what was evidently a meagre income as a craftsman. Reading ten describes the lives of master locksmiths in Iran. These men had to adapt to a changing market and exploited the available scrap metal from modern machinery (on the challenges faced by craftspeople in the modern era, see Chapter 29). This same general issue is addressed in the discussion of master carpet makers in the Persian city of Kirman (reading eleven). The final reading (twelve) details the working practices of an architect in early twentieth-­century Saudi Arabia. The text demonstrates how a skilled artisan could receive training, but also acquire other knowledge through trial and error. * * * § 4. 1. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Blessings from God. This was made by Sulayman in the year 80 [probably meaning 180/796–97] in the town (madīna) of . . .8 § 4. 2. From [the things] made by Ibrahim al-­Nasrani (the Christian) in al-­Hira for amir Sulayman, son of the commander of the faithful (amīr al-­muʾminīn).9 § 4. 3. Ordered by ʿAbd al-­Rahman ibn ʿAbdallah al-­Rashidi, made by Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-­Wahid, worked by the ḥājib Masʿud ibn Ahmad, the decorator of Herat, for its owner the brilliant khawāja Rukn al-­Din, pride of the merchants, the most trustworthy of the faithful, grace of the pilgrimage and the two shrines, Rashid al-­Din ʿAzizi ibn Abu al-­Husayn al-­Zanjani, may his glory last.10 § 4. 4. Work of the poor slave (ʿamal al-­ʿabd al-­faqīr), who hopes for the indulgence/ pardon of his Lord, known by the name, Ibn al-­Muʿallim, the master (al-­ustādh) Muhammad b. Sunqur al-­Baghdadi al-­Sinayi. This (was completed) in the year 728/1328, during the days of our master (mawlānā) al-­Malik al-­Nasir, may his victory be glorious.11 § 4. 5. Has written it a sinning, self-­indulging slave. He finished writing it in the district (nāḥiya) of . . . on Monday the twenty-­first of Rajab in the year 428 (10 May 1037). May

52  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s God have mercy on whoever invokes his pardon for the writer, for his parents, and for those who use it in prayer and for the whole community of Muhammad, may God bless him and greet him.12 § 4. 6. Abu al-­Fadl ibn ʿAbd al-­Karim al-­muhandis (engineer, geometer). He was Muʿayyad al-­Din Abu al-­Fadl Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-­Karim ibn ʿAbd al-­Rahman al-­Harithi. He was born and grew up in Damascus. He was called al-­muhandis for the excellence of his knowledge of engineering (handasa) and his reputation for it before he forsook it for the medical profession. At the beginning [of his career] he was taught carpentry and stonecutting also, and was won by the profession of carpentry. He was influential in it and many people sought after his works. Most of the doors (abwāb) of the great hospital (bīmāristān) that al-­Malik al-­ʿAdil Nur al-­Din Zangi founded are his workmanship. I was told by S[h]ahid al-­Din b. Raqiqa: I was told by Shams al-­Din b. al-­Mutawaʿ the oculist, who was his friend, that the beginning of his interest in science (ʿilm) was when he studied Euclid (Arabic: Auqlidus) to improve the excellence of his carpentry, master its [geometry’s] details, and gain freedom in applying them. [Shams al-­Din] continued: In those days that he worked in (yaʿamala fī) the mosque of the Khatun that is below the spring of al-­Munaybaʿ west of Damascus. Every day as he travelled to the site he would memorise something from Euclid, and also unravel something of it on his way. When he was not occupied with work he studied the book of Euclid until he comprehended it perfectly and became skilled in it. Then he studied similarly the book of al-­Majasati and began reading it, and he unravelled it and turned his attention to the profession of engineering and discovered in it a good omen. He busied himself with astronomy (ṣanāʿat al-­nujūm) and constructing astronomical tables (zījāt). And at that time the eminent [scientist] al-­Tusi had arrived in Damascus, and he was distinguished in geometry (handasa) and the mathematical sciences (al-­ʿulūm al-­riyāḍīya). There was not another in his age like him, and [Muʿayyad al-­Din] joined him and studied under him and learned many things from his [store of] knowledge. He also studied the profession of medicine with Abu al-­Majd Muhammad b. Abu al-­Hakim, who persuaded him of the truth of remaining and abrogation [relating to Qurʾanic verses]. He wrote many books about the sciences of medicine and the profession of medicine. Among his writings are sixteen books about Galen (Arabic: Jalinus) . . . It was he who rebuilt the clocks (al-­ṣāʿāt) of the Great Mosque (al-­jāmiʿ) of Damascus. He declined pay for this . . . He died in 599/1202–1203 in Damascus, at [the age of] about seventy.13 § 4. 7. Shah ʿAbbas I was proud of his knowledge of several crafts; he enjoyed making scimitars, arquebuses, and bridles and saddles for horses, weaving cloth, and distilling salts, oranges, flower water, and medicaments; and in short, with all mechanical crafts, if not perfect, he was at least somewhat conversant . . . It is not a matter of great surprise to learn of Shah ʿAbbas I’s pleasure in mechanical arts, because in the Levant and especially Persia a man is considered ignoble and is not esteemed, even when of high rank, if he does not know some arts or crafts; and often fathers have been asked what crafts they practised.14 § 4. 8. Mawlana Hajji Muhammad Naqqash. He was the master of the arts of his time, and with the brush of imagination he depicted marvellous things and wonderful forms working in gold. Several times he made an attempt to bake Chinese vessels, and after much trial

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and unremitting effort the forms of the vessels he made closely resembled those of China; but the colour and purity of them was not as it ought to have been. Among the inventions of Mawlana Hajji Muhammad was the case of a clock which he fixed in the library of Nizam al-­Din ʿAli Shir. In this case he put a statue with a stick in its hand, and one hour after sunrise the statue beat its stick once on the drum in front of it, and after the lapse of two hours it did so twice and so on. Mawlana was for a long time director of the library of Amir ʿAli Shir, but at last, having fallen out with him, in the months of 904 (= ad 1498–9) when Mirza Badiʿ al-­Zaman was engaged in besieging the city of Herat, he ran away and attached himself to that prince, and was appointed to the same post. He died at the beginning of the conquest of Abu al-­Fath Muhammad Khan Shaybani. . . . Mawlana Qasim ʿAli. He was one of the honoured men of learning and is distinguished for his generosity and innate liberality. From his early childhood he has devoted himself to the attainment of various branches of knowledge by observation and intellectual effort, and he is thoroughly acquainted with the art of drawing gold thread and of gilding. He is well known for his self-­denial and his righteousness, for his virtue and integrity. He has had the good fortune to make the pilgrimage of Islam and to perambulate the holy shrine of the Prophet. In the perfect integrity of his soul he has written nothing but loyalty on the tablet of his heart with the pen of reflection. At the time when Amir Khan Mawslu was governor of Herat, on the invitation of Sultan Mahmud he left his home for Sistan and is living there up to the present day, and enjoys all honour and respect in the chair of teaching and instruction.15 § 4. 9. The salary of a footman driver is about £8 English money to Mecca; but since a good part of the pilgrimage will go home by ship, the many dismissed servants must seek a new shift for themselves in returning upward. In our company of a score most of the lads were novices: the mukowwems are fain of such ghrashîm, or raw haj prentices which serve them without wages, receiving only the carriage of their food and water. But the foremen are every year in the Haj, and of this voyage is most of their living: besides there are many whom their old pain so enamours of the sacred way, that they will fare anew and cannot forsake it. And though the akkâms be reputed wild and rude, yet amongst our crew but one and another were brutish lads, and the rest poor young men of Damascus, commonly of an honest behaviour. Their rayîs or head received double money, or £16 English: this was a wayworn man, one Abu Rashîd a patten-­maker, lean as a rake. Two-­thirds part of the year he sat at home in their sûk, under the great cathedral mosque at Damascus: but the haj month come about (whereto their lent month last before, filling the body with crude humours, is but an evil preparation) he forsook all, and trudging four months revisited the blissful Harameyn and brought again of that purgatory of fatigues a little money, to the sustenance of his honest family.16 § 4. 10. The few locksmiths still found in Chal Shotor talk about their own teacher, Ostad Hosayn, who died about ten years ago. Ostad Hosayn himself was once the apprentice of Ostad Abdollah who, in addition to lockmaking, was well acquainted with other crafts such as gunmaking, architecture, and carpentry. Ostad Hosayn’s former apprentices tell how Ostad Abdollah and six of his friends ran out of money while on pilgrimage to Mecca and how, to support himself and his friends, Ostad Abollah took up lockmaking there. In this work he was so successful that he not only made numerous locks for the

54  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s notables of Mecca but also had the honor of fashioning one for the door of the Ka’aba. During his one-­year stay Ostad Abdollah earned enough to support himself and all his friends and to return to Chal Shotor with his pockets full of money . . . With the introduction of Western machine-­made tools and equipment into Iran starting in the last century, many locksmiths began to find materials for their locks among various parts and pieces of worn-­out and discarded machines, pipes, and automobiles, and so forth, rather than going to the trouble of producing the locks from the raw materials formerly used. One of the consequences of this change was the increasing uniformity of locks made in Iran in terms of both their shape (most are now tubular) and their materials (more frequently iron and steel). With the rapid transformation of Iran brought about by modernization and industrialization, the traditional locksmith and his like have become old-­fashioned in the minds of many and, even worse, economically obsolete. To support themselves most have turned to making keys for the products that have displaced their own, or have taken up repairing locks, bicycles, kerosene lamps, and so forth. Those who are in the villages and more remote towns have found new work in the production of knives, agricultural implements, and the comb-­like beaters used in rug-­weaving.17 § 4. 11. I endeavoured, during my stay in Kerman in 1948, to discover examples of the work of the more famous of the Kerman designers. In this I was successful beyond my expectations . . . It is fitting that their names should be recorded here, for Kerman will not see their like again. I append the names of the most famous among them. All but two of them are dead: Mohsen Khan Hassan Khan (his son) Khashem Khan (his grandson) Ahmed Khan Ahmed Ali Khan Zeman Khan Sheikh Hossein Azizollah Ali Riza Of these men Mohsen Khan is the earliest. His son, Hassan Khan who died in 1945, and Ahmed Khan are the most renowned. . . . The genesis of a definite style of Kerman carpet – on a sufficient scale to warrant special recognition – dates from the period of the decline of the shawl industry and its gradual replacement by carpet weaving. This was about fifty years ago. As might be expected, the designers of those early Kerman carpets borrowed freely from the Kerman shawls. It is, indeed, probable that many of those carpets were designed by men who had previously been engaged in designing shawls and the fine woollen materials out of which the coats of Persian grandees were fashioned in those days . . . . . . The art which produced those carpets is almost lost; almost, but yet not quite. It is still enshrined in sackfuls of tattered scale-­paper designs which fill the dark store rooms of the more prominent carpet producers in Kerman.18

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§ 4. 12. We went to call on Ahmad ibn Suwai’ar, recently returned from Mecca, in his dingy, smoky parlour, twelve feet by ten with a pent roof. There entered an old man of seventy, a connection by marriage (rahim) of our host, seeking of Dr. ’Abdullah some remedy for his failing eyesight – a sore hindrance to his work during the past two years. He was Ibrahim ibn Salih, the leading architect and builder of the city. Starting life as an apprentice to a builder without education than what he gathered through his eyes, he rose rapidly to fame and had built the tall minaret of the Jami’ Masjid 28 years before – it was 50 dhra’, he said, or nearly 80 feet in height. He also built the Amir’s present residence, that of Muhammad al Sulaiman in which we were lodged, and in fact all the best houses in ’Anaiza. None of his monuments, he asserted proudly, had ever collapsed, and yet all had been built without any kind of design or plan, without line or plummet, in fact with nothing to guide him but his eye and his experience. ‘Look’, he said, ‘at the Rafi’ sangar which I built round and compare it with the square of the Ibn Sallum one, mine has lasted better and will stand yet for many a day’. For building the great minaret, for which earth and mortar were delivered to him on the spot, he received the sum of forty dollars. He would readily undertake to build one twice as high, but would of course build it on a wider base. I asked him how the curved facades of the ’Anaiza houses came to be developed – a very conspicuous and beautiful feature of the local architecture, though not apparently to be found elsewhere in Arabia. He claimed it as his own creation, easier to build and more enduring. A few days before I had noticed a tall minaret in the Qa’ quarter. ‘Who built that?’ I asked. ‘It leans southward’, was his curt reply. Latterly he had taken to well-­steyning without previous experience of such work, but he was now an acknowledged authority, though his failing eyes interfered seriously with a task requiring more than ordinary precision.19 notes   1 On the development of Islamic biographical writing, see Robinson, Islamic Historiography, pp. 61–6.   2 There were, however, rare instances of men who started their careers in crafts rising to high positions in government. This phenomenon is discussed in Behrens-­Abouseif, ‘Craftsmen and Upstarts in the Late Mamluk Period’.   3 On the early development of these introductory texts, see Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image.   4 Blair and Bloom, ‘Signatures on Works of Islamic Art and Architecture’. Also Blair, Islamic Inscriptions, pp. 49–52, 100–2.   5 Studies of the signatures of individual craftsmen include Allan, ‘Muhammad ibn al-­Zain’; Jenkins, ‘Mamluk Underglaze Painted Pottery’, pp. 104–12.   6 The meanings of the terms found on this, and broadly contemporary metal vessels from the eastern Islamic regions, are discussed more fully in Kana’an, ‘The de jure “Artist” of the Bobrinsky Bucket’.   7 For example, see the colophons discussed in James, Qurʾāns of the Mamlūks, pp. 34–6, 68–9, 150, 198–9.   8 See Hermitage Museum, available at: https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-­ collection/08.+Applied+Arts/117995/?lng= (accessed 9 January 2016). For a photograph of the inscription, see Blair, Islamic Inscriptions, Figure 8.47.   9 Julia Gonnella, in Miglus (ed.), Ar-­Raqqa I, pp. 57–8. 10 Translated in Ward, Islamic Metalwork, p. 74. 11 Adapted from the Arabic transcription and French translation in Wiet, Objets en cuivre, pp. 14–18. 12 Colophon of a Qurʾan written by an anonymous scribe (Chester Beatty Collection: K 16[1]). Translated in Rice, The Unique Ibn al-­Bawwāb Manuscript, p. 26.

56  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s 13 Ibn Abi Usaybiʿa (d. 1270), ʿUyūn al-­anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-­aṭibbāʾ, (ed.) N. Rida (Beirut, 1964), II, 190–1. Translated by Terry Allen and reproduced here in slightly abridged form (missing sections refer to his study of Muslim traditions, literature, grammar and poetry). See: http://www.sonic. net/~tallen/palmtree/ayyarch/ch11.htm#muayyad (accessed 8 June 2016). Reproduced in slightly adapted form in Bloom, ‘Woodwork in Syria, Palestine and Egypt’, p. 132. See elsewhere in the article for pieces made by this craftsman. Al-­Tusi mentioned in the quote is not the famous Nasir al-­Din Tusi (d. 1274). The hospital of Nur al-­Din (r. 1146–74) was one of the most famous in the Islamic world. 14 The account of one Simon, a Carmelite priest. See Herbert Chick (ed.), A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia: The Safavids and the Papal Mission of the 17th and 18th Centuries (London, 1939), I, p. 386. Quoted in Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life in the Late Safavid Period, p. 41. 15 Muhammad Khwandamir (d. c. 1537), Ḥabīb al-­siyar (Bombay, 1857), III, pp. 342, 348. Translated in Arnold, Painting in Islam, p. 139. For an example of a much less flattering biographical sketch of a painter, see Sadiqi Bek (d. 1610), Majmaʿ al-­khawass, introduction and translation from Chaghatay Turkish by A. R. Khayyampur (Tabriz, 1948), p. 237. English translation in Welch, Artists for the Shah, pp. 71–2. 16 Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, I, pp. 101–2. The making of pattens (in Arabic, qabqāb) is discussed in Milwright, ‘Wood and Woodworking’, pp. 301–2. On the activities of the ʿakkam (porter), muqawwim (supervisor) and other craft specialists associated with the hajj, see Milwright, ‘Trade and the Syrian Hajj’. 17 Tanavoli and Wertime, Locks from Iran, pp. 19–20. Chal Shotor (Chāl Shutur) is a village near Shahr-­i Kurd in the southwest of Iran. 18 Edwards, The Persian Carpet, pp. 207–8. 19 Philby, Arabia of the Wahhabis, pp. 253–4. The ‘city’ mentioned is ‘Anaiza. The footnote to the issue of curved walls reads: ‘The word is mubram, apparently applied indifferently to convex and concave curves. The latter also appears to be called muk’ab’. Dhra’ (dhirāʿ) is a cubit or c. 0.5m.

CHAPTER 5

The lives of artisans and artists

Our information about the everyday lives of craftspeople and artists is very limited through most phases of Islamic history. In more recent times there have been ethnographic studies of individuals and groups practising different craft specialisms. These studies often contain interesting insights into the personalities of makers and their economic circumstances. For earlier periods, one has to rely upon the chance survival of writings, either by artisans themselves or by others describing their activities (see Chapter 4). Most men and women before the modern period were illiterate. Archaeology often represents the best means to reconstruct the lives of non-­elite groups.1 There were some skills, such as those of the scribe, where a high level of literacy was a sine qua non, but it was perfectly possible to operate effectively in most crafts without such knowledge. Even the addition of inscriptions did not always require a perfect knowledge of written Arabic or Persian; inscriptions could be copied from other objects, leading to mistakes, or a scribe could be employed to produce a model. Pseudo-­epigraphy (i.e. designs that copy the appearance of writing) was also common.2 Craftsmen did, on occasion, produce technical manuals, but these works are not very informative about the quotidian dimensions of the workshop. One needs to turn instead to primary documentation about workshops, short references in historical or geographical works and the observations made by travellers and other visitors to Islamic regions. The first reading is a document from an album in the Topkapı Library. This unique text is a progress (arzadasht) report from a Timurid (1370–1507) workshop and gives a detailed insight into the work conducted by a series of skilled artisans employed by an eastern Islamic ruler. Reading two also  comes from a Topkapı album and was probably written by Shaykh-­Muhammad al-­Imami al-­Harawi, who worked for Sultan Yaʿqub (r. 1478–90) and Rustam Aqqoyunlu (r. 1492–7). This touching letter records the loss of a treasured inkpot. Clearly, the expense of a (porcelain?) object of this type was considerable.3 The third reading is the account of a rebellion in Alexandria in 1327. The governor, al-­Karaki, had been persuaded to sell all the silk produced in the city through one outlet (qaysāriyya), to the detriment of the interests of the weavers themselves. This narrative illustrates the extent to which such skilled workers could threaten the authority of the governor. Reading four is a legal document detailing the case made against the head (shaykh) of the guild of jewellers in Jerusalem in the early seventeenth century. The judge (qāḍī) evaluates the competing claims by ordering another jeweller to repeat the commission. Although both the shaykh and the second jeweller are Christians, there is no evidence to suggest that the

58  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s judgement against the former was motivated by religious discrimination. The fifth reading is a reflection on the financial problems suffered by artisans in early twentieth-­century Antioch. Their failure to keep written accounts and inability to understand the implications of excessive borrowing seems to have led many of them into financial insecurity. It is noteworthy that engraved seal rings had the same legal status as written signatures for those unable to produce the latter. The sixth reading is an account of the circumstances of a young smith from Haʾil (Saudi Arabia) in the late nineteenth century. Written by Charles Doughty (d. 1926), this text illustrates the relatively low social status of such craftsmen in North Arabian society. This contrasts with evidence from Yemen, where it was not uncommon for members of local elites to practice the craft of blacksmithing.4 * * * § 5. 1. Petition from the most humble servants of the royal library, whose eyes are as expectant of the dust from the hooves of the royal stead as the ears of those who fast are for the cry of Allahu akbar, and whose joyful and gleeful shout of ‘Praise be unto God who hath taken away sorrow from us! Verily our Lord is ready to forgive and to reward’ (Qurʾan 35:34) reaches the apex of the celestial sphere. Amir Khalil has finished the waves of the two sea scenes of the Gulistan and will begin to apply color. Mawlana Shihab has applied gold to the frontispiece illumination, four cartouches, and the finials of the frontispiece [in preparation] for painting, and he has outlined eight rosettes within the frontispiece illumination and is at present busy with another scene in the repair of the Gulistan. Mahmud has completed the groundwork for seven out of the ten cartouches for the Divan of Khwaju and is working on the Shahnama. Mawlana Muhammad [b.] Mutahhar has finished writing 25,000 verses of the Shahnama. Mawlana Shams has finished one kashti and has done the groundwork for one ­cartouche for the Divan of Khwaju. All the painters are working on painting and tinting seventy-­five tent poles. On the day this report is being written Mawlana Ali is designing a frontispiece ­illumination for the Shahnama. His eyes were sore for a few days. Mawlana Qiwamuddin has finished the arabesque margins for the binding of the Shahnama and has taken up the brush for the pleasure scene of the body of the binding. The groundwork is nearly two thirds done; the back, head, and neck (back and flap?) have been attached, and the groove has been drawn. Hajji Mahmud has done the body of the front and outlining for the binding of the facsimile of the Rasayil and is busy drawing the outlines. Khwaja Abdul-­Rahim is busy making designs for the binders, illuminators, ­tentmakers, and tile-­makers. Hajji and Khatai have gotten two other kashtis to the point of gilding. Ustad Sayfuddin is well again after his illness. Khwaja Ghiyathuddin has progressed in two scenes of the Rasayil to the point of the faces, and another scene is nearly there. At present he is busy repairing a scene that was spoiled in the Gulistan. Mawlana Shams lacks one section of making a facsimile of the treatises in the late khwaja’s hand.

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Khwaja Mahmud has finished the front and back of the binding for Khwaja’s calligraphic treatises and is busy with the head and neck (flap?). Khwaja Ata has finished the sections of the Gulistan and the main cartouche for the history that Mawlana Saʿduddin has copied. Mawlana Saʿduddin has finished the lid of the begim’s little chest, and one side of it is ready for the final touches. The door panel that remains will be completed in fifteen days. Another kashti has been almost finished by Abdul-­Salam. There was a design by Mir Dawlatyar for a saddle. Khwaja Mir Hasan copied it, and Khwaja Mir’s son Mir Shamsuddin and Ustad Dawlat-­Khwaja are busy executing it in mother-­of-­pearl. Your most humble servant, the most miserable speck of dust, has finished writing three and a half sections of the Shahnama and has begun to write the Nuzhat al-­arwah. I shall cut this short with an invocation, and what better can I do than make an ­invocation? May fortune be eternal, through Muhammad and his family.5 § 5. 2. Petition from Shaykh-­Muhammad, the least of His Majesty’s servants. I had a China inkpot with which I used to write. Two days ago it was broken, and for this reason I am much upset. It is besought that [His Majesty] grant in alms an inkpot with which I may write and be engaged in constant prayer for [His Majesty’s] good fortune.6 § 5. 3. Before all of this by about twenty days, there came to the governor two middlemen (samāsira, sg. simsār) from the storehouse known as the Qaysāriyya of the ʿAjam and said: The middlemen of the qaysāriyya have agreed with the silk weavers, and likewise with the criers (dallālīn, sg. dallāl) that they would buy [the silk] from them [directly] and take their commission from the merchants (yaʿtābūna min al-­qazzāzīn wa-­ yakhudhū min al-­tujjār al-­samsara). The additional charge [thus] will fall on the strangers, especially the foreigners (wa-­an yaqaʿu al-­ḥayf ʿala al-­gharīb, khuṣūṣan al-­ʿajam). [Accordingly] they have made most of the selling of goods, the buying of textiles, and the selling of crops in [other] bazaars and storehouses, and thus the revenue of the sultan and the people was lost in those [transactions]. So the governor decreed that nothing will be bought and sold except in the Qaysāriyya of the ʿAjam, and any one who sells in [other] storehouses will be disciplined. Ibn al-­Sabbab continued: [Thereafter] the affairs of the silk weavers were ruined. So, before this incident, they had gone [then] to the aforementioned gate and threw stones at the governor and he ordered it shut between him and the people, fearing [more] stoning and [further] disturbance. In the meanwhile, a man from Alexandria named Ibn Ruwaha came to the governor and apologized for those of the ignorant and of the silk weavers who acted in such a manner, and secured [from the governor] his decree that the [silk weavers] could conduct their business as they had done before. And the affair was settled. But [some informants] kept giving the governor information by saying [the proverb]: ‘Oil is only extracted in the presses’, and similar talk.7 § 5. 4. On 13 Rabīʿ al-­Awwal 1033 (4 January 1624) Muḥammad ibn Nuhaysi sued the Christian Arslan, sheikh of the jewellers’ ṭāʾifa (al-­ṣuyyāgh) in Jerusalem. In his claim the plaintiff declared that he had paid the sheikh 11 ghurūsh riyāl (Spanish reals) and 8 Egyptian qiṭʿa, worth of ghurūsh asadi (Dutch löwen rikstalers). In return the sheikh

60  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s was to buy one hundred dirham of silver, and cast a sheath for the plaintiff’s sword. The plaintiff claimed that the defendant bought impure silver, and stamped it with the stamp for pure silver, to deceive the client. The defendant claimed that, on the contrary, he bought more silver than he was asked to buy – 122 dirhams – and therefore the plaintiff owes him 2.5 ghurūsh more. In order to check both claims, the qāḍī ordered that the sheath in question be melted down, and the silver content examined. Another jeweller, a certain Constantine, was summoned to melt down the sheath in the presence of the qāḍī, but while this examination was taking place, the defendant was caught throwing 15 dirham into the melting pot. When the examination was over the pots were found to contain only 105 dirhams [and not 115 dirham, as would have been the case had the 15 dirhams thrown in by the defendant been added to 100 dirhams in the bowl]. In view of the result the qāḍī ruled that the defendant is a liar and a forger, and is not worthy of the title of sheikh ṭāʾifa. He is to be chastised and removed from his office.8 § 5. 5. Borrowings by the craftsman. – To the discomfort that results from low wages of the labourer can be added that which arises from his borrowings. Most artisans keep no written accounts: they buy on credit the materials they need or, preferably, using a deposit left by the customer. The absence of any written accounts results in a considerable level of disorder, and it is not rare to find craftsmen who over the course of 3 or 4 years dissipate the little capital they have invested in their enterprise without knowing how or why all this has occurred. We must attribute the cause of the shortcomings first to their accounting practices, and then to the reckless loans they take out with neighbourhood money-­changers, the ‘ṣarrāf’. Three kinds of procedure are used by the ‘ṣarrāfs or by the benevolent lenders to ensure the repayment of amounts they loan [to the artisans]: a) where the borrower enjoys a strong reputation for honesty and income, the lender signs a simple IOU; b) if the lender has any doubts, he also requires the signature of two or three guarantors who undertake to return the amount if the borrower fails to make the repayment; c) if the restitution of the sum seems really uncertain, the creditor also requires jewellery or valuables for which he signed an acknowledgment of filing and delivers it to the borrower. Many employers and workmen do not know how to write or not having a sufficiently personal signature, make use of engraved copper seals bearing their signatures, and [from these] they are never separated. The seal engravers are recognised by law and would be prosecuted if they were to engrave the same signature for two different people. The minimum annual interest rate can be estimated at 15%, but it is not uncommon for it to be 50% or even 60% . . .9 § 5. 6. There was a young smith Seydân who sought me out; and many an Arabian sâny imagined he might learn a mastery of the Nasrâny, since from us they suppose the arts to spring and all knowledge. When a lad he had come with his family, footing it over the deserts two hundred miles from Hâyil his birth-­place, to settle at Teyma. He was one of those who last winter passed by the kella of Medáin to el-­Ally. I entered their workshop to bespeak a steel to strike fire with the flint, – a piece of gear of great price in the poor desert life, where so cheerful is the gipsy fire of sweet-­smelling bushes: – there is a winter proverb of the poor in Europe, ‘Fire is half bread!’ Their steel is a band of four inches, which is made two inches, the ends being drawn backward upon itself. When he had beat out the piece, the long sunlight was low in the west. ‘We may not all day labour’, said the

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young smith, ‘in Ramathán’; and rising, with a damp clout he wiped his honest smutched face, and as he shut up the shop he invited me home to drink coffee in his dàr. . .The smith’s home was the last going out of the town beyond Khálaf’s, small, but well built of clay bricks. The former year he and his brother had made it with their own hands upon a waste plot next the wilderness, and in Hâyil wise; they thought but meanly of the Teyma architecture.10 notes   1 For general introductions to this area of study, see Insoll, The Archaeology of Islam; Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology.   2 On the study of texts on objects and buildings, see Blair, Islamic Inscriptions.   3 On the appreciation of Chinese pottery across the Islamic world, see Kahle, ‘Chinese Porcelain in the Lands of Islam’; Carswell, Blue and White.  4 Serjeant, The Islamic City, pp. 131–2.   5 Section of a report: Topkapı Museum Library H. 2153, fol. 98a (Yaʿqub Beg Album, also known as the Fatih Album). Translated in Thackston (trans. and ed.), Album Prefaces and other Documents, pp. 43–4. Thackston identifies most of the scribes and painters in the report in the notes. Kashti probably refers to a floral scroll.   6 H. 2153, fol. 119b. Translated in Thackston, Album Prefaces and Other Documents, p. 47.   7 Shams al-­Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-­Jazari (fl. fourteenth century), Ḥawādith al-­zamān wa-­ anbāʾihi wa-­wafayāt akābir wa’l-­aʿyan min abnāʾihi, (ed.) Tadmuri (Beirut, 1998), II, p. 187 (reporting the testimony of Ahmad ibn al-­Sabbab al-­Harrani, a travelling merchant in Alexandria at the time). Translated in Ibrahim, ‘The 727/1327 Silk Weavers’ Rebellion in Alexandria’, p. 132 (slightly adapted).  8 Jerusalem Sijill 107: 1088. Translated in Zeʿevi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s, pp. 155–6.  9 Bazantay, Enquête sur l’artisanat à Antioche, pp. 63–4. The author continues with further details of the practicalities of interest payments. 10 Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, I, pp. 580–1 (slightly adapted). A sâny (in Arabic, ṣanīʿ) is a journeyman (see Glossary). Nasrâny (Naṣrānī) refers to Christians.

PART 3

Resources

CHAPTER 6

Raw materials I: minerals

Many craft activities relied upon non-­organic materials. These include pure metals and alloys (dealt with in Chapters 11–13), rocks, mineral salts and liquids such as bitumen (asphalt). Some of these could be used in the form in which they were collected, but more commonly mineral raw materials had to undergo preparatory stages before they could be used by artisans. For example, limestone was burned to a high temperature in order to transform it into lime; gypsum stone can be burned at much lower temperatures to produce a base for stucco. The collection of fuel was a major consideration, particularly in regions with little native woodland. Ethnographic studies of pottery kilns indicate that it could take several weeks to collect sufficient fuel (in the form of brushwood) for a single firing.1 Mining was also a costly and labour-­intensive activity (see Chapter 9), often requiring the financial support of the state. The transport of mineral resources, raw or processed, could pose significant challenges. In the case of heavy and potentially fragile materials such as marble and granitic stones, it was preferable to utilise rivers and sea routes for the transportation of goods.2 The first reading dates to the early thirteenth century and deals with the extraction and sale of natron, a mineral rich in sodium, from mines in Egypt. Egypt was the sole source for this valuable commodity, which was required for bleaching cloth (see Chapter 19). Natron was also used as a fluxing agent (i.e. a chemical that reduced the temperature at which silica vitrified) in the manufacture of glass (see Chapter 15).3 The second reading considers a more humble material, clay-­rich earth (in Arabic, turba).4 The collection of another relatively cheap resource, bitumen, is described in reading three. This was a major export for the Iraqi town of Hit. Reading four reviews the burning of coral in nineteenth-­century Aden in southern Arabia. The author also looks at the processes involved in preparing charcoal (see also Chapter 7) and plant ashes. The next reading is an account of lime-­burning in nineteenth-­century Palestine. The Biblical quotations are intended to support the author’s view that most of the traditional crafts of the region had altered little since the time of the Iron Age. The last set of readings (six to ten) deal with different types of hard stone. The sixth reading is written by the Persian traveller Nasir-­i Khusraw (d. 1088) and describes the cutting of ‘marble’ (in Arabic and Persian, marmar or rukhām) near the Palestinian city of Ramla. The movement of architectural elements presented logistical challenges. This is the subject of reading seven, a fourteenth-­century description of the transport of ancient granite columns along the Nile to Cairo. Reading eight is taken from al-­Biruni’s (d. 1054) work on precious stones and provides evidence for the working of rock crystal (in Arabic, billawr) in the Iraqi

66  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s

Figure 6.1  Creating jewellery with turquoise in Nishapur, Iran, 2015. Photograph: Seyedhamed Yeganehfarzand.

port of Basra. The ninth reading considers the practices of cutting precious and semi-­precious materials in nineteenth-­century Jidda in western Arabia. These workers also produced rosaries made from local coral. The final reading is a detailed account of the cutting of turquoise in the early nineteenth century. Turquoise is still worked in the region through to the present day (see Figure 6.1). * * * § 6. 1. This natron is found in two mines in Egypt. One of them is in the west province outside a place called Tarrana, there being a river between it and that city. There are two kinds, red and green. The other mine is Faqusiyya, but it does not come up to the first in quality. Natron is restricted and preserved, there being no means of access to the use of it except through the employees of the Dīwān. The amount of money spent on each qinṭār of it is two dirhams, but in the times of demand, the price of a qinṭār reaches seventy dirhams and more. The custom established at the present day therein is that when the Dīwān expends on the employees the wage for the carrying of ten thousand qinṭārs, they claim to collect fifteen thousand qinṭārs, the excess there being half a qinṭār. The contracts of the employees are made out to contract to collect that amount. The quantity of this kind required every year is thirty thousand qinṭārs. The farmers (of the natron) must deliver it from the direction of Tarrana so that the Dīwān may be secure against any shortage in weight, and the danger of loss in transit. The provision, even if it provides some protection to the Dīwān, leads to the delay of

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the full balance by the natron farmers because it is the custom of theirs that they do not take out natron they have not to deliver any money for it. They always keep delaying the taking out of the entire quantity they have to extract, or at least the major part of it so that they make a profit thereby; nor do they deliver the kind they have sold. The Arabs in truth, are safe on account of the inability of officials to control the Wadi (Natrun) and to guard it from them so that they collect the advantage of the farmers and the loss of the Dīwān. The farmers of natron have no customers among those who gain a livelihood by ­spinning. Only the bleachers (mubayyiḍ) and the owners of furnaces (tannūr) need it, and they can get it only from them (the natron farmers). So necessity drives them to buy it from them at the above-­mentioned price, in spite of the (low) sum spent on it, which is never exceeded. This department spends its money or most of it on the expenses of expeditions and the admirals of ships. Another scheme of the natron farmers is to buy a kind called shūkis which bleachers need in some of their processes. It is the custom of the officials to restrict that to write to the governors to be on the watch for it. There are some imposts on natron. In Cairo it is sold by the Miṣrī (qinṭār) and in the Baḥr al-­Sharq and the Baḥr al-­Gharb by the Jarawī (qinṭār). Thus it is also in the Ṣaʿīd, and in Damietta it is sold by the Tinnīsī (qinṭār).5 § 6. 2. Collector of clay (turāb) It [the craft] consists of the selling of the red earth (al-­turāb al-­aḥmār). And for it they go to the place of excavation and using spades (s. miḥfar) designed [for that purpose] the red earth is removed from there. Then it is placed in a small container on [the backs of] donkeys, most of which are emaciated. Each load is sold for a qarsh (piaster) or more. There is much demand for its quality and there is good business particularly during the days of winter. And it [the winter] is the season for coating roof terraces with clay and in the first part of the winter much of it is sold.6 § 6. 3. It is situated on the southern bank of the river, 180 miles above Babylon. About three quarters of a mile from the town there are some wells of bitumen. They are ten in number, and the fluid bubbles up with the hue and appearance of discoloured water. The bitumen collects on its surface, and is removed by large ladles constructed of the branches of a palm-­tree. The water is conducted into shallow hollows, and its subsidence of salt forms, next to bitumen, the staple article of export from Hit. Both articles are, however, monopolised by the Pasha of Baghdat. The bitumen, after it cools, is divided into square masses, and is transported down the Euphrates to Hillah. When exposed to the atmosphere it becomes of a stony hardness, and is used in building. Wherever the casing of a house is subjected to the action of water it is preferred to all others. Well may we exclaim ‘that there is nothing new under the sun’. Let those who deal at present so largely in asphaltum take a hint from this. The refuse serves them for burning during the calcination of lime.7 § 6. 4. Lime-­burning. – Lime, or ‘Chunam’, as it is usually called, is manufactured in Aden for house-­building purposes by Arabs, who work fifteen kilns. Lumps of coral, found on the opposite coast of the harbour, are placed in a circular oven, which is heated to a red heat; salt-­water is then thrown in, when the coral crumbles to a dry powder; wood from the interior and dry cinders from furnaces of condensers, are used as fuel. Lime is sold by a cubic measure, 1 ¾ feet square and 1 foot deep; this is called a ‘Farah’. Four or

68  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s five of these measures are sold for one dollar (equal to 2 rupees and 2 annas), exclusive of carriage. Each owner of a limekiln pays to the municipal fund a fee of Rs. 3 per quarter. Charcoal-­burning. – Charcoal is brought from the interior and the African coast; it is used by Arabs for cooking and other household purposes. Pieces of a soft kind of wood of an inch in diameter, are placed in a pit; rubbish, dry cattle-­dung, etc., are thrown in; the whole is then covered with earth, four or five holes being left to allow the smoke to escape. The mass if fired, and, after being permitted to smoulder for four to six days, the covering of earth is removed, and the charcoal is ready for use. It is sold in Aden at R. 1, 5 annas per ‘maund’ of 28 lbs. Potash or Alkali-­burning. – Aden balsam, which however is not found in any quantity in the place itself, is prepared in the Abdali and Fadhli districts. The balsam is thrown into small pits, about two feet wide by one deep, and wood is added; the mass is then set fire to, and as the sap exudes from the plant, it mingles with the ashes; the mixture is then stirred and allowed to cool, when it is dug up and sent to Aden on camels for sale. The price is 8 annas per maund of 28 lbs, and the potash is exported to Bombay for washing purposes.8 § 6. 5. Lime-­burning is another minor industry which occupies many Fellahîn, especially during slack periods. The lime which is used in building is all produced in the country. As already mentioned, the rock formation of Palestine is almost exclusively limestone, which is burnt into lime in kilns called Latûn or Kibârah. A circular hole, 10 to 15 feet in diameter, is dug in some convenient spot, and lined with dry masonry. A quantity of stone, preferably of the harder sorts, and of suitable sizes, is collected, and is then built up over the top of the circular pit in the form of a dome, in the following manner: Round the edge of the pit is placed a row of large stones, partly projecting inwards. On them other layers of stones are placed, each successive layer projecting rather more than that beneath it, the process being continued till the central opening is small enough to be closed by two or three long pieces of stone. Smaller stones are placed on this pile to a considerable height, earth being heaped up all round to keep in the hot air. A hollow some 10 feet deep is thus left underneath the mass, and into this hollow fuel is fed through a sloping opening. Another hole is often made on the side facing the prevailing wind, in order to supply the kilns with sufficient air. The fuel most commonly used is the Netsh, already mentioned, a low thorny shrub which grows abundantly throughout Palestine. This is cut and piled in small heaps to dry some time before the lime is burnt, a large stone being placed on each little heap to keep it from being blown away by the wind. These heaps of thorns cut for the lime-­kilns form at times quite a feature in the landscape, and are no doubt referred to in Isaiah xxxiii.12. The fire, once lit, is kept going day and night, and as these lime-­kilns are often out in the open country, at a considerable distance from the villages, the men who work them sleep out by them, the women bringing them food and water two or three times a day. Each addition of fuel causes a great volume of dense black smoke to rise from the kiln, and on a calm day these columns of smoke can be seen from very long distances. To such kilns, and to these columns of vapour, does the sacred historian liken the smoke of the burning cities of the plain (Genesis xix.28). To burn the stone thoroughly requires from two to seven days, according to the size of the kiln, the nature of the fuel, and the regularity with which the fire is kept up. The method is a very wasteful one, as the fuel used in each kiln would be sufficient to burn a much larger amount of lime on a continuous

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system. When the mass is sufficiently burnt, the whole is left for two or three days to cool, and the lime is then removed in sacks.9 § 6. 6. There is much marble here, and most of the buildings and houses are made of sculpted marble. They cut the marble with toothless saws and Meccan sand. The saw is drawn along the length of the shaft, not across the grain, as with wood. From the stone they make slabs. I saw all colors of marble – speckled, green, red, black, white, and multicoloured.10 § 6. 7. It was said that these columns were cast in a mould (qawālib), because the people could not see any source from which such a type could have been cut, so they imagined this. But it is far from [possible] that any compound (akhlāt) should be of such hardness, but perhaps they are from a mine with tablets (maʿdin dākhil al-­lawḥāt) from the ancient towns . . . And in short, our master the sultan moved, as easily as possible, things which minds boggle. The amir Sayf al-­Din Arus al-­Nasiri was chosen from the Noble Gates to strengthen the transport of these columns. He made engineers and porters and stonemasons act in his service. Letters were sent to the governors in the southern region, the governors of Asyut and Manfalut and the governor of Ashmunayn and the governor of Buhansawiyya to collect men from the regions. A number of columns, and their portage to the shore of the great river, was assigned to each governor. Great wooden ships were appointed [for the columns]. They were carried in the first coursing of the Nile, so that they should be secured without fear on account of the weight of the columns. When they reached the shore at Misr, the governors of Misr and Qahira were instructed. They collected thousands of people to help them. There was great concern until they arrived and were set up in this happy mosque, where our lord the sultan set up noble buildings (qaṣūran), suited to appear in Paradise.11 § 6. 8. It [rock crystal] is brought from the island of Zanj and other islands to Basrah, where the vessels are made. Large and small pieces are collected in one place. Instructions are tagged upon pieces that are to be cut and shaped and the types of vessels that are to be made from them. They are then handed over to the artisans who follow the instructions and collect high wages. These wages are far higher than those of persons who measure and put down the instructions. There is considerable difference between knowledge and the practice of that knowledge. This crystal possesses the tenuity of air and the transparency of water. If a hole, knot or cloudiness tells upon its transparency, it is masked by some etched design or inscription, requiring considerable expertise. Should this defect engulf the whole piece and remove its transparency, it is denoted rīm billūr (the dross of crystal). It is brought from Kashmir also. Some sections are uncut and some are used in the making of vessels and utensils, goblets and cups, chess pieces and counters, and pieces as large as a soap-­nut. But this variety does not approach the Zanjī kind nor is the quality of the workmanship of these people (i.e. of Kashmir) as finished as that of the Basrans. Its sections are found in mountains as well. It is found in plenty in Wakhan and Badakhshan but is not exported.12 § 6. 9. In Jiddah they cut stones that are stated as fine, even if they turn out to be far from precious: for example, the one called ‘Makkah stone’, or akikah in local parlance which – so far as I can see – is only a cornelian: from it are made rings mounted in silver, and most

70  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s vulgarly worked, and rosaries that are highly regarded by the pilgrims. Being turned into rosaries there, likewise, is black coral, known in Arabic as yasir, which is quite common in the Red Sea: the sort most esteemed for its hardness and ability to take a polish is taken southwards from Jiddah.13 § 6. 10. The vicinity of the toorquoise mines gives employment to a number of stone-­ cutters in this town; and rings or unset stones of this gem may be seen in every quarter. Several caravanserais are almost exclusively occupied by dealers in this commodity, who employ these artizans in preparing the stones for various markets. The machinery used for this purpose is very simple: a wheel composed of gum lac, and sand mixed while the first is in a state of fusion, from ¼ to ⅓ of an inch thick, is turned rapidly, by a bow and string fitted to its axle; a broad hoop of thin wood fixed, but concentric with this wheel, retains the spatterings of water and sand thrown off in its rapid revolutions; the whole is fixed to a board, which may be moved at pleasure, and behind it sits the workman, who gives the degree of polish required, by using wheels of various fineness. These toorquoises, after being cut and polished, are sorted by the merchant. Those taken from the Abdool Rezakee mine, among which are found the finest stones, are disposed of for Bockhara, whence they find their way to the Russian and other European markets, or to India, where they meet with a great sale; and the quality purchased in Persia and Turkey are of this description. But the finest stones seldom see the light in Mushed; they are most commonly smuggled out of the country, and find their way to India, by way of Herāt and Candahār; a great number are also purchased by pilgrims who resort to the shrine, every one of whom, according to his means, thinks it incumbent upon him to furnish himself with a ring of toorquoise from the sacred city. Those stones which are taken from the Kummeree and Khoorooch mines, although often rich in colour, are comparatively of small value, on account of the white specks with which they are almost always pervaded; to such an extent sometimes, that they look as if the blue surface had been sprinkled over with a white powder; great numbers of these stones are, however, worked up for use all over the country, and are exported to Bockhara and Arabia. The Arabs do not consider the colour so much as size; the stone possessing in their opinion a sort of talismanic virtue, so that the large slabs, however imperfect, find with them a ready market, being used for seals and amulets, but the usual mode is, to set the stone in small rings of plated tin, which are put in parcels of a dozen or a score, upon a roll of old rags; and thus prepared, they are exposed for sale, and are usually brought in this shape from the Gulf of Persia to India.14 notes  1 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 116–17.   2 On the difficulties of transporting building stone in the Islamic period, see Rogers, ‘The State and the Arts in Ottoman Turkey’; Milwright, ‘Fixtures and Fittings’.  3 Henderson, The Science and Archaeology of Materials, pp. 76–90.   4 In most cases, potters collected and processed their own clay. On clays that were believed to possess specific properties and which were sold as commodities, see Raby, ‘Terra Lemnia and the Potteries of the Golden Horn’; Milwright, ‘Prologues and Epilogues in Islamic Ceramics’, pp. 73–5.   5 Ibn Mammati, Asʿad ibn Mudhahhab (d. 1209), Qawānīn al-­Dawānīn (Cairo 1308/1900–1), p. 23. Translated in Serjeant, ‘Material for a History of Islamic Textiles’, pp. 116–17.

raw materials i: minerals    6  7  8  9 10

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Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, I, p. 67. Translated by the author. Wellsted, Travels to the City of the Caliphs, I, p. 315. Baghdat is Baghdad. Hunter, An Account of the British Settlement of Aden, pp. 81–2. Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land, pp. 243–5. Nasir-­i Khusraw, Abu Muʿin Hamid al-­Din (d. 1088), Safarnāma. In Thackston (ed.), Nāṣer-­e Khosraw’s Book of Travels, p. 20. This text describes the craft in Ramla. Meccan sand is noted above as being available on the Palestine coast. 11 Ibn al-­Dawadari (d. 1313), Kanz al-­durar. In Roemer et al. (ed.), Die Chronik des Ibn ad-­Dawadari, IX, pp. 382–3. Translation in Jakeman, Abstract Art and Communication, Appendix 1. 12 Al-­Biruni, Abu al-­Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad (d. 1048), Kitāb al-­jamāhir fi maʿrifat al-­jawāhir. In Said (trans.), Al-­Beruni’s Book on Mineralogy, p. 159. Later in the account, al-­Biruni considers the different theories concerning the origins and characteristics of rock crystal. 13 Didier, Sojourn with the Grand Sharif of Makkah, p. 62. First published as Séjour chez le Grand-­Chérif de la Mekke in 1857. 14 Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasān, pp. 468–9. The modern spellings of the cities mentioned are Mashhad, Kandahar and Bukhara.

CHAPTER 7

Raw materials II: plants

Plants have been employed in countless ways by artisans throughout the Islamic period. Wood was used for everything from building to the production of furniture, tools and containers. Some woods, particularly imported tropical species, were employed in dyeing. Flexible branches from willow trees could be woven into baskets, while the fibrous elements of date palms – both the central spines of the leaves and the material gathered from the trunks – could also be woven into a variety of products, including ropes and matting. River reeds, too, could be cut into strips and woven to make mats and baskets (see Chapter 17) and even found architectural applications (see below). During the Islamic period, both cotton and flax were cultivated for textile manufacture.1 The finest linen and cotton fabrics were highly prized and traded, both within the Islamic world and across the Mediterranean to Europe. The ancient craft of making sheets of papyrus relied upon the pith within the papyrus plant (Cyperus papyrus). Paper is another plant-­based writing material.2 One of the best known dyes is indigo, a plant which produces a potent blue colour, much used in textiles.3 The creation and use of dyes required knowledge of mineral agents such as alum (see Chapter 19). Plants, including henna and saffron, produced dyes, while other plant products were ground up to form pigments for use in painting. Resins and gums were extensively used in pre-­modern medicine,4 but also found applications in painting as the binders for the pigments (see Chapter 24). In the early Islamic period artisans producing glass and glazes for pottery discovered that an alkali-­rich ash (i.e. containing high proportions of sodium and potassium) could be made by burning certain types of plants that grew in arid and semi-­arid regions of the Middle East. There is already evidence of this process in the late eighth century in Syria. In more recent times these ashes were also purchased for the manufacture of soap. The French traveller Volney (d. 1820) notes that much of this was produced by local Bedouin.5 The first reading comes from the travel account of the German pilgrim Felix Fabri (d. 1502) and talks about the characteristics of the Egyptian date palm. Later in his text, Fabri writes about this fibre being used for ropes and the leaves for baskets. The second reading describes the bushes from which the gum tragacanth was collected in Iran. The third reading describes the creation of indigo dye in Egypt in the early years of the nineteenth century. The author notes the need to improve the manufacture of this product in order to make it a generator of export revenue. The fourth reading looks at the unsuccessful use of reeds as a building material in the early

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Islamic city (miṣr, pl. amṣār) of Kufa in Iraq. This material was employed in later periods, particularly in conjunction with mud brick architecture. A famous example of this technique is the construction of the walls of the round city of Baghdad (see Chapter 2). Reeds also remain in use for building among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq (see Chapter 25). Reading five concerns the activities of the charcoal burners in late nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century Damascus. Charcoal was much used for cooking and for domestic braziers, but also would certainly have been employed in high-­temperature activities, such as those that used glass furnaces and forges. * * * § 7. 1. [Date palms in Egypt] grow taller and more plentifully than elsewhere; for you can see in Egypt groves of palms growing. And the palm is a noble and remarkable tree, of lasting beauty and strength, always green, keeping its leaves without fall, summer or winter, slender in the stem and hairy and of great height . . . The trunk is strong and of close texture . . . but it is not of wood like other trees, for the trunk can be reduced by hand to nothing by pulling off the fibres, for the whole trunk is a bundle (compaginato) of hemp.6 § 7. 2. We followed our track of the day before, along the Badavar River, by the village of Noah, through cultivated land: then turned south, where there are no villages, but rolling downs for miles, covered with thorny bushes of gum tragacanth which the Lurs collect and sell in the towns: every plant has a small pit dug round it, the stem is incised thrice a year at an interval of a week or so, and the gum oozes out ready to be sold. These pits make the most irritating country to ride over, as bad as the rabbity bit of Dartmoor.7 § 7. 3. I rode on the morning of the 20th to Heliub, situated at a distance of two miles and half to the north of the camp. The inhabitants were busied in preparing the indigo plant for use. To this end plants were cut into small portions, and thrown into warm water, in which having lain simmering for a short time, they were, together with the liquor, thrown into earthen jars. In this state the liquor very soon acquires a blue colour. . . . At five in the afternoon we arrived at the village of Benofah, and, having landed, found the inhabitants busy in preparing the indigo, of which a great consumption is made throughout Egypt. I have already touched on the processes employed, in detailing the particulars of my visit to Heliub; but on this latter occasion I was enabled to examine the cakes procured from the sediment of the beaten and macerated plant. If greater pains were to be bestowed by the natives of Egypt in the manufacture of this dye, the quality of the plant from which it is obtained is so good, that it would become a very valuable and extensive article of commerce.8 § 7. 4. Then the people of al-­Kufa asked permission to use reeds as building material. The people of al-­Basra put in the same request, whereupon ʿUmar said, ‘Living in an army camp is easier for you to mount your military operations from and is more convenient, but I do not like to disagree with you; what is this reed anyway?’ They answered, ‘It is like ʿikrish (i.e. flax), when it is watered it puts forth stems and produces reeds’. ʿUmar replied, ‘You do what you think best’. Thus the people of the two garrison cities used reeds as building material. Then fires occurred in al-­Kufa, as well as in al-­Basra, the most

74  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s vehement one occurring in the former. Eighty roof structures were destroyed, not a single stem of reed being spared. That was in the month Shawwāl, the people never stopped talking about it. Saʿd [b. Abi Waqqas] dispatched a few of the victims of those fires to ʿUmar to try and obtain the latter’s permission to use bricks for building. Thus they approached ʿUmar with news about the fire and what losses they had incurred. No detail was left unmentioned; they did not touch on anything without asking his advice. ʿUmar said, ‘Go ahead, but let nobody build more than three rooms for himself and do not let one build higher houses than the other. If you adhere to what is generally recognized as proper, you will thrive’.9 § 7. 5. Charcoal burner (faḥḥām) The faḥḥām sells charcoal (faḥm). And ‘the charcoal’ is burned from holm oak (sindiyān), [that] they cut from woods and plantations, and they place in a big ‘pit’ (wahda) and burn it with fire, igniting it together and roasting it by covering it over with earth (turāb). He leaves it until it is extinguished, and then it is placed into sacks made from sacking material and [taken] to Damascus. They sell it to those who wish to buy it. There is a very good market in the time of autumn, and on the eve of winter. Then the population of Damascus makes use of charcoal for warming their houses, and some use it for cooking . . . it is in demand for many braziers, and can increase in price [at times of high demand]. It can fetch a price of 150 qarsh (piastres) for a qinṭār weight, free of adulteration. It is an activity earning very plentiful profits. Some of the dealers in charcoal – because they do not fear God, the Highest – adulterate it with stones and powdery [charcoal] known as ‘the crushed’ (al-­daqq). And they do not seek out repentance and the forgiveness of God upon them.10 notes   1 For references to the trade in Islamic textiles in the medieval Mediterranean, see Ashtor, Levant Trade in the Late Middle Ages, passim; Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, pp. 27–49.   2 For a general history of papyrus, see Parkinson and Quirke, Papyrus. On Islamic paper, Bloom, Paper Before Print.   3 On the origins and use of indigo across the world, see Balfour-­Paul, Indigo in the Arab World; Balfour-­ Paul, Indigo.   4 For example, see Majno, The Healing Hand.  5 Volney, Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie, pp. 347–8.  6 Fabri, Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae, Arabiae et Egypti Peregrinationem, (ed.) C. D. Hassler (Stuttgart 1843–9), III, p. 137. Translated in Prescott, Once to Sinai, p. 164.  7 Stark, The Valley of the Assassins, p. 11. For more on the forestry in Iran, see Wilber, Iran: Past and Present, pp. 117–18.  8 Wittman, Travels in Turkey, Asia-­Minor, Syria, and Across the Desert into Egypt, pp. 313, 355.   9 Al-­Tabari, Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Jarir (d. 923), Taʾrīkh al-­rusul wa’l-­mulūk. Juynboll (trans.), The History of al-­Ṭabarī, pp. 67–8. The events described in this passage occurred in 17/638. 10 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 336 (Chapter 257). Translated by the author. On the employment of charcoal in the crafts of Iran, see Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 9, 36, 50, 98, 164.

CHAPTER 8

Raw materials III: animals

Animals were a valuable source of raw materials for the craftspeople of the Islamic world. The skins of slaughtered animals could be transformed into leather and furs (see Chapter 18), while the bones of larger animals could be carved. Animal gut could also be drawn out to form a durable type of thread (this could be wound with gold leaf and then woven into luxurious silks).1 As a product, ivory is most commonly associated with the African elephant, but could also encompass the tusks of the hippopotamus and the walrus. Some objects (such as pyxides and oliphants) were made solely from ivory, but it was more common to attach carved panels of this material onto a wooden support.2 Pearls were another valuable and widely traded animal product. Also employed for decorative purposes was the iridescent interior surface of the oyster shell, known as mother-­of-­pearl. This was a cheaper material, well suited for inlay into wood and other materials.3 The most important animal products were the fibrous materials that could be transformed into textiles for clothing, tents and other purposes. The first type was made from animal hair, typically of sheep, goat and camel. The rearing of animals was an aspect of the craft economy in which the nomadic peoples (such as the Bedouin) and villagers made an essential contribution (see Figure 8.1). Another important animal fibre was silk, a material drawn from the cocoons of the silk moth. The cultivation of silk also required the growing of mulberry trees, the leaves of which are consumed by the silk worms. The methods of cultivating silk worms and processing the raw silk have their origins in China, but spread west prior to the rise of Islam. Many areas of the Islamic world are well suited to the growing of mulberry, and this gave rise to important silk weaving centres in regions such as Iran and Greater Syria.4 It was only in the latter part of the nineteenth century that the silk industries of the Islamic world declined in the face of competition from Europe (see Chapter 29). The first reading is a brief account of the activities of dealers in mother-­of-­pearl in late nineteenth-­century Damascus. This merchant supplied other artisans with this precious material, particularly those who produced inlaid woodwork (see Chapter 16). Reading two describes the collection of pearls from oyster beds in the Persian Gulf. This was evidently physically demanding and dangerous work, and it is striking that the pearl divers themselves gained relatively little profit from their work (and their assistants even less). The third reading comes from a treatise on gemology written by al-­Tifashi (d. 1253). This text illustrates the complex processes often associated with the preparation of valuable materials. The fourth reading is a short account of the cultivation of silk in Beirut. This city was

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Figure 8.1  Bedouin grazing sheep and goats on stubble after the harvest, near Lake Assad, Syria, 2001. Photograph: Marcus Milwright.

one of the most important producers of silk in the Mediterranean during the nineteenth century. The remaining readings are concerned with the collection and initial preparation of animal hair. The first of these (reading five) is a detailed account of the clipping of sheep wool and goat hair by the Bakhtiari tribes of Iran. This reading gives a good sense of the economic ­considerations of these nomadic groups. The sixth reading recounts the numerous uses of yak hair – both its outer surface and the fleecy undercoat – in Afghan society. The last reading describes the crafts associated with wool and leather among the Bedouin of the Arabian peninsula and eastern Syria in the early nineteenth century. Notably, the tools used in spinning and weaving the wool were very simple and accord well with later ethnographic observations in the region (see Chapter 19). * * * § 8. 1. Dealer in mother-­of-­pearl (ṣadafjī) He is the seller of ‘mother-­of-­pearl’ (ṣadaf) which is brought [to Damascus] from the towns of it (Greater Syria), like Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and other than these two, depending upon where mother-­of-­pearl is available. It is bought by the cabinet makers (ṣanādiqiyya) and clog makers (qabāqibiyya). It is an activity that is much in demand, and one sees many [different types] according to the tastes in mother-­of-­pearl. It sells well in Damascus, and is widely available in other towns of the Ottoman empire, and abroad. This is a noble (sharīf) craft with nothing better than it in the world. And God is the cause [of all things] and there is no Lord other than Him.5

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§ 8. 2. When a boat arrives at a spot considered from the nature of the bottom as likely to prove favourable, the boat is anchored, and the crew divided into two portions; one remains in the boat to receive the oysters, and haul up the divers, the others strip naked, and jump into the sea. A small basket, capable of holding eight to ten oysters, is then handed to them, and suspended to their left arm; the nostrils are then closed with a piece of elastic horn, the diver places his foot on a stone attached to a cord, inhales a long breath, and upon rising his right arm as a signal, the rope is immediately let go, and he sinks to the bottom. After collecting as many as are within his reach, he jerks the line, and is drawn at once to the surface. Forty seconds is the average, and one minute and thirty-­five seconds the ultimatum which they can remain below. They now cling for a few minutes to the ropes suspended for that purpose over the sides of the vessel, and renew their exertions until tired, when they exchange places with those in the boat, and so on alternately, until their cargo is completed. Unopened the oysters are valued at two dollars the hundred; say upon average they bring five to the surface, that would be at the rate of about a penny for each descent. Little enough for such a laborious and unhealthy employment did they obtain the whole, but they are fortunate if, after the rapacious demands of their masters are satisfied, they get a third. No one receives any definite wages, but they are paid in certain shares, dependent on their skills as divers, or other causes. Sharks they appear to hold in little dread; but the saw-­fish was much feared, and instances were related to me of men who had been completely cut in two by these monsters. To protect themselves from the blubber which floats about in places, and if it comes into contact with them stings very severely, they envelope themselves in white dresses, and have when floating about in the water, with the sun glistening on them, a singular appearance. There are several modes of opening the shell, but most commonly it is done with a clasp-­knife, and the pearl is found embedded in the muscular portion of the fish, where it is attached to the shell. The shells are also sometimes piled up on the shore, where the heat of the sun decomposes the fish, and the pearls are at once obtained. The sheikhs levy a tax from three to five dollars on each boat, according to its size. The value of the whole produce of the season on the principal bank is estimated at forty lacs of dollars, or about eighty thousand pounds, of which it is computed the Hindoo merchants purchase and transmit two-­thirds to India, while the remaining portion finds its way into Persia and Arabia.6 § 8. 3. On Polishing Pearls When polishing pearls, one should first take into consideration whether the change is present in its own constitution or whether it occurred after usage. This is known by examining the pearl under the light of the sun: If you see that the change is all over, inside and out, and it has no sheen whatsoever, then do not bother treating it, as it cannot be polished. But if you detect some light, then the dirt is only superficial, and you will treat it as I describe: If pearls are small, they should be soaked in milk from the fig tree, the milk to be changed every three days until the pearls are clean. Another prescription: The pearls are placed in a clay container, equal amounts of soap and alkali are added, and the container is placed over a medium hot coal fire for two or three hours. The pearls will be better than they were before. Another prescription: Equal portions of peeled maḥlab, peeled sesame seeds, and camphor are powdered together, then the dough is kneaded into a ball. Place the pearls in the middle, wrapped by the dough, which you will then seal [from all sides]. Place it in

78  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s an iron ladle and cover with animal fat until it is fully immersed. Place on a low fire until it boils slightly. The yellow tint will come out, and the pearls will become white. If the pearls have a reddish tinge, you should boil them for one hour in milk, then take potash from Persia, or equal portions of alum from Yemen and camphor, powder them finely and knead them with some milk. Thickly coat the pearls with this mixture, then place them in some dough in a [clay] oven until the mixture is ready. The pearls will become white. But if they are spoilt by a coating of some sort, then take a portion of soap, an equal one of coarse salt of Andreen, and another one of lime. Put them in a glass container, add clear water, and put the pearls in this mixture. Put over a low coal fire, constantly removing the soap bubbles as they form along the way and renewing the water. Repeat the process several times, then wash the pearls with pure, limpid water. They will become clear and white and better than before. Another prescription for polishing pearls: Powdered camphor is placed in a flimsy linen rag; the pearl is placed in the middle after pounding the camphor into a fine powder. The rag is tied and placed in a glass jar containing grease of maḥlab seeds or of mercury, over a low coal fire for the time needed to count to 500. The pearls will come out clean, but if they still need more treatment, the process is repeated, and the pearls will be polished.7 § 8. 4. The cultivation of silk spreads rapidly about Beyrout, though little has been done hitherto for the improvement of the quality, and the manner of reeling has not yet accommodated itself to the English market. The mulberry tree flourishes admirably, however, on the coast, and through the more fertile parts of the Lebanon range. The arrangement generally made with the peasantry is to allow them one-­fourth of the silk for taking care of the worms, and reeling it off from the cocoons. The landowner provides the leaves, which are gathered by the peasants. He also erects the sheds in which the cocoons are kept. They are a simple barrache of reeds, without any roof, merely serving to shelter the worm from the inclemency of the weather; rain being little to be feared in the silkworm season, and a covering is easily found in case of need. The power of producing silk is very great, and a little more attention to its cultivation would render it in a few years the principal article of export; articles of export being really the great desiderata for the extension of Syrian trade.8 § 8. 5. All adult sheep are shorn at once. In spring 1972 Ja’far Qoli Rostami recruited for the duration of this operation nine people, with the help of five shepherds, to shear 600 sheep over the course of five days. The instrument used to shear is the cara. It comprises two movable blades which rub against one another by bearing at one of their ends, on a small wooden handle . . . The movements of the plates are caused by the alternating action of the left hand and right hand of the operator: the first takes the tips of the blades and, when closing, the back towards each other, causing the shearing, is located between the fixed fulcrum (axis of wood) and the useful part of the blades, the second, acting as a spring, returns them to their expanded position. Handling the cara occupies both hands of the operator, and so the animal must be held still for shearing by a second person. It [the sheep] can also be lying on the ground, the four legs joined by a rope, the shearer works then sat on the floor, legs raised on the sheep to stop [it from moving]. The fleece must be rolled to form a bundle. Wool (pasm) is purchased by merchants by weight, especially in the cities. But they do not weigh the wool on the spot; they take the fleeces (designated

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by the same term pasm), then pay later, after weighing them, at the price of 8 Toman per kilo. The weight of the fleece is very variable: 1 or 2 kg for sheep and up to 5 kg for a ram. Their counting allows the producer to get an idea of the amount owed, but is not sufficient to prevent abuses of which the nomads are often the victims. All breeders put aside their own needs for a certain amount of wool. In the case of smaller producers, this might be all of their wool. This wool will be prepared later by women . . . Goats are sheared in the same way and at the same time as sheep, but they are far fewer. The goats that lead the herd (sehis), whose imposing appearance must be reinforced by their long hair, are never clipped. Pregnant and older goats, being more vulnerable to cold, are seldom clipped. The decision is taken depending on atmospheric conditions and the needs of the moment. A goat gives an average of 0.5 to 1 kg of hair (on average) during the annual shearing. It is used in large quantities for the manufacture of tents; less readily marketable than wool, it is mainly for domestic needs. Another product of the goat, the fill or down (kazal in Lori, kork in Persian) can be collected with a large wooden comb (sonwa) in variable amounts from the fleecy animals. The kazal is not used by Bakhtiari, but it is sold for the manufacture of felt (nemet) by Qorbati artisans.9 § 8. 6. The thick and heavy coat of the yak is shorn annually in the early summer. The fine, fleecy undercoat is often mixed with sheep fleece to make felt and the long, coarse hair is spun and woven into palaas, camel and horse girths, and woven strips for tying the yurt. Yak hair is made into strings of various thicknesses that are used to sew equipment (such as felt covers) for pack and mount animals. It is also used in many hand-­crafted items, such as yurt door screens and kitchen partitions, and is ideal for making ropes that have a wide variety of uses among the Kirghiz. The long and bushy yak tails are much sought by Wakhi and itinerant traders for trade items. They are often securely woven on to one end of nicely carved sticks and sold in towns and villages of Afghanistan, as well as exported to India, where they are used as fly swatters. It is said that white yak tails have sometimes reached western European and North American markets where they have been made into beards for Santa Clauses! Yak hide is very marketable to both traders and Wakhi, as well as having many uses among the Kirghiz. Untanned but treated (oiled and softened) hide is used for making the flat-­soled, knee-­high boots commonly worn by the poor, the young, and workingmen in Kirghiz society. Some important horse tackle – reins, bridles, girths, cruppers, whips, and stirrup leathers – are also made of treated yak hide.10 § 8. 7. Among all the Bedouin tribes goat’s hair constitutes the material of the coverings of tents, and of camel and provision-­bags. The tent-­covers are chiefly worked in Hauran, and the mountains of Heish and Belkaa, where goats abound more than among the Aenezes; who, on the other hand, fabricate of wool, wheat and barley-­sacks, camel-­ bags, rowáks or (hind parts of tents), &c. The Arab women use a very simple loom; it is called nutou, and consists of two short sticks, which are stuck into the ground at a certain distance, according to the desired breadth of the shauke, or piece to be worked. A third stick is placed across over them; about four yards from them, three sticks are placed in the same manner, and over the two horizontal cross-­sticks, the woof (sádouh). To keep the upper and under woof at a proper distance from each other, a flat stick (called mensebh) is placed between them. A piece of wood serves as the weaver’s shuttle, and a short gazelle’s horn is used

80  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s in beating back the thread of the shuttle. The loom is placed before the meharram, or women’s apartment, and worked by the mother and her daughters. The distaff (meghezel el souf) is in general use among the Aenezes. At Palmyra, I saw several men using the distaff; and among the Kebly Arabs all the shepherds manufacture wool. Of camel’s hair the Arab women make bags, with which the camel’s udder is covered, to prevent the young ones from sucking: those bags are called shemle. The cords (metrek), with which the bags are tied, and okál, are the short strong cords with which the sitting camel’s thigh and shin bones are fastened together, to prevent his rising up while loaded. Camel’s hair is likewise used in knitting the mèaraka, or bonnet worn by the men. Some mix an equal quantity of wool and camel’s hair, in the manufacture of their sacks, or bags: the poorest people only make the piece entirely from camel’s hair, which is much less esteemed for its quality than goat’s hair.11 notes   1 This technique was popular in Mongol silk textiles. See Watt and Wardwell (eds), When Silk Was Gold, pp. 127–41, passim.   2 On the techniques employed in sawing and carving ivory, see Contadini, Fatimid Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 109–11; Cutler, The Hand of the Master, pp. 79–152.   3 Some of the finest mother-­of-­pearl inlay in the Middle East was produced in Ottoman-­period Syria. On this craft, see Kalter et al. (eds), The Arts and Crafts of Syria, pp. 72–5, passim.   4 On the production of silk thread in the eastern Islamic world, see Thompson, Silk, Carpets, and the Silk Road, pp. 7–13.   5 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 270 (Chapter 194). Translated by the author.  6 Wellsted, Travels to the City of the Caliphs, I, pp. 121–3. For a similar account, see Muhammad ibn Khalifa al-­Nabhani, al-­Tuhfa al-­nahbaniyya fi tarikh al-­jazira al-­ʿarabiyya VI: Tarikh al-­Bahrayn, second edition (Cairo, 1924), pp. 15–20. Translated in Rentz, ‘Pearling in the Persian Gulf’, pp. 397–402.   7 Al-­Tifashi, Ahmad ibn Yusuf (d. 1253). Part of the chapter on pearls in Huda (trans.), Arab Roots of Gemology, pp. 90–1. Three more prescriptions follow the ones given here. Maḥlab is Perfumed Cherry (Prunus Mahaleb).  8 Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria, p. 14.   9 Translated and slightly adapted from Digard, Techniques des nomades Baxtyâri d’Iran, pp. 69–70. The terms in the text can also be transliterated as pashm (wool), kurk (down) and namad (felt). 10 Shahrani, The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan, p. 102. 11 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, I, pp. 67–9.

CHAPTER 9

Mining and metal preparation

Before the advent of mechanised transport, drilling machines and modern explosives, mining was a highly labour-­intensive activity. The dangers faced by miners were considerable, and average life expectancy must have been short. One can assume that through much of the Islamic period (and in earlier periods too) most of the work was performed by slaves. It was, however, work that had to be supervised by skilled engineers. The processes involved in the extraction of metal or precious and semi-­precious stones from the rock matrix could also be complex, involving a knowledge of pyrotechnology and metallurgy. The technologies involved in mining and smelting have been examined by archaeologists and archaeological scientists.1 Massive investment was needed to bring the necessary labour, equipment and fuel to remote mines. This usually required the intervention of the state. Indeed, it was in the interests of the state to ensure the regular supply of metals such as copper and iron. Some Islamic polities had access to reserves of metals such as zinc, tin, silver and gold, as well as minerals such as alum and natron (see Chapter 6).2 Mining and smelting often occurred over extended periods of human history. For example, Wadi Faynan in the Wadi ʿAraba in Jordan has been exploited since the Bronze Age. Researchers found evidence for work on the site during the Islamic period, including both the smelting of new ore and the resmelting of older deposits of slag (the rock waste created when the pure metal has been extracted).3 In the first reading James Fraser (d. 1856) describes the mining for turquoise in the vicinity of Nishapur, Iran, in the early nineteenth century. The next section of his account details the preparation and sale of the roughly cut sections of rock containing the turquoise. The second reading addresses mining and smelting lead in Iran and the severe health implications of these dangerous activities. The third reading describes gold mining and extraction in the Baba Wali range above the Kandahar plain, Afghanistan, in the nineteenth century. The author gives a particularly detailed account of the complex processes involved in liberating the gold particles from the quartz matrix. These techniques correlate closely with descriptions given by al-­Biruni (d. 1048) and the tenth-­century geographer Ibn al-­Faqih al-­Hamadhani.4 The next reading (four) describes the processing of zinc. The principal importance of this metal is that it can be alloyed with copper to make brass. The thirteenth-­century author al-­ Jawbari supplies information about the ovens and methods used in liberating zinc for later use. The fifth reading provides an account of the methods required for the creation of niello. The final reading (six) is a commentary on the work of the influential alchemist and engineer Jabir

82  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s ibn Hayyan (known in medieval Europe as Geber, d. c. 815). This commentary outlines the processes involved in moving from ore to finished ingots of steel (see also Chapter 12). * * * § 9. 1. In visiting these celebrated mines, which alone have furnished the world from time immemorial with one of its most highly valued gems, although I did not expect to discover any great degree of ingenuity or science in the art of mining, I had conceived not only that the excavations were of great extent, but that the method of working them must by this time have been reduced to a system, however imperfect it might be; so that, at all events, the material for which they seek should neither be destroyed in their operations, nor smuggled away by the workmen. Certainly, however, although the enquiries I had made upon the subject had prepared me to be low in my expectations, I found that they were yet far above the truth. System or management there is none whatever; and nothing can be more inartificial than their mining process; neither skill nor ingenuity are exerted, no sort of contrivance is made use of to lessen the labour, or to economise either time or materials. In former times the excavations made were extensive; and though little attention appears to have been paid to regularity; still the refuse was removed and searched, no doubt, to a certain degree, as it was carried out, the interior being thus left clear. In these days they confine their operations to digging where experience has shown that fragments of the gem may be found, leaving the refuse just where it was, or moving it so slightly that it soon encumbers and even checks further progress; or they rake among the refuse of former times for what their predecessors may have overlooked: or finally, as their most extensive operation, they break down with picks and hammers, and quite at random, the rock that forms the walls and roofs of their mine, without any attention to the veins of the gem, so that many valuable pieces may be broken in the operation; and they leave the fragments just as they fall, to embarrass their future work, so that the mine soon becomes impracticable. There are no shafts or chambers formed on a regular plan; no roads constructed to remove the refuse from the horizontal excavations, nor any means adopted for raising it from those which dip downwards from the surface. If such become filled with water, they must be abandoned, for they cannot remove it. And, finally, they have not established any system by which the rock containing the precious material may be broken, or the material itself be freed from the matrix with the least possible injury. The whole of this defective management may be fairly placed to account of the wretched government, and the insecurity of property, which is the bane of every thing that might be good or valuable in Persia. The people want neither acuteness nor ingenuity, but these qualities are crushed and rendered unavailing, by want of occasion, and even by the danger of exercising them. Were any rich individual, or even the prince himself, to take in hand the whole concern, and, after establishing some system by which the produce might be assured to himself, or his farmers, were he to expend a few hundred tomauns upon the improvement of access to, and facilities of working these mines, there cannot be any doubt that, as long as the demand for the gem should keep up, the profit would be great; but no one, and least of all the king or the princes, would venture on such a speculation . . .5 § 9. 2. Here [at Nakhlak] lead is mined and smelted from the ore in a primitive way and transported on camel back to Anārak in ingots of 30 kg weight. About 100 people work in the nearby mines. They are all without their families, come from Anārak, Čupanan,

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Jandaq and other places and usually stay until they become victims of lead poisoning and are thus forced to give up their work. Young and old find work in Nakhlak, the wages are four to seven qirān a day [$.70 to $1.12]. They start work at daybreak. In the afternoon you can see the tired people coming out of the mine with their heavy picks and an oil lamp.6 § 9. 3. We descended into the great irregular pit by a steep path in its side, and saw the miners at work. The process is very rough, and simply this: A vein of quartz, from three to four inches thick, is exposed in the rock, either by the use of the pickaxe or by the use of gunpowder. The workmen then examine the vein with the naked eye, and if any particles of gold are detected, they are removed, with the surrounding portion of the matrix, by means of a chisel and hammer. The gold-­dust thus removed is collected by each workman separately in small baskets, and taken to the city, where it is treated for the separation of the precious metal, . . . . . . On return to our quarters, we found the miners ready with their implements and a small stock of quartz to show us the process by which they extracted the gold. The process appeared very simple and efficacious. The bits of quartz, ascertained by eyesight to contain particles of gold, are first coarsely pounded between stones, and then reduced to powder in an ordinary handmill. The powder is next placed on a reed winnowing tray, and shaken so as to separate the particles of gold and the finer dust from the grit. From the latter the larger bits of gold are picked out and thrown into a crucible, and melted with the aid of a few grains of borax flua. When melted it is poured into an iron trough, previously greased, or rather smeared, with oil, and at once cools into an ingot of bright gold. The fine dust left on the winnow is thrown into an earthen jar furnished with a wide mouth. The jar is then filled with water and shaken about a little while. The whole is then stirred with the hand and the turbid water poured off. This process is repeated four or five times, till the water ceases to become turbid. A small quantity of quicksilver is next added to the residue of sand, some fresh water is poured on, and the whole is stirred with the hand. The water and particles of sand suspended in it are then poured off, and the quicksilver amalgam left at the bottom of the vessel is removed to a strong piece of cloth, and twisted tightly till the quicksilver is expressed as much as it thus can be. The mass of gold alloy is then put into a crucible with a few grains of borax, and melted over a charcoal fire. The molten mass is finally poured into the iron trough mentioned, and at once solidifies into a small bar of bright gold. Such was the process gone through in our presence. Even in this there was a good deal of waste, owing to the rejection of the coarser grit. With the proper crushing machinery there is no doubt the yield would be considerably increased.7 § 9. 4. To produce tutty one builds a square oven (tannūr), and puts a shelf in the middle. One then makes a fitted lid to go over it, and makes clay sticks and fires them. When these are completely fired like earthenware, one takes yellow earth and kneads it carefully with hindabā water, and covers the sticks with it. Then one takes a large white earthenware vessel, pulverises it like millet and rolls the sticks in it. One lays the sticks in the oven on the shelf, leaving space between them through which the vapour can go. Then one puts the lid over the oven again and kindles under it wood from the green tamarisk: no other is satisfactory. When the sticks are red hot one takes them out and quenches them in hindabā. This one does thrice and after the third time one rolls the stick in the

84  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s e­ arthenware vessel. Then one lays it in the oven in the above described way. One heats it further till it is smelted. Then one stops the heating and leaves it to cool. Then the stick is taken out and hit lightly with a hammer; plates of tūtīyā fall off it of the highest ­excellence. I know seven methods for this operation and know them well.8 § 9. 5. Silver is burnt with sulphur until it becomes the colour of Indian iron. This is done by stirring the silver in the crucible, and the silver consumes the sulphur bit by bit. It is then cast in a mould and beaten out hot. If has started to cool it flies about like glass. If they want to inlay (?) silver with this (compound), they pound it up with borax (tinkār) and water, and fill the place dug out of the silver with this pulverised material. It is allowed to flow like solder in the oven and it does so. Files and rasps were then used on it.9 § 9. 6. Know, O brother, that your companions are those who cast iron (yasbikūn) in founding-­ovens (masābik) made specifically for it, after extracting it from its mine as yellow earth (the ore) in which scarcely visible veins of iron mixed. (Beforehand) they put it in the prepared founding-­ovens (furnaces) to smelt it and they set up over them powerful bellows from all directions after pounding these ferrous earths (ore) with a little of oil and alkali. And they fire it with hot coals (charcoal) and firewood and use the bellows on it until they find it has melted and that its body and substance has become free from that earth. Next they let it out in drops through holes like strainers in those furnaces (akwār). Thus that melted (cast) iron is purified, and they induce it to become rods from that earth, and they transport it to the horizons and countries and the people use it for whatever human benefits they require. As for the steel specialists, they take the rods of iron and put them in the founding-­ ovens that they have, which are suited to the steel-­treatment that they have in mind. They apply the furnaces to the steel and blow fire on it for a long time until they make it like bubbling water. They feed it with glass, oil, and alkali until there appears from it light in the fire and it is purified of much of its blackness by strong melting (sabk) for the duration of the night and the day. They continue to watch its swirling for signs until its good condition is clear to them and (this is judged by) the radiance that shines from it. Then they pour it through channels so that it comes out as though it were running water. Then they solidify it like rods or in pits of clay serving as large crucibles (bawāṭiq). They bring out of it refined steel like ostrich eggs, and they manufacture from it swords, helmets, lance-­heads and all the rest of the implements.10 notes   1 See, for example, Weisgerber, ‘Patterns of Early Islamic Metallurgy in Oman’; Trauth, ‘Les produits métallurgiques du site médiéval de Saltés’.   2 On the locations of the principal metal resources within and around the borders of the Islamic world, see Allan, Persian Metal Technology, pp. 103–33.   3 For the history of copper working at Wadi Faynan, see Hauptmann and Weisgerber, ‘Archaeometallurgical and Mining-­archaeological in the Area of Feinan, Wadi ‘Arabah (Jordan)’; Hauptmann, Zur frühen Metallurgie des Kupfers in Fenan/Jordanien.   4 These earlier accounts are discussed in detail in Allan, Persian Metal Technology, pp. 7–9.  5 Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasān, pp. 414–15.

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  6 Alfons and Agnes Gabriel, Durch Persiens Wüsten: neue Wanderung in den Trockenräumen Innerirans (Stuttgart: Strecker und Shröder, 1935), p. 61. Translated in Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, p. 16.  7 Bellew, From the Indus to the Tigris, pp. 138, 141–2.   8 Al-­Jawbari, ʿAbd al-­Rahman ibn ʿUmar (fl. thirteenth century), Kitāb al-­mukhtār fī kashf al-­asrār (Cairo, 1918), p. 37. Translated in Allan, Persian Metal Technology, p. 41. Tutty is a form of zinc oxide. Hindabā is a form of chicory, the leaves of which are used in traditional medicine. See also the account in Al-­Muqaddasi, Muhammad b. Ahmad Shams al-­Din (d. 990), Aḥsan al-­taqāsim fī maʿrifat al-­aqālim. Translated in Collins, Al-­Muqaddasi: The Man and his Work, p. 250.   9 Al-­Hamdani, al-­Hasan ibn Ahmad (d. 945), Kitāb al-­jawharatayn al-­ʿatīqatayn (ed. and trans.) C. Toll (Uppsala, 1968). Translated in Allan, Persian Metal Technology, pp. 19–20. Compare to Abu al-­Qasim’s different recipe translated by Allan (p. 20). Al-­Hamdani does not give the name of the finished substance. Abu al-­Qasim calls his alloy sīm-­i sūkhta (literally, ‘burnt silver’). 10 From commentary on Jabir ibn Hayyan (d. c. 815), Kitāb al-­ḥadīd by ʿIzz al-­Din al-­Jildaki (d. 1342). Ms. Arabic 4121, Chester Beatty Library. Translated in Hoyland and Gilmour, Medieval Islamic Swords and Swordmaking, pp. 144–5.

CHAPTER 10

City descriptions

Market law (ḥisba) is the most obvious manifestation of legal concern for the proper regulation of manufacturing and trade, but Muslim jurists also wrote on such issues as infringements of public space by commercial concerns and the contractual arrangements made either between craftsmen or between an artisan and a client (see Chapters 1 and 2).1 These legal pronouncements were mostly applicable to the urban environment, and this focus also necessitated the definition of what constituted a town/city (in Arabic, madīna). One concept developed in medieval Islam was the ‘all-­encompassing city’ (miṣr al-­jāmiʿ). The eleventh-­century jurist al-­Sarakhsi has this to say on such a settlement: ‘Some of our teachers said . . . [it is a place] in which every type of artisan can make a living from [the practising of] his craft throughout the year without having to change into another craft . . .’2 This is a useful starting point for a consideration of written descriptions of craft activities in cities across the Islamic world. In contrast to smaller towns and villages, one can expect to find the full array of utilitarian crafts within cities, as well as many others specialising in the supply of luxury items. As the quote indicates, the city is also a place where there is a sufficient market to sustain each of these activities throughout the year. To what extent does this legal ideal match up with the realities of urban life in the Middle East and Central Asia from the seventh to the nineteenth century? Potters, weavers, carpenters, metalworkers, tanners, glassworkers and others were kept continually busy in cities like Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad and Isfahan. Luxury crafts were, of course, dependent upon the economic situation, as well as the maintenance of security along the trade routes. Some cities seem to have geared their luxury production toward specific media, such as glazed ceramics or glass. These centres do not fit easily into the category of the ‘all-­encompassing city’. The same can also be said for places that are designated as cities for reasons other than the size of their population. Good examples are Mecca and Medina in the Hijaz, as well as those sites that attracted lesser forms of pilgrimage (ziyāra), including Jerusalem, Khalil (Hebron), Karbalaʾ and Mashhad. All supported some craft activities, but also attracted merchants who would bring luxury items from other regions in order to sell them to pilgrims. Simple pilgrim tokens (in Persian, muhr) continue to be made at sites such as Karbalaʾ and Mashhad (see Figure 10.1). The first two readings reflect on the conditions of urban crafts in nineteenth-­century Arabia. The first is ʿAli Bey Abbasi’s (Domingo Badía y Leblich; d. 1818) rather unflattering assessment of the crafts practised in Mecca at the time of his visit.3 The only thriving area was the

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Figure 10.1  Pressed clay pilgrim tokens (muhr) from the Pa Minar Mosque in Zavareh, 2001. Photograph: Marcus Milwright.

manufacture of vessels for holding water from the well of Zamzam (in the text, Zemzem). The second reading is a description of the town of Haʾil (Hayil) given by Charles Doughty (d. 1926). As one might expect, this settlement did not possess a sophisticated craft sector, but his account is valuable for the information it provides about the components of a small regional centre. Another relatively modest local centre, Fayyum in the Nile Delta, is the subject of reading three. This short passage is written by a seventeenth-­century traveller and notes the importance of the textile and leather crafts. The next two readings (four and five) concentrate on a much larger city, one famous throughout the Islamic period for the range and quality of its manufacturing. The crafts of medieval Damascus are discussed in detail by the Italian traveller Simone Sigoli (fl. 1384–90). There can be few more enthusiastic accounts of the luxury goods available in the Syrian capital. Many came to the city for the same reasons, and European merchants were also resident in the city within the enclosed compounds known as fondacos (from the Arabic term, fundūq).4 Reading five is from a letter written in 1928 by the noted traveller Freya Stark (d. 1993). Although the craft sector of Damascus had been considerably reduced by the early twentieth century, Stark still found much to excite her interest. The sixth reading is a more sober piece of documentation about Sidon, drawn from the archives of the French consulates in Syria. This sort of information was valuable to the French government as it planned its economic policy, particularly the export of manufactured goods to Greater Syria. The last three readings in this chapter (seven to nine) comprise accounts of Persian cities in the nineteenth century. The first is an appreciation of the crafts of Mashhad in northeastern Iran. The author, George Curzon (d. 1925), devotes considerable attention to the textiles and carpets of the city, noting their economic importance in export trade. Reading eight comes

88  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s from the early part of the century and deals with the southern city of Shiraz. Attention is paid to sword manufacture (cf. Chapter 12) – the most economically significant activity. The final reading (nine) is by the traveller and diplomat Percy Sykes (d. 1945) and concerns the textile industries of Kirman. He writes admiringly about the quality of the shawls and carpets from the city. Sykes emphasises the need to maintain traditional patterns and natural dyes (on dyeing, see Chapter 19). * * * § 10. 1. I believe there is no Mussulman city where the arts are so little known as Mecca. There is not a man to be found that is capable of making a lock or forging a key. All the doors are locked with large wooden keys, and the trunks and cases with padlocks brought from Europe. I therefore was unable to replace the key of a trunk, and that of my telescope box, which were stolen at Mina. The slippers and sandals are brought from Constantinople and Egypt; for they know not how to make them at Mecca, except indeed those of wood or untanned leather, which are very bad. There is not a single man to be found who knows how to engrave an inscription, or any kind of design upon hewn stone, as formerly; nor a single gun-­smith or cutler able to make a screw, or replace a piece of the lock of an European gun; those of the country being only able to manufacture their rude matchlocks, their bent knives, lances, and halberds. Wherever they go, their shop is fitted up in a moment: all that is wanted for this purpose is a hole made in the ground, which serves as a furnace: one or two goat skins, which one of them waves before the fire, serve as bellows: two or three palm leaves, and four sticks, form the walls and the roof of the work-­shop, the situation of which they change whenever occasion requires. There is no want of braziers for vessels in copper; but the original article comes from foreign manufactories. There are also tinmen, who make a kind of vase, which the pilgrims use to carry away some of the water of Zemzem. I discovered also a bad engraver of brass seals.5 § 10. 2. The artificers of Hâyil are few and of the smith’s caste, workers in metal and wood, in which there are some who turn out small and brittle ethelware bowls. Their thelûl saddle here is other than that of Teyma and westwards, in which the pillars are set upright. There is petty industry among the women of sewing and embroidering, with silk and metal thread, the mantles which are brought down (in the piece) from Jauf and Baghdad, – none are made here. I saw in the sûk fine skein-­silks, folded in printed papers, and such the shopkeepers ofttimes put in my hands to read for them; – but the language was English! and when I found the title it was The Bombay Gazette. Their hareem plait the common house-­matting of the tender springing palm-­leaf, as in all the oases. There are besides a few men of builders’ and carpenters’ craft, rude workers, nearly without tools, and pargeters in jiss or jips, a gypsum-­stone which is brought from the mountain, and found clotted together, like mortar, in the desert sand. The jips, broken and ground to a flour-­like powder, they mix with water, and spread it for the border and lining-­walls of hearth pits; this dried quickly to a hard white crust, shining like marble, that will bear the fire. The wood and hay gatherers who go far out into the wilderness, are Kusmân, laborious foreigners from el-­Kasîm; the nomad-­spirited townspeople of Jebel Shammar are not good for such drudging labour.6

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§ 10. 3. Here is made much Linen for the house, and Canvas to pack up the Commodities of the Country: They have a great deal of Flax which yields a great benefit; strak’d Linen is plentiful here, and very good, with which the Countrypeople cloath themselves. The Leather of this Country is much esteem’d, but chiefly the Blankets that are made here are the finest of the Levant, and are carried all over the world. Here are also made Sacks of Network of Cord, to carry upon Camels Straw, or dried Dung to burn, or Stones or some such thing, for they never use Carts.7 § 10. 4. . . . Now wishing to speak of the merchandise of Damascus, this is incredible to him who has seen not with his own eyes, so very great is the number of merchants and artisans though the whole city, within and without. In the suburbs there is not a span of ground that has not a shop. And there you find all these kinds of things which you know how to ask for or imagine: the most beautiful things in the world are found there, of the noblest and richest work, so that going sightseeing, there are such rich and noble and delicate works of every kind that if you had the money in the bone of your leg, without fail you would break it to buy all of these things, because you know not to imagine with the mind that kind of thing that is not found here, whichever way it is made. Here is made a great deal of silk cloth of every kind and colour, the most beautiful and best in the world. Here also is made a great deal of cotton, of the world’s most beautiful, so that if one saw of the finest, and he were not a perfect connoisseur, he would believe they were silk, so very fine and bright and delicate and beautiful are they. Here also is made a great deal of brass basins and pitchers, and they really appear of gold, and then on the said basins and pitchers are made figures and foliage and other fine work in silver, so that it is a very beautiful thing to see. And so of all the trades there are the most perfect and great masters, and truly the order they have among them is a beautiful and noble thing, for if the father is a goldsmith, the sons cannot ever have a trade other than this, and so they go from generation to generation, so that of necessity they must be the perfect masters of their arts. Then, their shops are so well ordered and are kept so neat and clean that they are a pleasure to see, and they are full of merchandise and packed; and the more they sell, the sooner they are refurnished, because they have stores, and the houses where they dwell are full of merchandise. Really to write of the great multitude of merchandise which is in Damascus would be a confusion to the would-­be-­writer, and still a greater confusion to him who did not see. And yet wishing to make mention of how many are the trades and kinds of things, it would be too long to narrate. It is said by the Christians who are acquainted, that really all Christendom could be supplied for a year with the merchandise of Damascus . . .8 § 10. 5. . . . I went out a little with Mr Edmunds, and we strolled about among the little shops, watching their crafts: the tinsmith polishing his coppers by standing in them on a pile of wet gravel and then twirling himself from side to side at such a speed that the gravel polishes off every stain in no time. Then the weavers weaving striped silk for waistcoats – a nice Mohammedan with a beard. Then the man who polishes tarbooshes under a heavy brass press heated by a primus stove. Then the man who lives in a dark little shop cooking rice in milk all day long. Then the makers of sabots; they chop them neatly out of pieces of tree trunk with hatchets, and given them their slim shape with a couple of clever strokes. Then we wandered to the jewellers’ suq – a gloomy place they lock at night, and filled with great iron safes.9

90  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 10. 6. State of the population of Sidon, its products, its industries, its money, weights and measures Population: 10,500 inhabitants. Industries of the inhabitants: Blacksmiths, tanners, goldsmiths, coppersmiths, weavers, potters, turners of various kinds, lime manufacturers, builders, sailors, embroiderers, armourers, tailors, gardeners, labourers, saddlers, farriers, bleachers, dyers, scribes, fishermen, shoemakers, makers of embroidered/lace borders (passementerie), muleteers, camel drivers . . . Number of workers: 3,400 Note: The few factories that are located in this city remain unchanged. They are, like the good people [of the town], always in the same state as before.10 § 10. 7. I had heard and read a good deal about the native manufactures of Meshed, but was greatly disappointed with such articles as I saw. A more unfavourable hunting-­ ground for the would-­be purchaser can hardly be imagined. The manufacture of damascened sword-­blades has long been a trade here, having originally, it is said, been introduced by a colony transported for the purpose by Timur from Damascus. Now, however, that rifles and revolvers have taken the place of swords and daggers, there is not the same demand for new blades. Silk and cotton and velvet stuffs are made here, but of a quality greatly inferior to those of Bokhara. There are in the town 650 silk looms and 320 shawl looms. On the other hand, good carpets are procurable, particularly those of genuinely Oriental pattern, close texture, and imperishable vegetable dyes, that hail from Kain and Birjand. The Kurdish carpets are also original, but less artistic. In Meshed itself there are forty carpet-­looms. Turkoman carpets, jewellery, and weapons were formerly a common object in the bazaars, but are now almost entirely bought up by the Russians in Transcaspia or exported to Europe. Astrabad, near the camps of the Goklan Turkomans, is probably, next to Teheran (whither everything converges), the best place in Persia for procuring Turkoman articles. Old Tartar and even Bactrian coins are frequently to be met with at Meshed. I naturally anticipated that, being in such close proximity to the famous turquoise mines of Nishapur, the bazaars would be well stocked with specimens of that stone. I saw little but rubbish. All the best stones are bought at the mouth of the mines and are exported to foreign countries. Meshed seems to receive the residue, of a price and quality likely to attract the itinerant pilgrim. Nor was I any better pleased with the carved objects, cups, bowls, basins, ewers, which are hollowed out with the aid of a very primitive lathe and tools made out of a soft slate or steatite that is found in the neighbourhood. There are two varieties of this stone, a dull reddish brown, and a blue-­grey. But though previous travellers have spoken in terms of great admiration of these works of art, I failed to appreciate either the material, the shape or the workmanship. At the time of my visit, the scale of artisans’ wages was as follows: Carpenters, 3 krans, or 1s. 9d., per diem; masons, 2 krans, or 1s. 2d., blacksmiths, 1 ½ kran, or 11d., common labourers, 1 kran, or 7d. The price of bread was about ½d. per lb., of mutton 2 ¾d. Fowls which had cost ½ kran, or 3 ½d., in the mountains, cost 1 kran, or 7d., in the capital. The price of wheat was a little less than 6d. a stone, of barley a little less than 4d.11 § 10. 8. The artisans of Persia, as in all other countries, conduct themselves according to their reputation. Sheeraz has no extensive manufactory; and, excepting a few swords, and perhaps a little wine, they export nothing to the northern parts of Persia.

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Many of the artisans of Sheeraz are very ingenious, particularly in all kinds of enamel work, which greatly excels, I think, that in Europe. It is really surprising to see the lustre, and at the same time the mellowness of their colours, and the wonderful accuracy of the smaller figures. The Kuleeans are often highly enamelled, which makes them very expensive, a handsome one costing nearly fifty guineas. They work likewise very well in gold and silver, and in making ornaments for bridles, saddles, &c. The swords which they make in Sheeraz are manufactured from steel, which they purchase in cakes at Hydrabad, and which, I learn, is brought out of the Rajah of Berar’s country, and also from Amedabad. One of these cakes is to be purchased for five shillings, at Bushire from about a guinea. They each make one sword, and it rests entirely on chance how it may turn out. If they are full of Jouhar (damask) they are very valuable; but it is said that much depends on the skill of the artist.12 § 10. 9. . . . Kermán was, until quite recently, more famous for its shawls, but to-­day, in dealing with its manufactures, its carpets claim precedence. These unrivalled products of the loom are woven in silk and wool, and, owing to their fineness and brilliant colouring, are incontestably the choicest the world has ever seen. A single Kermán carpet will indeed make almost any other carpet appear tawdry and common. These patterns are very ancient, and evidently date from pre-­Mohamedan days, as figures are frequent, but it is rather the conventional flowers and exquisite blending of colours that are so admirable. The usual size is about 7 feet by 4 feet 6 inches, the unit of measurement being the zar, which is 39 inches by 19 ½ inches in the trade. The ordinary quality, 640 stitches per 39 inches for woollen carpets, is quite fine enough for most Europeans, but Persian connoisseurs are seldom content with this. The price per zar being £1 sterling for the quality given above, these articles are certainly the de luxe order. When at Constantinople a few years ago, one of them was shown to me as a great bargain for £26! The Farmán Farmá introduced some ugly European patterns, but these, at my instance, were given up, and by rigorously insisting on adhesion to the old patterns, as well as by opening out new markets, I have assisted in bringing the industry to a thoroughly healthy condition, the carpets only requiring to be more widely known to become the fashion, especially for drawing-­rooms and dainty boudoirs. In Kermán itself there are about one thousand looms, each carpet superintended by a master-­weaver and two or more little boys, who work entirely from a pattern which is recited, and contains many obsolete words; it is said that these patterns have been handed down orally from father to son for many centuries. Few women or girls are employed, which keeps the work at a high state of excellence, and aniline dyes, which have almost ruined the trade in nomad carpets, are carefully eschewed. It is difficult to estimate the output, but approximately it is 200,000 tománs or £40,000 per annum. . . . The Shál of Kermán (whence our word ‘shawl’) is either woven from the down of a goat or from wool. Like the carpets, the pattern is learned by heart, and the work is much finer, and can only be executed by children; at the same time, owing to the invincible distaste of the Kermáni to steady application, the boys do not appear to be overworked or unhealthy. There has certainly been a change for the better since Sir Frederic Goldsmid’s Mission when a pitiable picture was drawn of the conditions under which work was done.13

92  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s notes  1 On ḥisba manuals, see Ghabin, Ḥisba, Art and Craft in Islam. For Islamic writings on the crafts and commerce in urban spaces, see chapters in Serjeant (ed.), The Islamic City.   2 Abu Bakr b. Abi Sahl al-­Sarakhsi, al-­Mabsūṭ, II, p. 23. Translated in Johansen, Contingency in a Sacred Law, p. 83.   3 Cf. the broadly contemporary sources collected in Peters, Mecca: A Literary History, pp. 246–85. See also Robert Irwin in Porter (ed.), Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, pp. 184–207.   4 On the material culture of Italian merchants in Syria, see Howard, ‘Death in Damascus’. For other descriptions of the Syrian capital in this period, see Ziadeh, Damascus under the Mamlūks.   5 ʿAli Bey Abbasi (d. 1818), Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, II, pp. 100–1.  6 Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, II, pp. 20–1.   7 Vansleb (d. 1679), The Present State of Egypt, p. 154.   8 Bellorini and Hoade (trans.), Visit to the Holy Places of Egypt, Sinai, Palestine and Syria in 1384, pp. 182–3.   9 Part of a letter to her mother, dated 17 April 1928. Stark, Letters from Syria, p. 117. 10 Ismail (ed.), Documents diplomatiques et consulaires relatifs à l’histoire du Liban et des pays du Proche-­Orient du XVIIe siècle à nos jours. Vol. 3, p. 105. The document is dated 12 December 1812. 11 Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, I, pp. 166–7. For another description of sword manufacture in Mashhad, see Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasān, p. 468. The kran (in Persian, qirān) was a high value coin employed between 1825 and 1932. 12 Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, by the Route of Kazroon and Feerozabad, p. 47. A guinea is equal to £1 sterling and one shilling. The modern names of the cities mentioned are Bukhara, Qain and Mashhad. 13 Sykes, Ten Thousand Miles in Persia, pp. 199–200. Sir Frederic Goldsmid (d. 1908) was a Major General in the British Indian army. The expedition referred to in the text occurred in the early 1870s. The tomán (in Persian, tūmān) is a gold coin worth 10 silver qirān.

PART 4

Inorganic Media

CHAPTER 11

Copper

Copper is an adaptable metal that can be cast using a variety of methods. It can also be rolled into sheets and then hammered into shape. This latter technique became more common from the late eleventh century onwards, and probably derives from the cold-­working of gold and silver sheet.1 Copper can also be shaped on a lathe. Although many primary sources of the medieval period – both Arabic and European – refer to vessels made from copper, it is seldom the case that the metal was employed in its pure form (other than for coinage). More commonly, copper was combined with other metals to form bronze (principally through the addition of tin, although small quantities of other metals do occur) and brass (an alloy of copper and zinc). The tendency to melt down old vessels in order to make new ones led to the creation of less defined copper-­rich mixtures.2 The most famous decorative technique is the inlaying of other metal wire and sheet (particularly silver, but also gold and pure copper). Many traditional techniques survive to the present in workshops across the Islamic world.3 The first two texts are concerned with materials. The first, from the Epistles of the True Brethren, reflects on the value given to a cheap metal (copper or an alloy of copper) through the skill of an artisan. This stands in contrast to the ḥadīth quoted in Chapter 13, in which it is made clear that gold was to be sold according to its weight, with no allowance made for the quality of the workmanship. The second reading forms part of the famous manual of the fourteenth-­century Persian craftsman Abu al-­Qasim and gives instructions concerning the mixing of zinc (tūtīyā) with copper to produce brass. The third text is part of al-­Jazari’s (d. 1206) description of the manufacture of a set of doors for a palace in ʿAmid (modern Diyarbakır), Turkey (see Figure 11.1). Al-­Jazari is one of the most celebrated engineers of Islamic history. He is particularly noted for his automata and other entertaining devices, but also turned his attention to many practical aspects of design. His accurate account of the process of sand-­casting copper objects is worth quoting at length.4 Copper sheets could also be beaten into shape, as is described in the fourth text. The last two texts give descriptions of the processes of chasing and inlaying copper alloy vessels. The first relates the practices of the inlayers of Cairo in the early years of the twentieth century. These artisans were producing inlaid metalwork in a style which is commonly known as the ‘Mamluk Revival’ (i.e. the imitation of prototypes of the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Greater Syria).5 The final reading describes similar work conducted in the Syrian capital in the late Ottoman period. * * *

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Figure 11.1  Design for a doorway. Simplified version of a drawing in a manuscript of al-­Jazari, Kitāb fī ­maʿrifat al-­ḥiyal al-­handasiyya, Diyarbakir, 1206. Drawing: Atri Hatef Naiemi. After Topkapı Museum Library Ms. 3472, fols. 167r and v. 

§ 11. 1. For a piece of copper, worth 5 dirhams, when wrought into an astrolabe is worth 100 dirhams, and this price is not for the matter but for the form that has been impressed upon it.6 § 11. 2. If they bray half pounded tūtīyā with raisins without seeds until it becomes soft, and it is roasted without burning over a low fire, and if copper is melted and they throw onto it a certain amount of that prepared tūtīyā and cover the top of the crucible for a moment until the tūtīyā has had its effect, and it then cools down, copper results [in] the colour of red gold.7 § 11. 3. Section 2: The construction of the lattice work For the entire lattice work, with the exception of its border, I cut out three pieces, i.e. [wooden] patterns, comprising a pattern for the hexagonal star with sharp corners, a pattern for the octagonal star with sharp corners and a pattern for the filler [piece], like a quadrilateral almond-­shape with sharp corners. Then I made iron nails each one 4 F long, its top not flat but shaped like a small date kernel [laid] across the top of the nail.

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Then I took an impression of the hexagonal pattern in the sand, as the founders do in the foundry (ālat al-­ṣabb). Then I lifted the pattern from the sand and into the impression of its underside I pushed twelve nails so that the [date] kernel at the top of each nail almost touched the sand, but a narrow gap was left between it and the sand. Then I put the parts of the apparatus together again and poured the molten brass into the forms, covering the heads of the nails so that it became a hexagonal star. Then, as [just] described I made the octagonal [stars] and the filler [pieces] with patterns, until sufficient were completed for the two leaves [of the door]. I finished that off by filing, scraping, etc. Then I made for every star a dome from cast brass, surrounded by angles [which fitted] inside the angles of the stars. The upper faces of the angles are flat and at the same level as the bars of the lattice-­work. Between the angles surrounding the dome and the bar of the star there is a gap. The sides of the dome’s angles fit the sides of the bar, as is usual in carpenters’ work for the filling of joinery (kārzawān). Then I adorned the dome with leaves of various kinds as carpenters do, with grooving (ḥafr), chiselling (tanjīr) and with inlaying (tafzīʿ), and by intertwining the stems. I chiselled the background of the leaves, taking the greatest pains. Then I placed in the quadrilaterals, filler [pieces] with flat surfaces and vertical sides to fit the sides of the bar, and as high as the thickness of the bar. Then I made three-­angled saddle-­shaped fillers to span between the stars and the quadrilaterals, each filler as high as the thickness of the bar, its side flush with the side of the bar. Then I made ‘humped’ (musannam), saddle-­shaped fillers with flat surfaces to span between the stars and the quadrilaterals. In the centre of each triangle is a [decoration like] a rose projecting from its surface. The surface is adorned, with a black background. Then, to surround the latticework and complete the stars and quadrilaterals, bars are made with nails in them as [described] previously for the casting of the stars. In this latticework half-­stars, quarter-­ stars and smaller pieces do not occur, apart from a [few] half-­stars. I have shown a picture of a hexagonal star, an octagonal star and a quadrilateral; and a picture of one raised dome and another of a flat dome; and quadrilateral three-­angled and saddle-­[shaped] fillings. It is to be understood that each dome, three-­angled filling and quadrilateral filling has a flat border which is half the width of the bottom of the bar, so that the bar rests on the borders of each dome, filling, and three-­angled [filling]. Section 3: Manufacture of the border from brass and red copper I exposed the face of the plate by filling and scraping, and it assumed this form. Then I made a brass plate and chiselled it to this design. Then I made a wooden pattern for this plate, thicker than it [i.e. the plate]. Then I made an impression of this pattern in sand in the casting box. I lifted out the pattern and placed the chiselled brass plate in its ­impression; melted red copper and poured it thereon. [The place] was coated up to the thickness of the pattern. I then fitted the end of one plate to the end of another so that the fitted joint was hardly visible, and I made marks on them. Next I made plates of cast brass with projecting places on their backs in which nails were [fixed], as I fixed them in the bars . . . Each plate has a vertical edge which adjoins part of the side of the door-­ post. For each end of the door-­leaf I made a cross-­beam of cast brass, like a channel, its length less than the width of the door, its width about 3 fingers. Its ends are concealed [i.e. covered by the door-­styles]. Its surface is almond pattern, and so fabricated that large conical nails can be fitted to the groove, and so on. Then I made for each end of the door-­ leaf a brass plate as long as the width of the leaf and about 1 span wide. I painted it and

98  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s filled in the background of the painting with black. Then I made for each leaf a ring [i.e. knocker] from cast brass in the shape of two connected serpents, the head of one facing the head of the other. Their mouths are open, as if they wished to devour the neck and head of a lion. This lion’s head and neck are the extension of an iron staple that is nailed to the door. The fangs of the serpents are in two holes in the lion’s neck and the ring rotates about these. This is the picture of the ring and the lion’s head. The manufacture of the closing-­style, i.e. the nose: for its middle [section] I made a hollow wax pattern shaped like a long half-­pipe with a flat back, on its back I made wax protuberances, in which I buried nails. I covered the inside and outside of this [pattern of the] closing-­style with clay, and then burnt the wax away from the clay – as done by the masters of this craft – and replaced it with molten brass. Then I removed the clay, smoothed it by filing, and inlaid it with silver so that it gleamed. In between the silvered portions were leaves of different kinds, like grasses, and animal heads: I encrusted the leaves, intertwined the stems and finished [all] that with scraping. For either side of it [i.e. the style] I made a piece of cast brass 4 spans long, rectangular in shape [i.e. cross-­section], wider at the end than where it met the [centre-­section of] the style, to which it was closely fitted. There were nails on its rear. Both sides sloped gradually outwards. Its surface was decorated, namely with leaves, whose tips were intertwined and turned away [from one another]. Then I placed the wax leaves upon these leaves, positioning them precisely, nothing omitted and nothing added, entwining the stems with one another in [symmetrical] opposition and the tops of the leaves in [symmetrical] opposition. Then I placed this in a large sand mould, and took the impression. I cut away the wax from the outside of the leaves and burnt it off from the inside, leaving the place of the wax empty. I then replaced it with red copper. I then cleaned these leaves and made them into various shapes with styluses, with scraping etc. I joined these two pieces, i.e. the ends [of the style], to its main section. I showed the drawing of this closing-­style earlier, in the drawing of the door-­leaf. This is [best] understood by studying the drawing, not from what I have described, for I have abbreviated the description. That is what I wished to describe clearly.8 § 11. 4. Naḥḥās It is the hammering of sheets of copper according to the dimensions desired by the client. And the copper beater carried it out in the towns from small sheets, or large, or medium. Then the part which is selected is hammered by hand. He buys what is needed from these sheets, and it is given over to the making, by hammering to the required measurements. From them (the sheets of metal) he makes casserole dishes, bowls, shallow bowls for washing (sing. ṭabaq), maṣāfī, and frying pans, and the collection of vessels needed for cooking, from the kafkīr and kabjāh, and other than these from copper vessels. They hammer objects according to the tastes of the buyer, and this is done according to a fixed price. Most of the copper beaters hammer according to standardised measurements, and they keep to their shops, selling their products [from their shops] according to the desires of the market. It is an important craft, and the people of it are kept busy. It generates suitable profits. There is a special market for them in Damascus, known as ‘Sūq al-­Naḥḥāsīn’, and many people make a living from it.9 § 11. 5. The coppersmith, having received the specifications of the object, furnishes the body, spout, cover and bottom separately to the manufacturer. Each piece is then

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filled with a melted bituminous compound, which hardens to a tough solid, and passes to the engraver, who, working without patterns or preliminary sketches, draws the design directly upon the brass with a writing brush and ink. Having chiselled it, he delivers the pieces, now decorated in the manner of the greater part of the brassware sold. Next the pieces go to the inlayer, upon whose skill the beauty of the finished object will mainly depend, and whose tools are a light hammer and three chisels. The head of the hammer is square at its shorter end and tapers to an oblong at its longer, the square end being used to strike the chisels, and the oblong to fix the wire in position. One of the chisels tapers gradually to a point, and is used for correcting faults in the engraving; the second is a long narrow wedge, with its edge brought to a point by grinding back at an angle from one corner, and is used to cut the holes by which the wire is held; and the third is a very narrow wedge for severing the wire at the end of each line. The inlaying is done in small sections, the workman going over these with his second chisel, cutting a line of very closely placed holes, each which has a sharp little point of forced-­out metal at one side; by means of these little points the wire is caught and held. The wire is placed at the beginning of a line, and is carried along it, being forced into ­position by sharp taps of the hammer, and at the end of the line is cut by the third chisel. For broad surfaces the lines are made parallel and adjacent, and when the lines have been laid sufficiently close and the work properly finished, it is often impossible to see the edges of juncture, the whole presenting the appearance of a solid sheet. When well laid the wire, which is of a soft, pure silver, will break when pulled, rather than leave the brass. A good workman will generally lay from 24 to 32 inches of wire per day of ten hours, depending on the care he exercises, and the quality of his work, and will receive from six piastres (one piastre = 2 ½ d.) to twelve piastres per day, according to his skill. These wages are high, some brass workers (those who fill in backgrounds, or do similar work) receiving as little as two piastres per day.10 § 11. 6. Naqqāsh It is the engraving of kinds of vessels, boxes, drinking cups, candlesticks, cupboards, lanterns, and other than those. It comes about from the hammering of the copper [sheets] to make perfect [shapes]. If it is desired that they be decorated, they are taken in completed form to the engraver. He fills it with pitch (zift) so that it does not become bent during the engraving, and he engraves upon it with a steel chisel (izmīl min ḥadīd), as is used by the masters of them (the crafts). They (the objects) are decorated with different designs of birds, roses, trees, and animals. It is a graceful craft, not well known in Damascus except among the itinerant Jewish [artisans]. But there is little demand for [the work of] the engravers in Damascus. The majority of those who pursue the trade [in these items] are specialists, especially the antiques dealers (antikjiyya). They (the engravers) travel among the rural towns and to the city and elsewhere, according to wherever the demand for their services is strongest in the country. It is an important activity generating good profits. The engraving of a raṭl of copper has a price of less than thirty gharsh (piastres). As can be seen, many of those who have mastered the craft in present times emulate the [best works] of ancient times.11

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notes   1 Allan, ‘Silver: The Key to Bronze in Early Islamic Iran’.  2 Allan, Persian Metal Technology, pp. 45–6. On the main metals and alloys, see also Ward, Islamic Metalwork, pp. 29–30.   3 For example, see Kalter et al. (eds), The Arts and Crafts of Syria, pp. 69–71; Kickinger, ‘Relations of Production and Social Conditions among Coppersmiths in Contemporary Cairo’.   4 Cf. Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 18–19. Also Allan, Persian Metal Technology, p. 62.   5 On ‘Mamluk Revival’ metalwork, see Vernoit, Occidentalism: Islamic Art in the 19th Century, pp. 238–9.   6 From the eighth epistle of the first series of the Rasā’il Ikhwān al-­Ṣafā. Translated in Lewis, ‘An Epistle on the Manual Crafts’, p. 149.   7 Abu al-­Qasim al-­Qashani (fl. fourteenth century), ʿArāyis al-­jawāhir wa nafāyis al-­aṭāyib (Tehran, 1345/1966), p. 189. Translated in Allan, Persian Metal Technology, p. 42. Bray means to crush into a powder. Tūtīya (in English, tutty) is zinc oxide (see reading five in Chapter 9).   8 Ibn al-­Razzaz al-­Jazari (d. 1206), Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-­ḥiyal al-handasiyya. Hill (trans.), The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, pp. 192–5.   9 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 479–80 (Chapter 409). Maṣāfī, kafkīr and kabjāh are all types of cooking vessel, though it is difficult to provide exact translations. 10 Hildburgh, ‘The Manufacture of Inlaid Brasswork at Cairo’, pp. 215–16. The author offers a conversion rate between the piastre and pre-­decimal British pennies (d.). 11 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 486–7 (Chapter 419). On the antikjī (or antakjī), see Milwright, ‘An Arabic Description of the Activities of Antiquities Dealers’.

CHAPTER 12

Iron and steel

The blacksmith (in Arabic, ḥaddād) was responsible for shaping the pure metal through the process of forging (i.e. hammering the heated metal on an anvil). This was physically demanding labour, particularly in the hot climates that prevail across much of the Islamic world. Iron was used to make a wide variety of tools.1 The addition of carbon to iron created an alloy, steel. This technology probably originated in India, but spread to the Middle East prior to the birth of Islam. The techniques of steel production are described in several primary sources (see below). Ingots of steel have also been recovered from excavations in Merv in Turkmenistan.2 Steel is harder and more flexible than iron. It can also be fashioned into a sharp edge and has a surface that can be polished to a shine. This last feature allowed hand mirrors to be manufactured from steel. Iron and steel were employed in many ways, including arrowheads, crossbow bolts, axes, chainmail, helmets and other types of armour.3 A cache of military equipment recovered from the Damascus citadel aptly illustrates the ways in which iron and steel were utilised in the fifteenth century.4 The Syrian capital has long been associated with swords; the term ­‘damascening’ refers to the process of the watering of steel. Whether, indeed, the technique was used in Damascus is open to doubt, but it was certainly popular among sword makers across the Middle East and India.5 The first recorded use of cannon in the Middle East was during the siege of a castle in the mid-­fourteenth century, but the use of gunpowder became more common from the sixteenth century. This created another use for iron and steel: the creation of cannon and handheld weapons. From the eighteenth century, handheld firearms – rifles and pistols – became more widely accessible. Most larger towns and cities supported craftsmen who could make or repair guns. Sometimes the barrels and other metal components were imported from Europe, but they were also manufactured in the Islamic world. These weapons are often notable for the degree of decoration on the gun barrels and the wooden stocks.6 Lastly, steel banners (ʿalams) used during the Shiʿa commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn (ʿAshūra) often carry particularly elaborate ornamentation. The first reading is taken from sūrat al-­Sabāʾ (Sheba) in the Qurʾan. Although it is not particularly informative about metalworking techniques, the verses demonstrate the importance attached to iron as a material required for armour and weapons. The Old Testament King David (in Arabic, Daʾud) is described in this context as an armourer. The second part of this reading records Solomon’s (Sulayman) use of jinn (demons) in the casting of brass objects. The next set of readings (two to six) deal with the production of steel ingots and the

102  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s ­ anufacture of swords. The first reading comes from al-­Kindi’s famous manuscript on swords. m The author carefully distinguishes between different types of iron and steel, noting the characteristics of each type. The next two readings (two and three) describe processes involved in the manufacture of steel ingots or ‘eggs’. The first of these comes from a text on precious stones by the polymath al-­Biruni (d. 1048), and the second from a manual on armoury made for the library of the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, Salah al-­Din (Saladin, r. 1174–93). Reading five is an appreciation of Damascene swords written by the French traveller Bertrandon de la Brocquière (d. 1459). The author describes the methods used in burnishing blades and also mentions the production of steel mirrors. In the second part of the reading the traveller describes the iron shoes fashioned for horses. Reading six is a footnote from Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T. E. Lawrence (d. 1935). This short passage demonstrates that powerful patrons often regarded their craftspeople as little more than commodities (on the forcible movement of artisans, see Chapter 2). Reading seven is a detailed examination of the processes involved in the manufacture of a gun barrel. The material for this process was inexpensive (old horseshoes), and the value of the finished artefact resided in the skill and labour of the barrel maker. Gun making was an important craft across the Middle East from the sixteenth century onward.7 The last reading (eight) comes from a book of market law (ḥisba) written in the late ­thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The author is concerned with the hazards associated with a forge. * * * § 12. 1. We bestowed Grace aforetime on David from ourselves: ‘O ye mountains! Sing ye back the praises of Allah with him! And ye birds (also)!’ And we made soft iron (ḥadīd) for him; (Commanding), ‘Make thou coats of mail, balancing well the rings of chain armour, and work ye righteousness: For be sure I see (clearly) all that you do’. And to Solomon (We made) the wind (obedient): Its early morning (stride) was a month’s (journey), and its evening (stride) was a month’s (journey), and We made a font of molten brass to flow for him; and there were jinns that worked in front of him, by the leave of his Lord, and if any of them turned aside from Our command, We made him taste of the penalty of the blazing fire. They worked for him as he desired, (making) arches, images, basons as large as reservoirs, and (cooking) cauldrons fixed (in their places): ‘Work ye, O sons of David, with thanks! But few of My servants are grateful!’8 § 12. 2. [Know that] iron (ḥadīd), from which swords are forged (tuṭbaʿ), is divided into two primary categories: mined (maʿdanī) and unmined (laysa bi-­maʿdanī). The mined is itself divided into two categories: hard iron (shāburqān), which is hard, male, and able to be quenched (saqy) during its forging; and soft iron (narmāhan), which is female, soft, and cannot be quenched during its forging. Swords may be forged from either on its own and also made from both put together. So there are in all three types of mined swords: those made from hard iron, those made from soft iron, and those made from a compound of the two (murakkaba). We shall define them type by type, and [everything] that is necessary for their description we shall mention in the proper place [God willing]. As for unmined iron, it is steel (fūlādh), meaning refined (muṣaffā). It is manufactured (yuṣnaʿ) from mined iron by adding to it during the melting (al-­sabk) something which refines it and makes its softness strength so that it becomes firm and pliable, can be quenched, and so that its watering (firind) appears on it. Steel is divided into three

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c­ ategories: ancient, modern, and into neither ancient nor modern, and from all these swords may be forged. So there are three types of steel swords: ancient (ʿatīq), modern (muḥdath) and neither ancient nor modern (lā ʿatīq wa-­lā muḥdath).9 § 12. 3. Mazyad ibn ʿAli, the Damascan smith, has [written] a book on the description of swords, and its characteristics were incorporated into the treatise of Kindi. It begins with the making of eggs of steel, the construction of the furnace, the making and design of ­crucibles, and a description of the clays and their specifications. Then he instructed that in each crucible there should be put five raṭls of horseshoes and nails made of narmāhan, together with ten dirhams weight of antimony, golden marcasite and powdered magnesia. The crucibles are to be plastered with clay and put into the furnace. The latter is to be filled with charcoal and the crucibles then to be blown with Byzantine bellows, each bellows worked by two men until the iron melts and revolves. Small bags should be prepared for it, each with myrobalan, pomegranate peel, the salt of dough and pearl shells, in equal quantities and ground up, each 40 dirhams in weight. One small bag is to be thrown into each crucible, which is then to be blown upon strongly for an hour without pause. Then it is to be left until cool, when the eggs may be extracted from the crucibles.10 § 12. 4. Description of salmānī steel from which salmānī swords are manufactured. Cultivated myrobalan 20 dirham; manganese 7 dirham; scammony 5 dirham. Make them all very warm, and throw this compound onto 3 raṭl of shāburqān. Blow on it until it melts, [and do this] in a crucible with a lid with a hole in it, so that one can see in and examine the iron until it is molten. Then remove it from the furnace, leave it to cool in the crucible, and then make from it what you want. Then hit a shaft of iron of 20 raṭl with it and it will break it if God wills.11 § 12. 5. The Damascus blades are the handsomest and best of all Syria; and it is curious to observe the manner of burnishing them. This operation is performed before tempering; and they have, for this purpose, a small piece of wood, in which is fixed an iron, which they rub up and down the blade, and thus clear off all inequalities, as a plane does to wood. They then temper and polish it. This polish is so highly finished, that, when any one wants to arrange his turban, he uses his sword as a looking-­glass. As to its temper, it is perfect; and I have nowhere seen swords that cut so excellently. There are made at Damascus, and in the adjoining country, mirrors of steel, that magnify objects like burning glasses. I have seen some that, when exposed to the sun, have reflected heat so strongly as to set fire to a plank fifteen or sixteen feet distant. I bought a small horse that turned out very well. Before my departure I had him shod at Damascus; and thence, as far as Bursa, which is near fifty days’ journey, so well do they shoe their horses that I had nothing to do with his feet, excepting one of the fore ones, which was pricked by a nail, and made him lame for three weeks. The shoes are light, thin, lengthened towards the heel, and thinner there than at the toe. They are not turned up, and have four nail holes, two on each side. The nails are square, with a thick and heavy head. When a shoe is wanted, and it is necessary to work it to make it fit the hoof, it is done cold, without ever putting it in the fire, which can readily be done because it is so thin. To pare the hoof they use a pruning knife, similar to what vine-­dressers trim their vines with, both on this as well as on the other side of the sea . . .12

104  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 12. 6. The most famous sword-­smith of my time was ibn Bani, a craftsman of the Ibn Rashid dynasty of Hail. He rode once on a foray with the Shammar against the Rualla, and was captured. When Nuri recognized him, he shut up with him in prison ibn Zari, his own sword-­smith, swearing they should not come out till their work was indistinguishable. So ibn Zari improved greatly in the skill of his craft, while remaining in design the better artist.13 § 12. 7. Old horseshoes are obtained. These are drawn out into bars 2 lig. (0.0051m) thick. These bars are welded together on their flat sides so as to form a uniform mass of sufficient size to make a gun barrel, that is approximately 1 inch (0.025m) thick, 3 inches (0.076m) wide and 10 inches (0.254m) long. This mass is split lengthwise into rods which are hammered to a thickness and width of 3 lig. (0.0076m), with a length of 13 or 14 inches (0.33 or 0.35m), which are then turned into spirals. To do this the rods are first heated to red heat over one third of their length. The red hot end is placed in hole C, approximately 3 lig. (0.0076m) deep, made in stone disk AB [see Figure 12.1 (Fig. 7)], mounted on an iron shaft, like a grinding wheel. The stone is approximately 7 ½ inches (0.19m) in diameter. After placing the rod in the hole, it is seized with the tongs at the point where it ceases to be red hot, and is caused to turn by means of sleeve F, stone AB acting as the flywheel in this rotational movement. The red part of the rod then twists into a spiral. The second third of the rod is then heated to red heat and subjected to the same twisting as before, and so on until the entire rod has been shaped into a long pitch spiral which is then flattened somewhat on both opposite sides over its entire length. After four or five other rods have been prepared in the same way they are placed alongside each other, with their flattened sides together, and an iron bar of the same length as the rods, 2 ½ lig. (0.0063m) thick and 1 inch (0.025m) wide. They are attached to this bar at three places by means of small iron clamps, and the whole is placed into a spiral around an iron bar, removing the clamps as the spiral becomes welded to the bar. The figure [see Figure 12.1 (Fig. 8)] shows: A, the helicoidal rods placed on bar of iron B; G, H, and F, the first three turns of the spiral. A spiral like this normally provides one third of the gun barrel. The three spirals are then welded together to form the entire gun. The work requires great patience and skill, particularly when welding the three spirals, because it is on that that all the strength of the gun depends. When the barrel has been forged, it is finished off using ordinary techniques. In Persia it is bored out by hand, in such a way that the bar of iron forming the inner surface of the gun to which the helicoidal rods were welded is almost entirely destroyed by the boring tool. After the barrel has been cleaned as much as possible, it is pickled externally with a solution of iron sulphate, as in the case of damascene blades. The pickling is repeated 3 times over 24 hours. Another clean is all that is required to reveal strong mottling in relief.14 § 12. 8. The muḥtasib must instruct blacksmiths to have a screen between his smithy and the street to prevent sparks from flying all over the street. Red-­hot splinters of iron may kill, blind, burn clothing, cause death to a riding animal, and so on. Should any of these things happen, the blacksmith is liable for damages. His family will be liable for compensation arising out of death or the loss of an eye.15

iron and steel 

105

b

Fig. 7.

f a

Fig. 3.

Fig. 5.

Fig. 8. e

g Fig. 4.

b

b Fig. 6.

h f

Figure 12.1  Captain Massalski’s diagram for the manufacture of a gun barrel (1841). Drawing: Naomi Shields. After Allan and Gilmour, Persian Steel, Figure 18.

notes   1 On the activities of the Persian blacksmith, see Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 48–54.   2 Allan and Gilmour, Persian Steel: The Tanavoli Collection, pp. 50–5.   3 For a survey of Islamic weapons of war, see Elgood, Islamic Arms and Armour. Also see the examples illustrated in Nicolle, Medieval Warfare Sourcebook.  4 Nicolle, Late Mamluk Military Equipment, passim.   5 On the techniques involved in watering steel and the possible connections to Damascus, see Allan and Gilmour, Persian Steel, pp. 76–9.   6 For examples of decorated firearms, see Elgood, Firearms of the Islamic World.   7 The activities of the gunsmiths (bunduqjī) of Damascus are described in al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 49 (Chapter 16). This is discussed in Milwright, ‘Metalworking in Damascus at the End of the Ottoman Period’, p. 275.   8 Qur’an 34:10–13 (according to the translation of Yusuf ʿAli).   9 Abu Yusuf Yaʿqub ibn Ishaq al-­Sabbah al-­Kindi (d. 873), On Swords and their Kinds. Translated in

106  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Hoyland and Gilmour, Medieval Islamic Swords and Swordmaking, pp. 15–17. Kindi notes that ‘ancient’ actually means noble in character. 10 Abu Rayhan Muhammad b. Ahmad al-­Biruni (d. 1048), Kitāb al-­jamāhir fī maʿrifat al-­jawāhir (‘Sum of the knowledge of precious stones’), (ed.) E. Krenkow (Hyderabad, 1936), p. 256. The translation of this passage appears in Hoyland and Gilmour, Medieval Islamic Swords and Swordmaking, pp. 154–5. 11 From Murda ibn ʿAli al-­Tarsusi’s twelfth-­century treatise on weaponry. See Cahen (ed. and trans.), ‘Un traité d’armurie composé pour Saladin’, p. 107. English translation in Allan, Persian Metal Technology, p. 85. Shāburqān can mean cast iron or simply hard iron (Allan, p. 74). 12 From the Travels of Bertrandon de la Brocquière (1432–32). In Wright (trans.), Early Travels in Palestine, p. 304. 13 Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, footnote on p. 267. The main text reads: ‘As the meat wore down (nobody really cared about the rice: flesh was the luxury) one of the chief Howeitat eating with us would draw his dagger, silver hilted, set with turquoise, a signed masterpiece of Mohammed ibn Zari, of Jauf, . . .’ My thanks to Joe Greene for bringing this text to my attention. 14 From Massalski, ‘Préparation de l’acier damassé en Perse’, Annuaire du Journal des Mines de Russe (1841), pp. 297–308 (quoted passage on pp. 305–8). Translated in Allan and Gilmour, Persian Steel, pp. 165–6. 15 Al-­Sunami, ʿUmar b. Muhammad (fl. fourteenth century). Izzi Dien (trans.), The Theory and the Practice of Market Law in Medieval Islam, p. 104.

CHAPTER 13

Other metals: gold, silver and tin

Gold and silver are only found in a few locations.1 These metals were of crucial importance to the economies of the Islamic world, because of their role in currency (gold for the dīnār and silver for the dirham). Sometimes vessels would be made from the pure metals, but more commonly precious metal was applied as inlay onto items made from copper alloys, such as bronze and brass. Precious metals were employed in the manufacture of jewellery. Gold and silver could be worked in a variety of ways. Molten metal could be cast or formed into small balls through the process of granulation. The relative malleability of these precious metals also allowed them to be worked cold. Sheets of metal could be hammered into shape and fine decoration would be applied with punches.2 Gold and silver could also be drawn out into wire or made into very thin sheets (leaf). Silver was often utilised in Persian manuscript painting in the depiction of water (however, the original reflective surface of the silver usually became tarnished). Gold was also extensively exploited in Islamic manuscript art, both religious and secular, and found other applications in media such as sandwich glass (a technique originating in the Roman period), mosaic and even glazed pottery. There is evidence in some parts of the Islamic world that the working of gold and silver was restricted to specific communities. This was defined along confessional lines, with ­precious metalworking in the hands of Jewish or Christian minorities. Tinning was commonly regarded in Islamic society as being a demeaning and unclean activity, and for this reason it was shunned by Muslims. In nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century Damascus, the tinners (in Arabic, samkarī) were predominantly Jewish. The Jews also dominated the craft of engraving copper and copper alloy vessels (on this craft, see Chapter 11). By contrast, the best jewellers of Damascus were all apparently Christians.3 All three metals could be worked with relatively simple equipment, and those who served rural areas tended to be itinerant craftsmen, moving from place to place fulfilling commissions wherever they became available. The primary sources describing these artisans and their families are not always informative on the issue of their religious or ethnic identities. There is, however, a common association between gypsies and itinerant metalworking.4 The first reading is taken from the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-­ṣafāʾ) and comes from the epistle dealing with minerals. While the information is rather theoretical in character, it is interesting for its characterisation of gold and the reasons why it can be hammered and stretched without the application of heat. The second reading comes from an early thirteenth-­century manual on the mint in Cairo. This treatise provides detailed ­information

108  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s about assessing the purity of the gold and silver employed in the production of coinage. Clearly, this was vital information, as the value of these coins resided principally in the quantity of precious metal they contained. The debasement of coinage with base metals (such as copper and lead) often led to phases of inflation and economic instability.5 The third reading comes from the earliest collection of ḥadīth on the subject of Islamic law by Malik ibn Anas (d. 795). According to the jurist, the craftsmanship involved in fashioning and ornamenting objects in gold and silver did not increase their value beyond that of the weight of the metal. The fourth reading also comes from the domain of Islamic law, but this time the genre of ḥisba (market law). This twelfth-­century text shows a practical concern for the activities of goldsmiths and the ways in which they might seek to deceive their clients. The last three readings (five to seven) deal with the practices of those who worked in gold, silver and tin. The first of these readings describes the itinerant smiths who served the rural communities of nineteenth-­century Palestine. These men worked principally in silver and were able to fashion jewellery using remarkably simple tools. Sir John Chardin gives a detailed account of the work of Persian tinners and workers in gold and silver in reading six.6 He makes the important general observation that artisans in the Middle East do not follow the European practice of working at a bench, but rather sit on the floor. The final reading is devoted to the artisans who would tin copper vessels in late nineteenth-­century Arabia. The author, Charles Doughty (d. 1926), admires this group of craftsmen for their tolerance in the face of widespread prejudice. * * * § 13. 1. Gold is a substance balanced in natures, with a sound mixture, its soul being joined to its spirit, and its spirit being joined to its body – and we mean by ‘soul’ the aerial parts, and by ‘spirit’ the watery parts, and by ‘body’ the earthen parts. However, due to the strong union and intermingling of its parts, it is not burnt by fire, as fire cannot separate its parts, and it neither decays into the soil nor is corroded over the duration of time, and accidental detriments do not change it. It is a body soft to the touch, yellow in colour, sweet in flavour, pleasant in smell, heavy and weighty [razīn]. The yellow of its colour [comes] from its igneous component, its purity and brightness [come] from its aerial component, its softness [comes] from the oily [nature] of its humid component [ruṭūbatihi], and its weight and heaviness [come] from its earthen component. In fact, its sulphur is clean, its quicksilver pure, and the mixture is balanced. The heat of the mine has concocted them over the duration of time, gently and in a balanced way. And when the heat of the fire affects it, its humid component is melted, encircles its body, faces the heat of the fire, and drives away from its body the combustion of fire. And when it is taken away from fire, that humid component solidifies. When it is hammered, it is stretched by hammers, be it cold or hot; it can be extended in all directions, can be made thin and stretched, and twisted in threads; it takes every form of vessels and pieces of jewellery, can be mixed in fusion with silver and copper, and gets separated from them when gold marcasite is thrown on them, because [marcasite] is of the genus of sulphur that burns other things and is not burnt.7 § 13. 2. The testing of the purity of silver The testing of silver consists of filing it at a certain point and exposing the silver to fire. If its colour changes or turns black, this silver is adulterated. If its colour does not change, the silver is pure.

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The method for producing the nuqra [i.e. pure silver] dirhams Silver should be melted in a crucible. As it gradually liquefies, the dissolved substance is poured out into a darsal, while the crucible with the remaining silver is covered. The gradual pouring out is an economical method. The pouring out of the whole lot would result in losses caused by evaporation. The cast ingot (strip) is cut into pieces, each of them weighing more than 1 dirham. Thus, for instance, an ingot weighing 20 dirhams should be divided into 15 pieces, of which dirhams are made. The whole lot should equal 100 qirāṭs, the weighing constituting another check, apart from weighing each piece separately. If a piece proves smaller than 1 dirham, then it should be made into a half-­ dirham. Then the flans are polished and stamped. The polishing of nuqra dirhams When the flans have been turned around and adjusted, you heat them and rub them with lime-­water. When the flans turn white you polish them with soft sifted sand. Dried out with bran and subsequently cleaned, the flans are ready for stamping. The flans are heated in an iron ladle. As for the filings, they are cast together and made into dirhams in the usual way, until finally there remains but one dirham which, too, is molten, made round, polished, and stamped.8 § 13. 3. Yahya related to me from Malik from Humayd ibn Qays al-­Makki that Mujahid said, ‘I was with ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUmar when an artisan came to him and said, “Abu ʿAbd al-­Rahman, I fashion gold and then sell what I have made for more than its weight. I take an amount equivalent to the work of my hand”. ʿAbdullah forbade him to do that, and so the artisan repeated the question to him, and ʿAbdullah continued to forbid him until he came to the door of the mosque or an animal he intended to mount. Then ʿAbdullah ibn ʿUmar said, “A dīnār for a dīnār, and a dirham for a dirham. There is no increase between them. This is the command of our Prophet to us and our advice for you”.’9 § 13. 4. Chapter Thirty-­One: Goldsmiths They must not sell vessels and trinkets of gold and silver except for coins of a different metal, so that the increment is lawful. If the goldsmith sells them for their like, then increment, credit and concluding the sale before delivery is made are unlawful, as we mentioned in the chapter on money-­changers. If the goldsmith sells any trinkets which have non-­precious metals in them, he must tell the buyer the extent of the adulteration so that he is aware of it. And if he wants to make a trinket for someone, he must only smelt it in the furnace in the presence of the customer and after ascertaining its weight. When it has been smelted it should be weighed again. If it needs to be soldered, the goldsmith must weigh the solder before putting it on. He must not set any stones or jewels in a ring or trinket except after weighing them in the presence of their owner. In general, the frauds and adulterations of goldsmiths are secret and are difficult to detect. Nothing deters them from this apart from their honesty and piety, for they know tinctures and pigments which no one else does. Some of them colour silver in a way which does not leave the metal except after it has been smelted a long time in a smelting pot. For two parts of this they then mix in one part of gold. One of their frauds is the way they make silver yellow. They take sādhanj which

110  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s has been roasted and oiled separately, haematite which has been roasted with prepared maranj sap seven times, and vitriol and cinnabar roasted with eagle water solution in a retort. Then they grind them all together, roast two cups of the mixture seven times with the aforementioned maranj water, then seven times with the eagle water solution. After this it will solidify into a red stone the colour of blood. They mix one dirham of this with ten dirhams of silver and it becomes gold with a standard of sixteen. If this hard red amalgam of precious metal and adulterants is dissolved then allowed to harden again the silver acquires a standard of twenty from which dinars and jewellery may be made. Some of them take haematite and roast it seven times with an ox’s gall bladder. They then add a similar quantity of gold coated with sulphur which has been extracted from quicklime and alkaline ashes. After this, it is all roasted with eagle water solution seven times and oiled with wild saffron oil seven times. It hardens into a stone like the previous one. It is dissolved then allowed to harden again, and it becomes stronger than the previous one, similar to metal. They mix one qirāṭ of this with one dirham of silver. They can produce so many things from alchemy and tinctures that it would take a long time to describe them, and if I was not afraid that the irreligious might learn of these secrets I could explain many of them which a lot of goldsmiths have not discovered. Every Muslim must fear God and not swindle the Muslims in any way whatsoever. If the muḥtasib comes across anyone doing this, he must chastise and publicly condemn him, as has been explained previously. As for the dust and sand from the goldsmiths’ shops, it should be sold for copper coinage or a similar equivalent, for it has gold and silver in it and may thus lead to unlawful profit. But God knows best.10 § 13. 5. There are a few jewellers among the Fellahîn who either live in a village or wander about from place to place, making the rings, bracelets, chains, and other ornaments, of which the peasant women are so fond. Silver is the metal chiefly used, and that largely mixed with alloy; gold is rarely seen. The jeweller’s apparatus is very primitive. It consists of a rough pair of scales for weighing the metal; a plain portable hearth of clay, shaped like a large centre-­dish of fruit, about 15 inches high; a rude oil-­lamp, with a wick for blowpipe work, a curved metal blowpipe, and one or two forceps. With these simple tools they sometimes turn out very neat work. They seem to work entirely by rule of thumb, following traditional patterns and devices.11 § 13. 6. The next Observation I am to make on the Method of the Eastern Artificers, is, That they need but few Tools about their Work. ‘Tis certainly an incredible thing, in our Country, to hear how easily and conveniently these Workmen set themselves up and Work at their Trade: Most of them have neither Shop nor Shop-­Bench; they go and work wherever they are sent for; they sit on the bare Ground, or on an old Carpet in the corner of a Room, and in a Moment you see the Board up and the Workman at Work sitting on his Breech, holding his Work with his Feet, and working with his Hands: The Tinners of Kettles and Pans, for Instance, who use so many things in Europe about their Work, go to People’s Houses in Persia, and work there for the very same Charge: The Master, with his little Apprentice, brings his whole Shop with him, consisting of a Sack of Coal, a pair of Bellows, a little Solder, some Sal Armoniack, and some bits of Pewter in his Pocket. When he is come, he sets up his Shop wherever you please, in the corner of the Yard, or of the Garden, or Kitchin, without any occasion for a Chimney: He makes his Fire against

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a Wall, that he may set up his Pans against it when he warms them; he lays his Bellows on the Ground, and covers the Pipe of them with a little soft Clay shaped like a Vault, then sits to his Work as well contented as if he was in the largest and convenientest Shop. The Gold and Silver Smiths, as well as the rest, go likewise to work at People’s Houses, tho’ one would think their Tools are less ramageable, and not so easily removed; they carry a Clay Anvil shaped almost like a Chafing dish, but a little higher; Their Bellows is but a plain Kid-­Skin, with two bits of Stick at one end of it, to stop the Hole that draws in the Air; and when they would blow it, they tie a small Pipe at the other End of it, which they run into a Forge, and blow it with the left Hand: They take those Bellows drawn up like a Bag, out of a Leathern Bag, which serves them instead of a Filing-­Skin, in which they lay up also a pair of Pincers, and Ingot-­Mold, a Wire-­drawing Iron, an Anvil, a Hammer, some Files, and other small Tools: The Master carries the bag, and the Apprentice the Forge, and you see them go in that manner wherever they are sent for, and go back at Night with their Shop under their Arm. When the Workman is going to melt some Metal he takes his Crucibles as he wants them; and when he sets himself to work, he fastens the Skin to the Forge, and sets the Anvil down by him, and works in his Cap. The Reason why they have their Work done at Home, is because they won’t trust the Workmen, and would see whether things be done according to their Mind.12 § 13. 7. Certain sânies (Arabians of the smith’s caste) arrived before noon from Teyma, who although it was a festival day sat down bye and bye to their metal trade; their furnace-­ hearth is hollowed in the sand. One forges, another handles a pair of bellows-­skins; they were to tin all the copper vessels for the new year and to mend the old matchlocks and swords of Haj Nejm, in the armoury of the kella: the infirm but valorous old Moor had taken the most of them in the pursuit of hostile ghrazzûs. The smiths, notwithstanding their soon smutched faces, were well-­faring men at Teyma, where they dwelt in good houses and I afterwards knew them. The witty-­handed smiths and always winning, are mostly prudent heads; and suffering themselves in the peevish public opinion, they are tolerant more than other men. They came about this country once a year, and sojourned three months tinkering at el-­Ally; they would thither this afternoon with some of the garrison who must go to the village to barter with their government wheat for rice and fetch up the mules’ forage. I thought also to visit the oasis in their company.13

notes   1 On the mining and trade in gold and silver, see James Allan, Persian Metal Technology, pp. 3–9, 13–16 and Tables 4 and 7. On the sub-­Saharan gold trade, see Nixon et al., ‘New Light on the West African Gold Trade’.   2 On these techniques, see Allan, Persian Metal Technology, pp. 9–13; Jenkins-­Madina and Keene, Islamic Jewelry in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, pp. 143–50; Ward, Islamic Metalwork, pp. 33–7.   3 Discussed in Milwright, ‘Metalworking in Damascus at the End of the Ottoman Period’, p. 275.   4 For example, Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 49–50. A perceptive account of the gypsy smiths working in Modon in the southwest of the Peloponnese is given by Arnold von Harff (d. 1505). See Letts (trans.), The Pilgrimage of Arnold Von Harff, p. 81.   5 For example, see Shoshan, ‘Exchange Rate Policies in Fifteenth-­century Egypt’. The Egyptian scholar al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442) wrote about the fluctuations in the value of currency in his Treatise on Famines

112  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s (Ighāthatal-­umma bi-­kashf al-­ghumma). See Allouche, Mamluk Economics: A Study and Translation of al-­Maqrīzī’s Ighāthah.   6 Cf. the description of goldsmiths in twelfth-­century Paris given by Alexander Neckham. Reproduced in Cherry, Medieval Goldsmiths, p. 38.   7 Excerpt from Chapter 11 of Epistle 19: On the Explanation of Minerals. In Carmela Baffioni (trans.), Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. On the Natural Sciences, p. 261 (Arabic, pp. 318–19). Razīn may be wazīn. For silver, copper, tin, lead and alloys, see pp. 263–7.   8 Mansur ibn Baʿra al-­Dhahabi al-­Kamili, Kashf al-­asrār al-­ʿilmiyya bi dār al-­ḍarb al-­miṣriyya (written during the reign of sultan al-­Kamil, r. 1218–38). Partially translated in Ehrenkreutz, ‘Extracts from the Technical Manual on the Ayyūbid Mint in Cairo’, pp. 438–40.   9 Bewley (trans.), Al-­Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn Anas, pp. 256–7. From the chapter entitled: 31.16 (‘Selling Gold for Silver, Minted and Unminted’). 10 Al-­Shayzari, ʿAbd al-­Rahman b. Nasr (fl. twelfth century), Nihāyat al-­rutba fī ṭalab al-­ḥisba. Buckley (trans.), The Book of the Market Inspector, pp. 97–8. Cinnabar is mercuric sulphide and a vitriol is a sulphate of a metal. 11 Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land, pp. 253–4. 12 Chardin (d. 1713), Travels in Persia, pp. 249–50. 13 Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, I, p. 178.

CHAPTER 14

Pottery

Pottery production remains an important craft in many regions of the Islamic world through to the present day. Objects made from baked ceramic are employed in the storage, preparation and serving of food and drink. Ceramics have been widely used in manufacturing processes (from dyeing to the making of sugar and molasses) and in the storage of goods sold by ­merchants. Potters also manufactured drainage pipes and the pots attached to wooden wheels (norias) used to lift river water up to irrigation channels. Clay is an abundant resource, and pottery for domestic use can easily be fashioned using a minimum of tools (for example, a potter’s wheel is not an essential aspect of village production).1 In larger villages and smaller towns commercial potters fashioned an extensive range of vessels to cater for the demands of the local population. The larger urban workshops were often more specialised, seeking out a wider clientele. This meant that the potters needed access to an effective transport network (often by river or sea), both for the provision of raw materials and the distribution of the finished goods. The Islamic period is particularly noted for its innovations in the manufacture of glazed ceramics. Examples include the introduction of tin-­opacified glazes and lustre-­painting in Iraq in the late eighth and ninth centuries and the development of the stonepaste body (also known as fritware) in the eleventh century. The evolution of stonepaste was allied to changes in glaze technology, particularly the development of transparent alkaline glazes. These glazes allowed for a new range of decorative possibilities, including underglaze painting and overglaze ­enamelling.2 Among the most important centres for glazed pottery production from the twelfth century onward are Raqqa in Syria, Kashan in Iran and Iznik in Turkey (on the manufacture of glazed tiles, see Chapter 26).3 The readings in this chapter are organised according to the relative technical complexity of the manufacturing process. The first four look at different aspects of rural pottery production. This type of ceramic craft is typically located within the domestic environment and is commonly carried out by women. The first reading addresses the preparation of the clay in north Jordanian villages. An interesting feature of this is the care taken in the selection of potsherds to be ground into grog. The second reading comes from Grace Crowfoot’s (d. 1957) detailed study of pottery making in the Palestinian village of Kufr Lebbad, covering the stages from the formation to the drying of the vessel prior to baking. The third reading follows the firing of a group of pots by a female potter, Hamde al-­Dalʿab al-­Fathi, in Busra in southern Syria. Open firing is unpredictable, and the potter has to find ways of addressing the imperfections that

114  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s appear after baking. The fourth reading discusses the decorative techniques and firing process employed by rural communities in the Iranian region of Baluchistan. The remaining readings deal with aspects of urban ceramic production. This was typically the domain of men, with boys acting as apprentices. Readings five and six are concerned with the unglazed wares manufactured in the towns of Mecca and Gaza. The former specialised in a specific vessel – the containers for the water of the well of Zamzam – while the latter operated a more diversified industry, creating a characteristic type of fired ceramic with a dark-­grey body (i.e. reduction fired). The Gazan potteries served the local community, but also exported across the southern half of Greater Syria. The next two readings provide different descriptions of the manufacture of ceramic drainage pipes. These items were crucial to the building industries of the Middle East (see Chapter 25) and were employed for both the transportation of drinking water and the carrying away of waste. Reading nine to eleven deal with the production of the finest glazed pottery. The first is written by the famous Persian traveller Nasir-­i Khusraw and describes the finest glazed wares and glass of Fatimid Cairo (969–1171); it is believed that his description of glazed wares looking like the iridescent būqalamūn (or būqālamūn; in this context, a type of textile where the warp and weft threads are of different colours) is a reference to the technique of lustre-­painting. Reading ten is a description of the manufacture of glazes in the treatise of the nineteenth-­century potter Ustad ʿAli Muhammad. His account of the firing of lead and tin (required for making opacified glazes) correlates well with ethnographic observations.4 The eleventh reading comes from the most important surviving Islamic account of glazed pottery production. This appears in a craft manual written in the early fourteenth century by the Persian Abu al-­Qasim of the Abu Tahir family of potters. He establishes the processes involved in glazing and firing stonepaste vessels. Reading twelve is a legal document demonstrating the problems that a potters’ guild (ṭāʾifa) experienced at the hands of the ahl al-­ʿurf (i.e. members of the local Ottoman elite) in Jerusalem (for similar documents dealing with other crafts, see Chapter 2). * * * § 14. 1. In the area south of the Wadi al-­Tayyibe-­al-­Husn line potters use grog as temper. The sherds (ghūf) are generally collected from ancient sites. Not any sherds are considered suitable for this purpose. Most women claim that the sherds have to be antique, and that sherds of recent ceramics – especially those of their own production – cannot be used as temper. Among the ancient sherds those which are thin and smooth are prefered. The quality is tested by striking two sherds against each other. ‘Good sherds’ have to produce a ringing sound (yukhashkhashū). A potter from Sfina who also uses sherds of her own ceramic production exposes them to an artificial weathering process of one winter’s rain. The grog is mixed in the proportion of one to one with marl (mʿallaj), which is a mixture of clay and carbonate material. . .A higher clay portion results in a more greyish colour of the marl. This is the reason women prefer mʿallaj azraq (the greyish colour being refered to as ‘blue’). A well-­known place for marl is Suf where it is dug from the vicinity of water sources. Women from as far as Shatana and Kufr Khal used to dig their mʿallaj at Suf. In the region where marl and grog are used a variety of larger and smaller jars is produced.5 § 14. 2. Building the Pots. First Day. – The common practice is to begin making the pots on the afternoon of one day and finish them on the morning of the next. The potter

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chooses a smooth place to work on, preferably a roof or some other place with a hard beaten floor. She slaps a great lump of clay down on the floor and begins thrusting with her fist into the middle of it, fashioning it thus into a rude hollow shape. Then she begins shaping it with one hand inside and the other outside, until it has become a large shallow bowl. Occasionally she rises and walks round and round the bowl with her hands on it, like a kind of human wheel. Finally stones are placed all round it for fear that it should sag and it is left to stand till next day. The pot is now complete till just below the handles. Second Day. – The pot is now reckoned to be firm enough to support the handles, these are rolled out sausage-­wise and at first stand upright; and it is only as the clay hardens that they are gradually forced out to project at an angle from the sides. The next portion of the rim is also rolled out into a coil or sausage before it is applied, and is afterwards thinned out with the hands, finally small pieces are added where necessary to even up the rim. No shaping or smoothing with any tool was seen – all is done with the hands, with much skill; a most graceful gesture is the smoothing with the right hand, forefinger and thumb outside the rim. Turning. – After two or three days drying, when the condition of the pot is right, as we should say, ‘leather hard’, it is trimmed with a knife (khōsa), the ‘turning’ of the English potter. The pot at this moment has still the flat base acquired by being pressed down on the ground while it was being shaped, and the base has now to be made round. This is done with the knife, which has the blade in the middle and is held by both hands, one at each end, a sort of spokeshave, in fact. The handles are also trimmed until their contours satisfy the potter. Burnishing. – The pot is now ready for burnishing. The potter smears a slip, made from the same clay as the pot, all over it, and polishes it by rubbing it with a smooth cockle shell, inside and out. In the case where we were able to watch the process from first to last the potter had a small pot with water and a lump of clay beside her, and mixed the slip a little at a time, burnishing over it and then adding a little more. In the latter stages she added smaller fragments of clay and less water until for the last delicate touches she ­contented herself with licking the shell. The burnishing is a very slow process; to get a really good shine, a woman will work at a pot for the best part of a day; the lines of burnishing, as far as our observation goes are straight up and down for the bottom of the pot and round and round for the rim and the body. The shell, a smooth cockle (zelafi) is brought from the seashore where this kind is plentiful; it is held with the forefinger inside it . . . Ornament. – Our friend in Sebustiya told us that she remembered, when she was a little girl, seeing her mother colouring the rim of some of her pots with a red slip made from red potsherds, and burnishing over it, but we saw no attempt at decoration on any pot at Kufr Lebbad, and the women when questioned said: ‘What is the use of ornamenting a cooking pot?’ Drying. – The cooking pots have to be dried further before firing; the common practice is to put them inside the oven-­house (ṭābūn), in the recess where the fuel is kept; this is said to prevent cracking. It is called ‘smoking’ (mudakhkhan).6

116  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 14. 3. Open Firing Prior to firing, vessels are allowed to dry in the sun for at least eight days. The ‘kiln’ is literally an open bonfire against a basalt wall; three sides are lined on the ground with basalt boulders and two-­gallon size empty containers which Ḥamdē refers to as ‘doors’. These doors are superfluous today, but may indicate that in the past Buṣrā pottery was fired in a more enclosed structure, with doors acting as an air passage to keep the flames burning. Jars are placed sideways on the ground and bread moulds stacked in various places on top, with dung cakes, dried branches and any other combustible material well-­layered into and around the jars and bread moulds. Dung cakes drenched in petrol are ignited and placed throughout the prepared mound. Flames spread rapidly and within minutes the mound is ablaze. Ḥamdē continues to add more dung which burns and simmers on top and to some extent acts as a blanket to trap the heat inside. When the dung cakes are burning and smouldering to her satisfaction, green leaves are placed on top producing billowy black smoke. The dung cakes burn off evenly and gradually settle to form a gray-­ black ashy covering blanket which gives the overall appearance of a low-­domed ‘kiln’. Two hours later the rounded mass is covered with sheets of corrugated metal providing a roof which helps to retain the heat. Nothing is added or altered until three days later when the vessels are removed. On the firing day, pomegranate fruits are placed to soak in water so the hulls can be rubbed onto the fired jars to help close the pores. Firing results A variety of factors suggest that during firing an estimated maximum temperature of 600°C is at least briefly reached before dying down to a slow heat. When the pottery wares are cleared of the ashes, blotchy marks are visible on the surface. On some of the wares, especially the bread moulds, large white calcium oxide particles appear causing cracks, pitting and crumbling in spots, a direct consequence of the natural inclusions in the raw material. Rubbing the pomegranate hulls into the flawed wares causes more red-­tinged colour patches to appear and does not make the jars water-­tight. The actual function and history of the use of pomegranate in surface-­treating pottery needs to be investigated. To correct the faults, wet cement is smeared inside and outside to cover and fill the cracks.7 § 14. 4. Before painting sheep fat is rubbed into the surface. For the black painted decoration a stone called tituk (brought from Zabol) is rubbed in water on a flat stone called vank. The brownish black ink, with a high manganese content and traces of ferric oxide, is applied with the end of a twig. Motifs include dots, chains of small circles, triangles filled with dots, zigzags and little crosses. There has been no discussion of any possible meanings, though similar motifs appear on a larger scale on the pisé architecture and in greater variety on the rich embroideries. Firing is a communal affair. The men prepare a shallow pit about three metres across, heap it with trunks and fronds of dwarf fan palm and placed the sun-­dried pottery amid it. The fire is kept burning for six to eight hours and smoulders another eighteen until all the fuel is reduced to ash. When cooled, the pottery is removed. The once pasty tan clay is now deep red from the oxygen-­rich open firing. Pieces which sat on the ground or have been smothered in part by fronds and deprived of oxygen will have blackish blushes which the Baluchis themselves consider no defect. The pots bear no owner mark, yet, there seems to be no problem identifying and sorting. Marketing is done on the spot.8

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§ 14. 5. This street, as it proceeds, adopts the name of Haret Souk el Leyl, which comprises an extensive quarter on the east, where Moled e’ Nebby, or Prophet’s birth-­place, is shown, and which adjoins the Moamele (Muʿamala), or establishment of the potteries. The by-­streets close to the Moled are denominated Shab el Moled, or ‘Rocks of the Moled’, the ground which rises here being covered by stones. The Moamele lies on the side of Djebel Kobeys, and comprises about a dozen furnaces, of which the chief productions are jars, especially those used in carrying the water of the celebrated well Zemzem. These Moamele jars, although prettily wrought, are too heavy, differing in this respect from the beautiful pottery of Upper Egypt and Baghdad, which are so slight that an empty jar may be thrown down by a mere puff of wind. The Moamele alone supplies all the Hedjaz at present with these water-­vessels, and few hadjys return to their homes without some jars, as specimens of Mekkawy ingenuity.9 § 14. 6. The natural colour of the crockery is reddish yellow, [and] the like can be seen in Jaffa and Jerusalem. The ceramic fabrics of Gaza are naturally gray-­black; . . . This colouration is achieved in a very simple way in that the last firing is with camel or sheep manure. This blackening of the fabrics apparently makes them more durable than yellow [wares] and they are, therefore, in great demand. The Gaza potters do not understand the process of glazing; however, it is common for small drinking vessels to be more or less delicately painted with ochre pigment. Upon completion of the firing the pottery is removed from the kiln. Water jugs are taken out first and then the dishes with separate lids. This process takes two weeks and even with careful handling some pieces are broken as they emerge into daylight. The Gazan potter manufactures drinking pitchers of all kinds (shirba, kūz, pl. kūzān), water jars, which in the Orient women carry on their heads (jarra, pl. jarār; ʿasliya), large jars (zir, pl. ziyār), bowls of different sizes (lakan, pl. likan), sewer pipes and well pitchers (qādūs, pl. qawādīs), wall-­and vaulting-­tubes (lijām), small lamps (sirāj) and the like. Finished items are stacked outdoors in the city and sold or exported by land and water. A large proportion of these items go to the Bedouin and the Fellahin of Palestine; camels carry the Gazan commodities to Jerusalem, where they are usually stacked up by the Jaffa Gate, and to other cities of the Holy Land as far [north] as ʿAkka (Acre/ʿAkko). Barges that provide goods to Gaza usually take these items on their return journeys. If the transport situation were a little better, the pottery in Gaza would experience an even greater boom; this is unlikely, however, for coarse wares (Thonwaaren) are also produced in places other than Gaza. An ordinary drinking mug costs two to three Pfennige (pennies), an ordinary pitcher ten to twelve Pfennige; 12,000 vaulting tubes were supplied for [a sum] in the region of 190 francs. The potter is not able to gain much profit from this [activity], in spite of the fact that women and girls generally work for nothing. Among the potters there will, therefore, be those who are not well off, though none are in need. The production [of pottery] is irregular in nature, except in families where the potter does not work as a journeymen and only works with his family. In the current circumstances no one can [both] operate the business on a large scale and find any [additional] work. When the building [of a kiln] is required for coarse wares this is only done to order and not for [goods made for] export. The remaining coarse wares are sold in shops dealing in kitchenwares, and these [merchants] derive more wealth than the manufacturers. One of them is said to have made of a fortune of 30,000 francs, but this is not often the case.10

118  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 14. 7. Take earth that is clayey and not sandy, and sieve it to remove any waste, and mix it with water, as was described above for lime with egg white and oil. Then cover it with water and leave it in this state for ten days until it absorbs the water and becomes like a soup (ḥasū), not too light or too thick. Then expose it to the air until it swells (qabba) a little, and then beat it with a thick board, knead it, and beat it again and again, night and day or for two consecutive days. Then one can manufacture pipes and canals whose thickness is equal to one third of its diameter. Allow to dry, and then leave in the sun all day. They are then arranged in a kiln burning reeds [and fired] until it can be seen that they are ready. They are allowed to cool, then taken out and used for the supply of water.11 § 14. 8. Maker of drainpipes (qasāṭilī) It is the craft of making pipes (sing. qasṭal). And [for the] pipe, make them from the red earth (al-­turāb al-­aḥmar), mix it with sufficient water, and from it [i.e. the mixture] all kinds of pipe can be made by means of a special hollowed-­out mold. When it is done, it is allowed to dry in the sun until it is ready. It is then baked in a special oven (furn). And there are many types [of pipe] both large and small. And of them, the one known as al-­zamr has the smallest dimensions. Then al-­sharkas is the largest of the first group. Then the biggest is known as al-­īrānī. And from them are [also] al-­sabīlī, al-­mujīr and al-­zinjārī. And [the last of] these is the largest in dimensions. They are designed for drawing sweet water from reservoirs to the houses and other buildings . . . And indeed it is an important craft in Damascus, and it has its own special neighborhood (maḥalla) in the city, and it is known that [the work of] the pipe makers is much in demand and generates good profits.12 § 14. 9. In Old Cairo they make all types of porcelain, so fine and translucent that one can see one’s hand behind it when it is held up to the light. From this porcelain they make cups, bowls, plates, and so forth and paint them to resemble the būqalamūn so that different colours show depending on how the article is held. They also produce a glass so pure and flawless that it resembles chrysolite, and it is sold by weight.13 § 14. 10. How to procure the ingredients with which the coating (laʾab) is made You gather glasswort (shoora-­i-­biābāni), and burn it till it turns into ashes. Its alkali (kelā) collects amongst the ashes. Take this alkali. In the quarries is found a white stone which the Persians call seng-­i-­chekhmāq (a kind of flint). At Ispahan, in the river Zeyendeh-­Rood, it is found in great quantity, the water carrying it down from the hills. In Nayin and Ardestan, two villages of Ispahan district, a very good quality of that stone and of shoora is found – in fact, this is the best of all places. The stone is to be found also at Koom; and in the neighbourhood of Tehran in a hill called Bibi-­shahrbanoo. Anyhow, procure the stone whencesoever you can, pound it fine with an iron hammer, then mix one part of it with ⅔ an equal part of kelā (alkali), place it in the kiln, which heat (sic). Keep on making fire, and with an iron poker keep stirring the compound till the stone and kelā melt and flow into a basin which you have made under the kiln. On cooling, it will be found to resemble hard glass. It is called alkali-­paint (rang-­i-­kolai). We must send you a sample. Now with an iron hammer pound fine this alkali-­paint glass (shisha-­i-­rang-­i-­kolai) and pass it through a fine sieve. Then procure two quarry stones, called ‘shahdanej’, so

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hard as to resist calcination. Set up one of these stones, and with an iron bore make a round hole in the middle of the other, fit a wooden handle to its edge, place it upon the first, and pour gradually the sifted glass into the hole, twirling all the time the top stone until the glass-­paint has become as fine as collyrium (surma). We will send a sample of this also as a criterion for the degree of fineness. Set aside this fine paint. Melt in the kiln one maund of lead (surb) and one quarter maund of tin (gal). But I must explain how to do this. Take an earthen vessel, on its sides make two holes opposite to each other, place it in the kiln, thrown in the lead and tin, stop up the mouth of the vessel, and heat the kiln so that the flame enters from the back hole of the vessel and comes out from the front hole in such a way that the fire clasps the lead and tin from above and below. Thus you keep on heating till the lead and tin melt. After melting, you decrease the fire gradually till the melted lead and tin give forth a froth (kurk), then you remove the lid of the vessel, and remove to one side the froth, again decrease the fire, froth is again formed which you remove as before, and so on gradually reducing the fire and taking off the froth until the whole of the lead and tin has turned into froth. You take it and bray it fine on a stone. Then take four parts of the previously mentioned refined paint and one part of this lead and tin (turned into froth and brayed), and mix them for a coating or varnish (laʾāb). Keep this kind. How to make another coating (laʾāb) which is especially used for work of a superior quality. You must take some of the above mentioned alkali (kelā), put it in a kettle (fatilcheh), place it on the fire and boil it (adding the necessary water). After boiling, pour it into an earthen bowl and leave it all night. Next morning you will find at the top the essence of the alkali or kelā, crystallized in form of ramifications like sugar candy (nabat), or winter ice – the refuse sinking to the bottom. Take this essence (jauher), which the master of our art calls ‘essence of alkali’. Take one part of this, mix it with one part and a half of flint stone (chekhmāq) very, very finely pounded – finer than the former fine flint; pour as much as you like of this mixture in ten to fifteen earthenware vessels, and place them all round the kiln, thus filling up all the space round the kiln. Then you heat the kiln. At first, it will smoke a little, after two hours the smoke will cease, and the colour of the fire will turn red; heat again, and after two hours the fire will become white. Then look: you will see the contents of the vessels melted and shrunk. Let the kiln cool, then remove the vessels, break them and preserve the contents, which is a kind of paint (laʾāb), looking like hard glass. Pound it fine with an iron hammer, and then pass it through a sieve. Take four parts of this substance, and one part of froth of lead and tin prepared as before described, mix them, and again place the mixture in earthenware vessels and, as before, set them all round the kiln. Heat the kiln till at first the fire smokes, then turns red, then white, at which the contents of the vessels melt. You again let the kiln cool, remove the vessels, break them, and preserve the contents. This you pound with an iron hammer, pass through a sieve and bray – the finer the better. This paint or drug (laʾāb or deva), is specially required for work of superior quality.14 § 14. 11. The vessels are then coated with a glaze frit which has been ground up, finely sifted, and dissolved in water, and are stood on top of a broad-­meshed sieve, which is the lid of a trough, so that the excess of colour drips away. They are dried in the sun. If they want a green ground they coat on a mixture of ten parts of powdered glaze to a quarter of a

120  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s part of [a mithqāl of] roasted copper. The craftsmen call this ṭīnī. It comes out of the firing transparent green, like green glass. If they use one part of [brayed] lājvard to forty parts of glaze frit it becomes transparent blue like a sapphire. If for every ten [or: two] parts of glaze frit they add 1 part of maghnīsīyā it comes out black as shabeh, and if they add less it comes out a red the colour of eggplant. If they want an opaque colour such as turquoise they add for every man of ground tin ten dirhams of Sulaimānī lājvard and daub and coat the vessels with that. If they want a greyer tone they put in less lājvard and add a small amount of red sirinj. If they use an absolutely plain colour the vessels come out of the heat white. For each vessel is made an earthenware case with a fitting lid. These are placed in the kiln, called in Arabic shākhūreh and locally dam [and dāsht]. This is like a high tower, and inside has row upon row of fired earthenware pegs, each an arsh [or: a dhirāʿ] and a half long, fitted into the holes of the wall. The vessels are placed on them and fired for twelve hours with a hot even fire, with this stipulation: that no wood be put on until the smoking has stopped, so that the smoke does not ruin or blacken the pots. In Kāshān they burn soft wood [like hyssop or walnut], and in Baghdad, Tabriz and other places wood [of the willow] is stripped of its bark so that it does not smoke. The vessels are removed from the kiln after a week [after they have cooled]. Those that come out of the firing white they paint with enamel of two firings, or with lājvard, or with pure turquoise. [Or they are transparent and require no enamel painting.] The enamel is composed as follows: Take one and a half mans [or: parts] of red or yellow arsenic, one man [or: part] of gold and silver marcasite, one batman [or: half part] of Ṭīsī [or: Ṭabasī or Cypriot] yellow vitriol and quarter [of a part] of roasted copper, and mix it to a paste and grind it. A quarter of this is mixed with six dirhams of pure silver that has been burned and ground [with sulphur] and is ground on a stone for twenty-­four hours until it is extremely fine. Dissolve this in some grape juice or vinegar and paint it onto the vessels as desired, and place them in a second kiln specially made for this purpose, and give them light smoke for seventy-­two hours until they acquire the colour of two firings [which is like gold]. When they are cold take them out and rub them with damp earth so that the colour of gold comes out. Other people add certain preparations like sirinj and zanjār to this enamel. In fact, shādanaj stone with roasted silver serves the same purpose. That which has been evenly fired reflects like red gold and shines like the light of the sun.15 § 14. 12. In the middle of Jumada al-­Ula 1114 (October 1702) Hajj Kassab al-­Fakhri, the sheikh of the potters ṭāʾifa (al-­fawākhiriyya, or bardakcılar in Turkish) came to the sharīʿa court in Jerusalem, and presented a sultanic edict dated mid-­Rajab 1113 (December 1701). The firmān (summarised briefly in the sijill) recounts that the potters’ ṭāʾifa had sent a petition to the sultan and claimed that ahl al-­ʿurf in Jerusalem often seize pottery and earthenware objects from them by force, and do not pay for them. The edict instructs the governors to stop this kind of mistreatment, and to instruct their entourages to cease this habit of forcibly taking merchandise from the potters.16 notes   1 On the emergence and spread of handmade pottery, see Johns, ‘The Rise of Middle Islamic Hand-­made Geometrically-­painted Ware in Bilad al-­Sham’. Also Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology, pp. 154–6.

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  2 On the critical technological developments in Islamic glazed pottery, see Bernsted, Early Islamic Pottery, Materials and Techniques; Mason, Shine like the Sun.   3 General surveys of Islamic pottery include Lane, Early Islamic Pottery; Later Islamic Pottery; Watson, Ceramics from Islamic Lands.  4 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 161–3.   5 Mershen, ‘Recent Hand-­made Pottery from Northern Jordan’, pp. 79–80 (the transliteration has been slightly adapted).   6 Crowfoot, ‘Pots, Ancient and Modern’, pp. 184–5.   7 Bresenham, ‘Descriptive and Experimental Study of Contemporary and Ancient Pottery Techniques at Buṣrā’, pp. 96–8.   8 Gluck, ‘Pottery’, p. 45.  9 Burckhardt, Travels in Arabia, pp. 123–4. Quoted in a slightly adapted form in Peters, Mecca: A Literary History, p. 252. Hadjy (in Arabic, ḥajjī) refers to one who has undertaken the pilgrimage, while the Hedjaz (Hijaz) is the western part of Arabia. Djebel Kobeys is Jabal Abu Qubays, believed in Muslim tradition to be the location of the burial of Adam. 10 Translated from Gatt, ‘Industrielles aus Gaza’, pp. 71–2. 11 From the French translation of the Arabic in Fahd, ‘Un traité des eaux dans al-­Filāḥa an-­Nabaṭiyya’ p. 298. The text is somewhat ambiguous, though it seems unlikely that egg white and oil were added to the clay (this being a technique reserved for the manufacture of lime plaster; see Chapter 25 of this anthology). 12 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 351 (Chapter 274). 13 Nasir-­i Khusraw (d. 1088), Safarnāma. Thackston (trans.), Nāṣer-­e Khosraw’s Book of Travels, p. 54. 14 Fargues (trans.), On the Manufacture of modern Kāshi Earthenware Tiles and Vases, pp. 3–5 (Chapters 1 and 2). Bray means to crush to a powder, while glasswort is a member of the salicornia family. There is no evidence that there was an original Persian manuscript from which this was translated. It is probable that the current text was dictated by the master potter to Fargues. I am grateful to Moya Carey for bringing this text to my attention. 15 Excerpt from Abu al-­Qasim (fl. fourteenth century), ʿArāʾis al-­jawāhir wa nafāʾis al-­aṭāyib. Translated with annotations in Allan, ‘Abū’l-­Qāsim’s Treatise on Ceramics’, p. 114. In the latter part of his article, Allan gives a detailed discussion of the terminology employed by Abu al-­Qasim. 16 Translated in Zeʿevi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s, p. 159.

CHAPTER 15

Glass

Glassworking reached a high level of sophistication in the Islamic world between the eighth and the sixteenth centuries. This was a demanding craft requiring access to a variety of expensive materials (particularly fluxes and mineral colourants) and abundant fuel. Egypt was the source of natron (see Chapter 6), the most important flux of the ancient world, but in the early Islamic period glass makers in other regions discovered alternatives based on the alkali-­rich ashes made by burning certain desert plants.1 Egypt, Syria and Iran were all important centres of Islamic glassworking. Several decorative techniques were associated with these regions, including lustre-­painting, enamelling, bevel cutting and cameo glass.2 The evolution and spread of these techniques is now relatively well understood through the study of archaeological material and objects in museum collections. In comparison, detailed primary sources on glass are relatively rare.3 The first reading comes from a Chinese account of the products of other regions. It is believed that this description of glass making refers to southern Arabia. The second text describes the activities of the makers of glass vessels (zajjāj) in the Syrian capital. The description is notable for its reference to the increased competition from imported European crystal glass.4 The influence of Europe is also apparent in Sir John Chardin’s survey of the glass industries of the Persian cities of Isfahan and Shiraz (reading three). He notes that the technology needed to make mirrors of silvered glass is not present in Iran.5 The reference to cullet in his text is significant, because this material was evidently traded; large quantities of cullet and other glass waste were recovered from the Serçe Limanı wreck off the coast of Turkey.6 The fourth reading is part of the listing of crafts in Isfahan written by Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar in the late nineteenth century. He implies that the lack of (state) encouragement was restricting the development of the glass industry. The fifth text comes from the ḥisba manual of Ibn Bassam, probably composed in the ­fourteenth century. He writes about placing the glass into a smoky furnace (some aspects of this text are difficult to interpret), but also provides important information about the weights used by merchants operating in the marketplace.7 The last two readings (six and seven) deal with the creation of coloured glass windows in Iran and Egypt. Persian craftsmen appear to have set cut pieces of glass into a wooden construction, while their Egyptian counterparts created a plaster frame to hold the glass (the latter technique was also favoured in Damascus).8 * * *

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§ 15. 1. Liu-­li comes from several of the countries of the Ta-­shï. The method followed in melting it is the same as that in China, that is to say, it is made by burning oxide of lead, nitrate of potash, and gypsum. To these materials, the Ta-­shï add southern borax which causes the glass to be elastic, so that one may put it in water for a long time without spoiling it. It is, therefore, more valuable than the Chinese product.9 § 15. 2. Glassworker (Zajjāj) It is with the doubling of the [letter] jīm: and it is the making of vessels of glass like lamps (qanādīl) and flasks (qinnīna), and large jars (qatramīz), and lidded preserving jars (marṭabān), and other than them, with the most famous place of it [the production of glass] existing in the district of Shāghūr. And we have this report from the head of this factory: the place of origin of the Damascene glass is caves in Jabal ʿAdhra, one of the villages of Damascus, separated from it by a distance of four hours. He brings [raw materials] from there, and puts it in an oven (tannūr) with the alkali (al-­qalī), then he drenches some portion of it, and mixes it transferring it to another oven. He forms a little part of it until it becomes like dough. Then he pulls it out and transfers it to another oven, where it can be made ready for [working with] the tools of the craft in various ways for which it is desired. Then the zajjāj of the factory we have recorded about [above] told us about the ballūr (i.e. crystal glass) which has been imported from foreign lands. This is because the glass made by us has a colour tending toward green (i.e. a greenish tint), while the [imported glass] is pure white (i.e. colourless), according to the good or bad quality of the [raw materials of the] mine. And among the best are the costly types of glass known as [drinking] glasses (kuwayyis) and buttermilk jars (zubābī), and other types [of vessels]. . . . And this activity is one of the surviving crafts [worthy of] study in Damascus, like [that of the] qishānī, which has been weakened by European industries. With them (the raw materials) they create marvellous things that confuse the senses. Having come to our country, tourists will pay the greatest sums for a well-­known piece; [this is from] other than those old pieces known to be antiquities. In summary then the craft of the zajjāj is noble and in demand, bringing forth plentiful profits . . .10 § 15. 3. The art of Glass-­making; there are Glass Houses all over Persia, but most of the glass is full of Flaws, and Bladders, and is Greyish, upon Account doubtless, that the Fire lasts but three or four Days, and that their Deremne, as they call it, which is a sort of Broom, which they use to make it, doth not bear heat so well as ours. The Glass of Chiras is the finest in the Country; that of Ispahan, on the contrary, is the sorriest, because it is only Glass melted again; they make it commonly in Spring. They do not understand to Silver their Glass over, as I have observ’d already; therefore their Glass Looking-­Glasses, their Sash-­Glass, and their Snuff-­Bottles are brought to them from Venice. Moreover, the Art of Glass-­making was brought into Persia, within these four score Years. A Beggarly and Covetous Italian taught it at Chiras, for the Sum of fifty Crowns. Had I not been certainly informed of the Matter, I should have thought they had been beholden to the Portugueze for their Skill, in so noble and useful an Art. I ought not to forget to acquaint you with the Persian Art of Sowing Glass together very ingeniously, as I have hinted above; for providing the Pieces be not smaller than one’s Nail, they sow them together

124  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s with Wyre, and rub the seam all over with a white Lead, or with calcined Lime, mix’d with the White of Eggs, which hinders the Water from soaking thro.11 § 15. 4. The group of glass makers (shishehgar) They have two big manufacturies in Isfahan, which are still as active as they were in the beginning of the eternal empire. They made garden glasses (mardangi), candle burners (laleh), and water pipes, which cannot be distinguished from European products with regards to elegance and beauty, when seen from a distance. They were not very much encouraged to perfect their products, which grieved them very much.12 § 15. 5. Concerning the glaziers [and their cheating] They must be appointed a superintendent (ʿarīf), who swears that glaziers will not leave the furnace unless they have finished, even if that means going to him day and night. For if it [the glass] soaks up the smoke [of the furnace], take it out after that, and sell it. For if they are in a hurry to get the glass out before it has soaked up the smoke, it cracks, and this destroys the remainder of the purchase. The market inspector orders the supervisor to seal the furnace, so that the glass soaks it up. The glazier also skillfully manufactures weights, transporting them according to the requirements of the market inspector who calibrates them before they are sold [to merchants]. For the weights can have either an excess or a lack [of weight]. So fear God.13 § 15. 6. Windows in Persia are generally made from stained glass put together in very small pieces, of different size and colours, and forming what we should call a kaleidoscope pattern. The manner of putting them up is curious. The wood-­work, having been already made of several hundred small pieces, corresponding with each other in the desired pattern, is fixed in its place before the glass is put in. This is not done with putty; but the glazier, beginning from the bottom of the frame, takes it to pieces, and then he joins it together again, inserting, as he goes on, each bit of glass into the particular groove formed in the wood-­work for its reception. When finished, these windows are sometimes very beautiful; but as the glass does not fit tightly in every place, if there be any wind, it makes a continual jingling noise, and the air passes through the crevices.14 § 15. 7. The mode of making these windows is the simplest. A bed of plaster is poured into a frame and suffered to set, and the design is then cut out with a gouge or other tool, after which the stained glass is fixed with more plaster on the outside of the window, which is then put in its place, flush with the inside of the wall, and set in a slight wooden frame with a flat architrave round it forming a margin which conceals the joint between the several windows. A couple of buttons keep the window from falling inwards, while the architrave secures it on the outside. It will be seen that no special skill is required for most of this work. The plaster is easily cut – as any one may prove who cares to make an experiment of carving a kamarīya out of plaster of Paris – and the glass requires no fitting, for its superfluous edges are concealed by the plaster. The material is fragile, no doubt, as those who have tried to bring it to England know, but moderate care on the part of the workman would ensure the safety of the kamarīya between its cutting and its placing in the window. Where the art comes in is in the shaping of the perforations which form the design. The shape and slant of these holes are skilfully regulated according to the height they are to be raised above the spectator; and the thick plaster setting of the bright little

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facets of glass gives the light that comes through the latter a shaded appearance that is singularly charming. It is difficult to give in words any clear idea of the exquisite effect which is obtained by the skilful management of the plaster rims; and, unfortunately, in our climate one cannot reckon on seeing the sun’s rays streaming through the stained glass of those kamarīyas which are exhibited in the South Kensington Museum.15 notes   1 On the techniques involved in the manufacture of early Islamic glass, see Henderson, ‘Archaeological Investigations of an Islamic Industrial Complex at Raqqa, Syria’; The Science and Archaeology of Materials, pp. 76–90.   2 For examples of these different techniques, see Carboni, Glass from Islamic Lands.   3 See, however, Carboni et al., ‘Glassmaking in Medieval Tyre’.   4 See al-­Qaddumi (trans. and annotated), Book of Gifts and Rarities, pp. 267–8.   5 Allan and Gilmour, Persian Steel: The Tanavoli Collection, pp. 470–2.   6 Bass et al., Serçe Limanı, II: The Glass of an Eleventh-­century Shipwreck.   7 For early examples of weights, see Balog, Umayyad, ʿAbbāsid, and Ṭūlūnid Glass Weights.   8 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 363 (Chapter 289). Translated by Wesley Thiessen in Marcus Milwright, ‘Glass and Glassworking in Damascus’, pp. 208–9.   9 Lane and Serjeant, ‘Pottery and Glass Fragments from the Aden Littoral’, pp. 118–19. Quoting F. Hirth and W. W. Rockhill, Chu-­fan-­chih, on the Arab and Chinese Trade in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (St Petersburg, 1911), p. 227. 10 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 163–4 (Chapter 124). Translated by Wesley Thiessen. 11 Chardin (d. 1713), Travels in Persia, p. 275. On the methods employed by twentieth-­century Persian glassworkers, see Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 169–71. 12 Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar, Jughrāfiya-­yi Isfahan, ed. M. Sittuda (Tehran 1342/1963), Chapter 88. Translated in Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama, p. 179. The ‘eternal empire’ refers to the rule of Nasir al-­Din Shah (r. 1848–96). 13 Ibn Bassam (fourteenth century?), Nihāyat al-­rutba fī ṭalab al-­ḥisba, p. 159. Translated by Wesley Thiessen and Marcus Milwright. 14 Holmes, Sketches on the Shores of the Caspian, Descriptive and Pictorial (London: R. Bentley, 1845), p. 74. Quoted in Floor, ‘The Wood-­working Craft and its Products in Iran’, pp. 177–8. 15 Lane-­Poole, The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, pp. 222–3 (a modern transliteration of the word kamarīya is qamriyya). The windows referred to in this passage can now be seen in the Jameel Gallery of Islamic Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

PART 5

Organic Media

CHAPTER 16

Wood

Many areas of the Middle East are not well provided for as regards high quality timber. For example, the forests around the Mediterranean basin had been denuded centuries before the rise of Islam. Furthermore, commonly occurring trees, such as the date palm or fig, do not provide the hard, close-­textured wood needed for high quality decorative work. There is evidence for the importation of wood into the Middle East from the early centuries of the Islamic period onwards. Teak and other tropical hardwoods were brought by sea to the great ports of the Persian Gulf in the Abbasid period, and these were subsequently shipped along the Tigris river to Baghdad and Samarra. The port of Siraf preserves evidence of another trading ­connection; much of the wood employed across the site was sent from East Africa.1 Wood might also be opportunistically reused when supplies became available. A famous example of this phenomenon is the rebuilding of the Kaʿba in Mecca in 608. According to textual accounts, Baqum – the carpenter responsible for the project – utilised beams taken from a shipwreck that had recently occurred on the coast.2 Islamic woodworking is perhaps at its most impressive when creating elaborate objects out of small interlocking components. This is seen in the mashrabiyya windows of traditional buildings across the Middle East and North Africa. These are made of small turned pieces of wood set into a dense lattice. Small sections of wood were cut and pieced together with sections of carved ivory or bone to create complex, interlocking geometric patterns (usually known by the Persian term, girih or gereh). Panels of this type could be assembled together to make boxes (for example, for storing Qurʾan manuscripts) or even larger objects, such as minbars (pulpits) in mosques.3 A sophisticated knowledge of geometry was required to produce such elaborate patterns from sections of wood (for the biography of one such c­ raftsman, see Chapter 4). In later periods the technique of inlaying wood with mother-­of-­pearl and filaments of tin became very popular (see Figure 16.1).4 The first two readings consider the craft of the sawyer. The first summarises a report by the British Vice-­Consul in Scanderoun (i.e. İskanderun, formerly Alexandretta) in southern Anatolia in the early nineteenth century. The second deals with the work of the sawyers in Damascus.5 The next two readings (three and four) deal with the everyday carpenters and joiners working in rural Palestine in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The authors of both readings note the relatively simple tools these carpenters used for their work. The second half of this chapter contains readings devoted to specialised aspects of woodworking. Readings five and six consider the working practices of woodturners in Iran and

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Figure 16.1  Mother-­of-­pearl inlaid wooden clog, Damascus, Syria, nineteenth century. Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawai’i: 67.25. Courtesy of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.

Syria. The first is written by Sir John Chardin. He evidently admires the work produced by these craftsmen (in wood and metal), though they lacked the knowledge of turning ovoid shapes. Reading six provides extensive information about the types of objects made by the turner. Reading seven comes from a fourteenth-­century ḥisba manual and outlines the proper practices of the comb maker. There were artisans producing wooden and tortoiseshell combs by hand until the mid-­twentieth century.6 The eighth reading is a description of the makers of wooden trunks and boxes from a late nineteenth-­century account of the crafts of Isfahan. The influence of European styles is clear in this text (on the challenge of Western goods, see Chapter 29). The traditional practices of wooden boat building are discussed in reading nine. The construction of these seagoing dhows in Maʿala (Aden) required the importation of wood from other regions. The final reading (ten) also considers the crafts of southern Arabia, dealing specifically with the wooden beams employed in the high-­rise houses in the ancient city of Shibam. The size of the available beams dictated the internal dimensions of the rooms of the house (see also Chapter 25). * * * § 16. 1. From 70,000 to 80,000 trees, large and small, were last year shipped to Alexandria; about 14,000 tons. By the foregoing scales it will be seen that timber of from 15 to 18 inches square,

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prepared either for the saw or for working, stands in, ready for shipment, about 1 piastre the foot. A tree from 25 to 30 feet in length, of the above dimensions, may be cut into planks by three sawyers (in this country the saws are generally worked by three men, one above and two below) in about two days; each man is paid about 3 piastres per day, which, added to the cost of the trees, brings that of inch-­planks, of from 25 to 30 feet long, and exceeding a foot in breadth, from 3 piastres to 3 ½ piastres each, or of little more than a farthing per foot. But to the expenses of actual labour may be added a very heavy item in the shape of pay and allowances of different officers who control and superintend the works, and may be estimated at as much as the whole labour, they being as much overpaid as the poor creatures are underpaid.7 § 16. 2. Sawyer (nashshār) It is the cutting of different types of wood, like the walnut (jawz), willow (ṣafṣāf), and white poplar (ḥawar), and others than those. It involves the cutting of the branches from trees, the cutting off the base, the measuring of the length of them [the branches and trunks] into [sections] of three or four cubits (sing. dhirāʿ), and cutting off the lower section, shaping the extremities of them. This is known as the ‘measure’ (miqdār). The masters of this craft occupy themselves near the place of the ‘Warehouses’ (al-­ḥawāṣilīyya) that has been discussed earlier in the chapter devoted to the ḥawāṣilī (wood supplier). The manner of working [is as follows]: the sawyer prepares in the warehouse of the wood supplier with scaffolding [made] from pieces of wood, and arranged on it are two people of the same age, as organised by the wood supplier. They work according to the measurements ordered by the wood supplier. It is divided into the sawing of the sides repeatedly, with the middle [line] marked by a thread of cotton drawing it into pieces for the saw (jibs ʿayn) that is sharpened along its length and [is] strong and rigid at one end. Then he draws it [the cotton thread] tight from the middle and strikes it along its length. It is covered [again] with gypsum and threaded again as a guide for what is sawn. This will make them (the lines) uniform. In this manner the thread progresses along each measurement threaded and threaded, and he raises the marked [piece of wood] onto the scaffold, and it goes as high as the highest person on the scaffold, and there is a person at the lowest [part]. And he takes the piece according to the measurements and using the middle of the steel (ḥadīd) saw he arrives at a length of three cubits or larger. . . . The majority of those engaged in this activity are from the people of the villages of ‘al-­Tall’ and ‘Munīn’. And they move also around the villages, and they saw [the wood] according to the desires of the villagers, from the wood that needs sawing. It is an activity that brings forth a middling profit.8 § 16. 3. . . . Most villages have their own carpenter, who makes and mends the ploughs and other agricultural implements, does whatever wood-­work, such as doors and windows (wherever there are the latter), is required in the houses, and manufactures the rough boxes in which women keep their clothes. His tools are of the most primitive description: a few tiny saws, with teeth set the reverse way to those of our saws, a small plane, two or three chisels of various sizes, a drill worked by a bow, and a narrow, much-­curved adze, in the use of which he is as skilful as a shipwright. He does not use a carpenter’s bench,

132  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s but squats on the ground to work and, where he has to use both hands, holds the thing he is working at with his feet. Payment is frequently made in kind, the peasant giving the carpenter so many measures of wheat per annum, in return for which the other undertakes to keep his ploughs, etc., in repair. It is rarely a remunerative employment, and to make a living a carpenter must either have land of his own or must combine some other occupation with it. I knew one who was also village schoolmaster, and used to make and mend his ploughs, etc., in the courtyard of the little village mosque, with his scholars around him learning their tasks. Those I have known have all been poor, some of them very poor, and in the little town of Nazareth there would probably have been but scanty work for the carpenter, and the Saviour, in all probability, must have known at times the pinch of real want.9 § 16. 4. Carpenter. – The Oriental carpenter or joiner in a country like Palestine has not wood enough to make large things, but he fits up doors, windows, cradles, low tables, small chairs, chests for women, and the like. Many of these articles are made in imitation of Western furniture, and do not strictly belong to true Oriental life. They are importations. The Arab carpenter has one indispensable tool always at hand, the adze, which he calls kaddûm. In Egypt it is called mukshut. The plane is not an Oriental tool; it was introduced from Europe. The next indispensable tool for the Arab carpenter is the saw, Arabic munshac, Hebrew massār. The awl, or auger, is not an instrument like those in use with us. It is turned by a handle and string, resembling a whip. The leather string is twisted once around the handle of the iron borer, and pulling back and forth drives it into the wood. The carpenter makes wooden locks and keys for houses, as well as windows and doors. The hammer, pliers, pincers, or tongs; the vise, the file, and the rule, or square are common instruments now among Orientals, both with wood and metal workers. Crude tools. – To Western eyes the tools of both the metal and wood workers of the Orient seem very crude and primitive, yet their products are sometimes marvels of skill and genius . . .10 § 16. 5. The Turner’s Trade is one of the Mechanick Arts, which the Persians understand very well. They have no Frame for Turning, as we have; their way consists only in a Trendle, to which they fasten whatever they intend to Turn, a Thong that goes twice around the Trendle, and a Boy holds with both Hands, pulling now one end of it, then another end, turns the Piece about. But when they have but small Pieces to Turn, the Workman needs no help, for with one Hand he stirs the Axis with a Bow, and with the other Hand he holds the piece of Wood. They use no Wimbles as we do, but they use Gimblets of several Sizes, which are instead of them, and which they turn with the same Instrument as they do Wood; ’Tis a piece of Iron flat and sharp at the End, shaped like a Rib, that it may cut better, hafted in a round Handle filled with Lead to make it weighty, about which they put a Strop that goes quite round it, they hold fast the Gimblet with the Left Hand, on a piece they intend to bore, and turn it with the Right Hand. That is their Mechanick way of Turning and Boring. They lay on Lacker very neatly; the violent Motion of the turning Instrument melting it without the help of Fire: They spread it with a Palm tree Stick, because the Wood is porous, and then with a piece of coarse Cloth and a little Oil, they give a wonderful Lustre to their Work, which never goes off: That Lacker likewise is never subject to scaling. Among other things, they make Children’s Cradles extraordinarily well. They turn Metals as well as Wood, but they are far from attaining

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the Skill of our Workmen . . . the Persian Turners, are unskill’d in the turning of an Oval; ’tis a Figure, the working whereof they are utterly unacquainted with.11 § 16. 6. Woodturner (kharrāṭ) It is the name for the activity of the woodturner. And it is said: he turned the branch (ʿūd) peeling it and smoothing it – as it is in the common tongue. And it is the technical term for the turning of branches of wood of widely available types, with a specialist tool into known dimension[s]. And he takes the branch after it has been lathed clean and smooth, and equal in all dimensions [i.e. round in profile]. And they are meticulous in drilling, according to the desire of the buyer of it, [making objects] like balusters of banisters, and the middle sections of narghiles (water pipes) in a range of beautiful types. And they turn chess pieces and [pieces for] barjīs (backgammon) and other types beyond enumeration. And they make different types of chairs, big and small, and other than that, including the carving of things such as a ball [made] from a special wood, and the carving of bowls for garlic, and other miscellaneous kinds. And in summary, it is a widespread and famous craft, and it has a special market (sūq) in Damascus named ‘al-­Kharrāṭīn’, on the principal main street of al-­Darwīshiyya, the most famous and celebrated of all. And God is the dispenser of that which is easy and that which is not.12 § 16. 7. Chapter 40: Comb-­makers Combs for men and women must be made of no wood but that of the Greek box-­tree. And it must not be green, otherwise it will warp as it dries or break. (The best combs are made out of tortoise-­shell.) Any use made of wood other than box-­wood (e.g. orange-­wood) shows in the combing, for splinters of wood appear and tear out the user’s hair. The workman must use good craftmanship and the points must be in line. It should remain straight for a time after it is cut and pressed hard in a press, for it will not move properly unless it is true. The work on the inside should be well done so that the ‘mouth’ [? the intervals between the teeth] shall be small and the teeth fine. It must move sharply through the hair and the teeth should therefore be rounded with a chisel, avoiding all splintering.13 § 16. 8. The guild of trunk-­makers (ṣandūq-­sāz): they are a group in Isfahan that makes big and small chests in the European style. For the coating they use many-­colored figured tin. It is elegant, neat and solid and much better than the latest European work. The guild of the makers of small boxes (mirjī-­sāz): the same description as above. The guild of the tin-­box makers (qūtī-­sāz): the same description [as above]. Sugar boxes, tea caddies, workboxes with many compartments (hazār bīsha), and others are made of real plane-­tree wood here. They gild with a paintbrush around the defects (jawharhā) in the wood; the surface is painted with fish-­glue color (ṣārīshūm), saffron color, and varnish (rawghan-­i kamān), which gives [the boxes] solidity and splendor, and their price is [accordingly] high.14 § 16. 9. Dhow-­building is carried on at Maʿala, chiefly by the Hadhrami merchants who have settled in Aden. The industry is of great antiquity, possibly dating back to the ninth century bc in early Sabaean times. The dhows of to-­day are much the same as those of the Phoenicians, except that the tools used in their construction have become more efficient through the centuries, and that sometimes they are fitted with motor-­engines.

134  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Teak imported from the Malabar coast is used for planking; but the ribs are made from branches of large thorn-­bushes which grow on the Arabian coast and are brought in by coasting dhows. Wooden plugs are used in place of screws, and to avoid joining or hewing out particular shapes from solid wood, pieces are sought which naturally have the necessary size and form. The nails are of iron, manufactured in primitive smithies on the beach at Maʿala. First the ribs are set up and joined to the keel, with cross beams connecting the tops. Then hand-­sewn planks are laid, first on the inside and later on the outside, the interstices being filled with rope and tar. A covering of gypsum from Mukalla or Shihr, ground in a camel press and mixed with oil, is then applied, and carvers decorate the part above the waterline with designs to suit the owner’s taste. The deck is then partly planked over and a central mast mounted. Most of the dhows except the small ones are built on stocks, and roofs of matting or awnings are mounted to protect the woodwork from the sun’s heat and to give shade to the builders. Dhows of all shapes and sizes are built at Maʿala. The sanbūq or smack, of 20–50 tons burthen, evolved to suit the conditions of the inhospitable Arabian coast – shelterless and subject to sudden squalls, practically draught, and keel-­less bottom so that it can be beached easily. The buggalow may be up to 350 tons burthen and is usually two-­masted, a decked vessel built for sea-­going purposes. The dhow-­building yards of Maʿala produce about seven dhows a year. Sails and ropes for hawsers and fenders are also made at Maʿala.15 § 16. 10. The wood. The principal structural difficulty in building the Shibam houses was the problem of finding timber long enough. There is some evidence that in ancient times teak imported from India was used, at least in some of the buildings. In recent decades, the importation of teak, and also of wood from Africa, has revived. But for much of its long history Shibam had available only two woods for building, elb or sidr, known as himr when it gets old and hard, and ithl or tamarisk. Neither species grows to any great height, so the beams of the rooms tended to be limited to about 3.5 m. Longer beams, to cross large rooms on columns, were sometimes jointed longitudinally, or ʿariata wood was used, obtained from the few areas where this taller species grew (although long beams were extremely difficult to transport over rough terrain on camel-­back – so beams of great length were rarely employed). There were ancient restrictions against cutting trees in many areas of the wādī, and the government today is enforcing the protection of the indigenous flora, so the elb wood can now be obtained only with extreme difficulty and at great expense. Traditionally, this wood was also used for all the doors, window screens, shutters and cupboards. In the most exposed situation it lasted fifty or sixty years. But internally it was regarded as indestructible. If the trees were felled in winter, the preferred season, there was little sap rising in the wood and it was accepted as insect-­proof. Termites were rare in Shibam, and since the main beams were mainly of this wood, they were almost never replaced. (The only exceptions were splitting due to settlement, or overloading due to building higher storeys carelessly over the beams.) The small beams, which spanned crosswise, approximately twelve in each bay, were sometimes attacked or became rotten. This would happen if ithl had been used for them rather than elb. If four or five were rotten in a single section they were replaced, or perhaps the whole floor construction was redone and the beams replaced. If exposed to the weather, ithl wood lasted only about fifteen years. It was consequently a much cheaper wood, used only in poor houses.16

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notes   1 On the importation of wood to Siraf, see Whitehouse, ‘East Africa and the Maritime Trade of the Indian Ocean’, pp. 416–17. For the use of wood in Abbasid Iraq, see Ahsan, Social Life under the Abbasids, pp. 176–80.   2 Discussed in Creswell, A Short Account of Early Muslim Architecture, pp. 3–4.   3 For example, see Singer (ed.), The Minbar of Saladin; Bloom, ‘Woodwork in Syria, Palestine and Egypt’.   4 On these crafts in Syria, see Milwright, ‘Wood and Woodworking in Late Ottoman Damascus’, pp. 554–6.   5 Cf. the description of this activity in Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, p. 80.  6 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, 99–100, Figs. 148–9. On the comb makers of Damascus, see Milwright, ‘Wood and Woodworking in Late Ottoman Damascus’, pp. 556–7.  7 Bowring, Report on the Commercial Statistics of Syria, p. 13.   8 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 481–2 (Chapter 412). Translated by the author. Ḥadīd literally translates as iron, but in this context it means steel.  9 Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land, pp. 242–3. 10 Rice, Orientalisms in Bible Lands, pp. 210–11. 11 Chardin (d. 1713), Travels in Persia, p. 269. Trendle is a type of spindle. 12 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 122 (Chapter 86). Translated by the author. 13 Ibn al-­Ukhuwwa, Muhammad b. Muhammad (d. 1329). Levy (ed. with partial trans.), The Maʿālim al-­ qurba fī aḥkām al-­ḥisba, p. 280 (Arabic), p. 91 (English). 14 Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar, Jughrāfiyā-­yi Isfahān, (ed.) M. Sittuda (Tehran 1342/1963), pp. 108–9. Translated in Floor, ‘The Wood-­working Craft and its Products in Iran’, p. 170. The glue can also be read as ṣirīshm. For compartments, read also hizār-­bīshih. 15 British Admiralty. Naval Intelligence Division, Western Arabia and the Red Sea, pp. 530–1. 16 Lewcock, Wādī Ḥaḍramawt and the Walled City of Shibam, p. 95 (slightly adapted).

CHAPTER 17

Basketry and matting

Baskets are made from several fibrous plant materials. Willow branches can be woven into wicker, a durable product suitable for a variety of domestic objects. Reeds are most readily found in river deltas and areas of marshland and are employed for many purposes, including mats and, in the marshes of southern Iraq, even in the construction of houses (see Chapter 25).1 Reeds and straw are also chopped into mud in order to make mud bricks. The papyrus plant (Cyperus papyrus) is a member of the sedge family and is found in riparian environments with slow-­moving water. The pith of the stem is cut into strips and then pressed flat in order to create sheets. This ancient writing material was still in common use in the early Islamic period (see Chapter 22).2 Date palm is another important resource for basketry, matting and ropes. The dense fibres from its trunk are used for these purposes, as are the strongest parts of the leaves. The production of basketry and matting is labour intensive, but requires no specialised tools. The main requirement is a good cutting implement to split the branches or stems into thin strands. These activities could easily be performed in the domestic environment, with both men and women working on different aspects of this craft. Many objects would probably have been made for personal use, but there was often a commercial dimension. Arabic geographical sources, including al-­Idrisi (d. 1165 or 1166), indicate that some reed mats were much sought after, with high prices paid for the finest examples. A few early mats have survived in museum collections; the epigraphic evidence suggests that Tabariyya (modern Tiberias in Israel) was a major centre of production.3 Decorative basketry continues to be produced in rural areas across the Middle East and elsewhere across the Islamic world.4 The first reading describes the preparation, weaving and uses of reed matting in the village of Agga in the Iraqi marshlands. The second reading looks in more detail at the techniques used by the women of this region in the manufacture of baskets. The third reading considers the basket makers of Damascus in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These artisans employed both willow branches and reeds. The fourth reading is part of a description of the textile industries of early nineteenth-­century Aden. Encompassing matting, string and simple spinning and weaving, this account illustrates the divisions – according to gender, religion and ethnicity – that existed in some manufacturing activities. In reading five the German pilgrim Felix Fabri (d. 1502) relates his attempt to buy palm leaves to take back with him to Ulm for the Palm Sunday procession. Whether we should accept his claim that a basket

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maker would have owned such a lavish house is open to question, however. The final reading describes the harvesting of the ribs from palm leaves in Egypt. * * * § 17. 1. . . . I saw for the first time each of the processes of reed mat making, an industry on which the majority of the Ma’dan are dependent both for money and for covering their houses. The first stage, after the reeds have been cut and brought home to the villages, is to split each stem with a short curved knife. This is done with extraordinary speed, but, I noticed, an amount of blood unexpected among people so practised. When the reeds are split one spreads them out flat upon the ground and pounds them with a long-­handled mallet whose head was, here anyway, a section of a palm log some eighteen inches long. The pounding reduces the reeds to flat strips formed of three to six still connected strands, and they can be stored at this stage, for the pounding prevents them from becoming brittle. A man weaves squatting on the ground with the reeds spread flat before him; the woven mat is shiny and golden, with the effect of a bold herring-­bone pattern. It is these mats that trading boats from outside the marshes collect and sell all over Iraq and even far beyond its frontiers; the marshmen receive about tenpence for a sheet eight feet by four. Recently I saw some similar matting in London, and learnt that it sold for £2 a yard. Besides roofing and flooring the houses, the matting has many other uses. Big trays of it, with upturned edges, are used for drying grain under the sun, and this grain is afterwards stored in round structures like miniature gasometers, the sides formed of reed matting and the top sealed over with buffalo dung that sets hard like cement.5 § 17. 2. Plaited baskets Plaited baskets are still made by most Mi’dan women and some village women. Women maintain that at least in this area everyday basket making was always a cottage craft practiced by women. Baskets are made from both split rushes and split reeds and the plaiting is done in a strip. Split young reeds or rushes, sometimes still green, are made pliable by pounding and then separated into lengthwise sections. The basket maker begins a strip of weaving by bifurcating 11 split sections from the top to about 4 or 5 cm from the bottom. They are then interlaced, their bottoms held in the left hand, and the process of plaiting begins. The weaver bends the outer two split pieces toward the center, passing them in and over two, under two pattern alternately working from right to center and from left to center. As new sections are needed, they are split, added to the old sections at the center, and held there with the left hand until they are tightly bound in the course of plaiting. Wider and narrower strips can be made by the addition or subtraction of two or multiples of two ­sections at the beginning of the plaiting process. Throughout the plaiting if one is using rush (but not reed) the material must be kept moist, usually by occasionally immersing the part being woven in a large pan of water, and by keeping the sections to be added covered with water until they are needed. In basket weaving the strip should constantly decrease in width, a process that requires careful control. As the weaving progresses, quarter sections are added rather than half sections, and greater pressure is exerted to tighten the plait. Such strips are sometimes tied together with strings but baskets made in this fashion are not very sturdy. Usually the strips are bound together in the process of weaving. Unbound edges are strengthened with ribbons made of sections of reed or rush knotted

138  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s at their ends and rolled in the palms of the hands, over which the outer woven sections are always bent. Outer sections of bound edges are passed around the ribbons in the ­previously woven strip before they are woven into the pattern. This process creates a sturdier join that will withstand a great deal of pressure. They are still less sturdy than the rest of the basket, as a basket almost always disintegrates first at the juncture of the strips. A rolled edge is produced at the top of the basket by bending the top edge of the last strip outward and downward inserting the outer section through the previously woven strands before that section is woven through the cycle. When the cycle is complete, the section is pulled tight and the edge thoroughly secured in its doubled-­over position. At the conclusion of the last cycle, the remaining sections are forced through the basket sidewall and tied in a knot. Women made deep and shallow baskets in many different sizes and plait large trays which are used for drying threshed grain in the sun. Baskets are used for transporting goods to market, from the house to the field or vice versa, and from large storage containers in the courtyard to the place where the contents will be used. The smallest-­size baskets are made for carrying a lunch usually composed of a handful of dates and a folded disk of wheat bread. Baskets can be tailor made for specific contents such as the oblong tablets of holy mud from the religious center of Najaf that were used by the faithful in prayer.6 § 17. 3. Basket maker (sallāl) It is the name for the making of the basket. And these are of two kinds: from them the strongest are [made] from branches of willow (ṣafṣāf) or reed (qaṣab). Then in the case of the willow, [the branch] is separated into four, resulting in the strands becoming flexible. The persons engaged in this craft cut an appropriate quantity from the branches of willow, and after having removed the leaves from them, they soak them in water until they become increasingly flexible, and they are suitable for use. And the reed is like that [of the willow branches] in the cutting of it, and the peeling, and the dividing of the whole into halves, and soaking them in water until they are flexible enough to be used to make the aforementioned basket. And those engaged in this activity, in the majority, are rural masters, and from among the poor and destitute, because this is a lowly craft and the profits [gained] from it are small. It does not exist among the wealthier in society, but it is a very widespread activity, and that is because many seek out baskets; these are kinds used for carrying apples and greens. In summary, it is an activity providing a living for many people . . .7 § 17. 4. Mat and String-­making. – Dry leaves of the doom and date palms are imported from the ports on the Dankali coast and Massowah; they are manufactured into mats. String is also made by twisting the leaves together with the hand; this is called ‘Aden string’. To make mats the leaves are divided into small strips, which are plaited into a ribbon three or four inches wide and of great length. This ribbon is stitched or spliced spirally into a cylindrical shape, the diameter representing the required breadth, and the axis the necessary length; this hollow cylinder is then cut down with a knife parallel to the axis and the broken edges are bound. Somali women are exceedingly expert in the manufacture of these mats, which are in great request for sleeping purposes amongst the Somalis themselves. The coarser kinds are used for the construction of sheds and roofing of houses. Plates, baskets, sacks, and many other articles are made of these strips of matting. Weaving and Spinning. – Cotton is spun into a thread by hand-­spindles, and some-

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times machine-­made yarns or twists are used in the hand-­looms of the very simplest construction. The threads are passed through a frame, which is held together by strings at the top and bottom, and is attached to a board worked by the feet. When the board is pressed, one set of threads is lifted, and the shuttle is passed between the two sets with the hand; by continuous labour a fabric of coarse texture is woven. There are about twenty-­five hand-­ looms in Aden, worked by Arabs and Jews. Lungies, mandîls, and other narrow-­breadth cloths are made. Machine-­made twist is now almost generally used. There are two looms which weave silken cloths. Spinning is practised by a few industrious Jewish women, who obtain profit and pleasure in the employment.8 § 17. 5. When he understood he left his work and his shop, and took me with him up a long street. But I began to be suspicious, fearing lest the Saracen was leading me astray, and I made a sign to him that I wished to return, and moved away from him. When the man saw this he was grieved and troubled, and spoke to me solemnly in Saracen, which I did not understand, looking up to the sky, as if swearing by God that I was safe, and he took me by the arm, keeping hold of me, and leading me so that I should not run away from him. After going a long way amongst the streets we came to his house, which was a fair house and spacious, with a marble pavement, smooth and polished, and walls faced with marble, and I was astonished that a basket-­maker should own such a palace.9 § 17. 6. Affass-­making is an industry practised all over Egypt from the earliest ages. The first letter of the word is one of those tiresome sounds which no European letter can represent, so some call it ‘affass’, and some ‘gaffas’ (hard g), and some ‘kaffass’. The material used is the long rib of a palm-­leaf when all the leaflets and thorns have been removed, and these are turned to endless uses. An affass generally means a strong rough crate made of these palm-­leaf ribs, but they also make divans, bedsteads, circular tray stands, and many other things. At a certain time of the year as many palm-­leaves as the tree will spare are cut for affass-­making. This harvest leaves the palm a denuded and ungainly object, and spoils the appearance of the country very much, but it is too valuable to forgo. Before the English occupied the country, every possible use of the palm-­tree was made an excuse for a different tax, and the tax on the tree itself was so heavy that, rather than pay it year by year while the tree was growing up, they rooted up the young seedlings. Now the country is once more full of palm-­trees in every stage of growth.10 notes   1 On the crafts of the Marsh Arabs of Iraq, see Ochsenschlager, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden.  2 Bloom, Paper before Print, pp. 20–2.   3 Jochen Sokoly in Ekhtiar (ed.), Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art, pp. 50–1 (Cat. 28).   4 On basketry in Palestinian culture, see Amiry and Tamari, The Palestinian Village Home, pp. 42–3. Basketry and ropework have both been found in the excavations of the Egyptian port of Quseir. See Peacock and Blue (eds), Myos Hormos – Quseir Qadim: Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea. Volume 2.  5 Maxwell, A Reed Shaken by the Wind, pp. 128–9.

140  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s  6   7  8   9

Ochsenschlager, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden, pp. 132–4. Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 238 (Chapter 160). Translated by the author. Hunter, An Account of the British Settlement of Aden, pp. 80–1. Felix Fabri (d. 1502), Evagatorium in Terrae Sanctae Arabiae et Egypti Peregrinationem, (ed.) C. D. Hassler (Stuttgart 1843–9), III, pp. 173–4. Translated in Prescott, Once to Sinai, p. 214. Saracen is an archaic name for a Muslim. The ‘Saracen’ language referred to here is Arabic. 10 Butcher, Things Seen in Egypt, pp. 89–90.

CHAPTER 18

Leather

Leather was required for many purposes, ranging from items of personal apparel (particularly shoes, sandals, boots and belts) to practical items, such as saddles, harnesses, saddle bags, bellows, drinking cups and water canteens. Skin could also be stretched thin for use as a writing material (parchment). Parchment was the favoured material for the production of Qurʾan manuscripts in the early Islamic period, though paper became dominant across most of the Islamic world from the tenth century.1 Shadow puppeteers also employed thin and transparent sheets of animal skin for their puppets. These puppets were often decorated with paint and small pieces of coloured fabric.2 The fur or wool might be retained on some skins (i.e. pelts) for the preparation of some types of clothing. The history of Islamic leatherworking is not well understood, perhaps because of the poor survival of prepared animal skins prior to the nineteenth century.3 The first text in this section comes from Burckhardt’s early nineteenth-­century account of manners and customs on the Arabian peninsula. He describes the ways in which Bedouin would perform all the stages of manufacture. In urban contexts it was more usual for the different stages involved in the creation of leather to be separated. The tanner relied on another craftsman, known in Arabic as the jallād, to take the skins from the slaughterhouse and to remove the extraneous matter ready for the tanning process (see reading two). Hans Wulff provides an account of the work of the Persian tanner in the third text. This meticulous description makes clear the many processes and chemical agents involved in creating a finished sheet of leather. Dog faeces or bird droppings were often added in order to facilitate the swelling of the skins prior to the application of the tanning agents. In the Syrian capital, the collection of this unpleasant material was the task of a designated group of people. The fourth passage discusses this urban underclass.4 The next two texts are taken from manuals of ḥisba (market law), one from the late twelfth and the other probably from the fourteenth century. These illustrate the types of ethical issues that concerned the muḥtasib (for example, the employment of forbidden materials, like pigs’ bristles). The seventh text returns to the rural environment and deals with the apprenticeship of the sieve makers of Afghanistan.5 * * * § 18. 1. The chief specimens of Bedouin industry are the tanning of leather; the preparing of water-­skins, the weaving of tents, sacks, cloaks, and abbas. The leather is tanned by means of pomegranate juice, or (as more commonly over the whole Desert) with the gharad or fruit of the Sant, or else with the bark of the Seyale, or other mimosa species.

142  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s The women sew the water-­skins which the men have tanned. They work in the Hedjaz very neat neck-­leathers for the camels, upon which their husbands ride; these are a kind of net-­work, adorned with shells and leather tassels, called dawíreh. The distaff is frequently seen in the hands of men all over the Hedjaz; and it seems strange that they should not regard this as derogating from their masculine dignity, while they disdainfully spurn at every other domestic employment.6 § 18. 2. Skinner (jallād) It is the name for one who buys the skins of sheep and goats from the butcher and the slaughterhouse, and sells them on to the tanner (dabbāgh), who then tans them. They strip them (the skins) and cut off the wool, except if the skin is of sufficient quality – such as that of a young lamb – in which case it is sent to the furrier (farrāʾ) with the wool intact. He (the jallād) sells it to the tanner, . . . In summary, it is not an elevated craft, due to the uncleanliness of it, and the [involvement of] blood and impurities, and other than those. However, the owners of it [where the skins are prepared] have become rich from such crafts as these . . .7 § 18. 3. Today there are two ways in use for treating hides (khām, charm), the preparation of sheep and goat skins into tawed leather (charm-­i zāqī) with alum and salt, and the tanning (dabgh) of cow, ass, and horse hides. The latter is done in the following steps: 1. Soaking the Hides (khāmrā āb zadan). Dried hides brought to the tanner from outlying districts have to be soaked in large watering pits (ḥouẓ) for three to six days, depending on hide thickness and fat content. Hides bought locally (charm-­i būmī) from the skinner (jellād) at the abattoir (qaṣṣāb-­khāneh) do not have to be watered. 2. Liming and Depilation. The dry hides, after having been sufficiently softened by soaking, and the fresh unsoaked hides are placed in lime pits that are glazed earthenware vats (lūleh-­kash) let into the ground. Quicklime (āhak) is sprinkled over the hides, and the vats are filled with water. After four to six days the lime water has opened the texture of the hides and softened the hair. The hides are taken out of the lime pit, and each one is hung over a wooden beam (tīr) and depilated (ʿorām-­kārī) with a special knife (kārd-­i ʿorām) that is kept sharp on a horning stone (sang-­i ʿorām). 3. Swelling (ārd-­i jou kardan). Each hide, after the depilation, is transferred into another vat and is sprinkled with barley meal (ārd-­i jou). When a sufficient number of hides is in the vat it is filled with water, and a fermentation process begins that causes swelling of the hides to make them susceptible to the tanning agent, partly loosens the superfluous flesh, and neutralizes the lime from the previous treatment. This process takes about 15 days in summer and 20 in winter. After the hides have been cured (pukhtan) they are taken out of the vat, each one is placed over an almost upright beam (khar-­i chūgh), and any superfluous flesh is removed (khāmrā dās kardan) with a double-­handled fleshing knife (dās). That done the hides are placed back in the swelling vats for a second curing. 4. Salting (namak pāshīdan). When after three or four days the second swelling has been completed the hides are placed into round tubs (qadaḥ), each hide being sprinkled with salt, and they are left there for three or four days. 5. Tanning (māzū-­kārī). The hides are now ready for the actual tanning and are placed in deep, brick-­built pits lined with wooden daubes (goud-­i chūb, sīleh). Each hide, when placed in the pit, is sprinkled with finely ground gall nuts (māzū) or the ground bark of the salam tree (Acacia spp.). The tanner has the grinding done by one of his assistants on a

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hand mill (dastās, ārchī) similar to that used by the potter, or he can obtain these tanning agents from the bazaar where they are crushed and ground on an edge runner. The hides stay in the tanning pit for four or five days. They are daily turned over and trodden down again (lāgad zadan). 6. Grinding (kāshī-­kārī). When the tanning is completed, the hides are dried in the sun ­(khoshkandan dar āftāb) and then placed on the polishing board (takhteh) supported by a trestle (kursī). With the flesh side up the hide is ground smooth with a pumice stone (sang-­i pā). 7. Dyeing (rang rīkhtan). Dyestuffs such as gel-­i varz, jouhar-­i golī, and ṣābūn-­i safīd are suitable for leather staining, and they are applied to the outside (rū) of the hide at this stage. 8. Burnishing (ṣaiqal zanī). For this final operation the hide is again placed on the polishing board and burnished by moving a highly polished stone (ṣaiqal, mohreh) over the surface under heavy pressure. In larger tanneries grinding, dyeing, and burnishing are done by the leather trimmer (charm-­sāz, charmgar).8 § 18. 4. . . . And he [the tanner] uses dog excrement (birāz) for that, in particular for the [stage] when the sheep, goat, or calf skin is swollen. And the dog excrement is picked up by a special people (anās makhṣūsūn) we have in Damascus. Then he [one of the collectors of faeces] wears firstly – according to the sufferings caused by it – a garb of dirty and worn clothes. He carries in his hands two baskets, and searches in the last part of the night with a little lantern (fānūs). He circulates through the passageways of Damascus in which there are many dogs and collects it from the ground until the two baskets are filled up. He sells each basket for four or five qarsh (piastres). There may be many who practise [this activity] in winter time. We have a report from a trustworthy woman of the baskets that one could find many gold and silver treasures in the houses [of those engaged in this craft] and places filled with dog faeces from the ground floor to just beneath the roofs. This [material] would be sold to the tanner (dabbāgh) for the region of 20,000 qarsh . . .9 § 18. 5. Shoemakers They should not use too many old pieces of cloth as padding between the inner and outer linings, nor between the inner sole and the outer. They may stitch the padding for the heels, but must not stitch a sole which has split during tanning nor new leather nor any leather which has not been tanned. They must twine the thread well and make it no longer than a cubit, because if it is longer than this it will fray and be too weak to pull through the leather. They should not sew with pig’s hair, but should rather use palm fibres or fox whiskers, as these are better. They must not keep someone waiting for his shoes except when they have stipulated a certain day in advance. This is because the people are inconvenienced by repeatedly having to return to them and by the withholding of their property. They should not use paper, felt and such like to make women’s slippers so that these squeak when the women walk, as the women of Baghdad like to have them. This is shameful, and is a disgrace which does not befit free-­born people. The muḥtasib must therefore stop them being made and worn. But God knows best.10 § 18. 6. Tanners and leather-­bottle makers They must not dye skins with wheaten flour or bran, nor strip the insides of perished carcasses. Goat-­skins shall be tanned only with qaraẓ of Yemen; for every 100 small skins

144  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s forty raṭls (Egyptian) of qaraẓ and for every 100 large skins sixty raṭls. Each set must remain in a constant solution of qaraẓ in a pit for three days, after which it is removed to another pit with qaraẓ equal in weight to the previous amount. This is to be done four times in succession in order to remove all grease. One deception practised is to repeat the process three times only, oak galls being used the third time. This is harmful to the skins. A mark of this deception is that the skins blacken in the sun. Tanning in summer is better than winter-­tanning. If 200 skins are placed in a pit not less than two men must be employed there. The hides of oxen which have died of themselves must not be placed with those of other slaughtered beasts. The makers of leather bottles shall use only the skins of ritually slaughtered animals. Surprise visits must be paid to their shops to investigate whether they do this. The signs of differentiation. The smell must be observed and roughness to the touch, for in the animal which has died of itself some hair-­roots will remain, also the skin cracks as it dries. Large bottles must be made of three layers, middle sized ones of two and small ones of one which shall be stout and sound and free of patching.11 § 18. 7. Apprenticeship The manufacture of sieves takes place within the household, which is the production unit, normally consisting of a nuclear family with one skilled, male producer. Women and children in the household assist in the more tedious parts of the production process, but among the Qāsem Khēl I was told, that girls, too, may be taught proper sievemaking. Adult women may be too preoccupied with their own economic activities as pedlars to assist in the manufacture of sieves. Young boys are trained in the occupation, either by their fathers or in some cases by uncles, from around the age of 12–13 years of age. A Mostafa Khēl gives this account of how he learned the skill. In the beginning [up to the age of 16] I did nothing – I only assisted [my father] and did not do any weaving. Then I became my father’s apprentice . . . When I started learning the occupation I got my own tools, my father gave them to me . . . I started by winding the skin straps for one month. Then for 1–1½ months I stretched the skins on the ground. After that I started to put the first round of straps on the sieves [tānistā]. Then I did the scraping of the skins for the same period of time. After that I made my first sieve, a katabīz, since that is the easiest . . . The custom is to spend the money earned on the first sieve to make ḥalvā and give it to the poor.   Then I learned how to make the straps, and after that I made a weave, maydabîz, and then the rounding of the wooden frames. Then the more difficult: the holes in the rim. Finally, I learned how to repair old sieves . . . Nine years I stayed with my father making sieves. My father received all the money and I only got pocket money for myself. Then I married and my father told me to separate my house: ‘You are free to work for yourself’, he said. A boy is supposed to be a skilled sievemaker by the age of 18–19 years, this time he is also considered old enough to marry. In fact, some informants stated that a boy is trained in earnest only after his engagement. This is not a rule, for the time of marriage depends on other factors, such as the economic situation of the family. The attitude to work, however, is influenced by the prospects of marriage. It is said that a young boy, even if

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he works as a skilled sievemaker, will only give some of his earnings to his father and spend the rest on cigarettes and cinema tickets until he becomes engaged. Only then will he start saving for the future.12 notes   1 On the study of Islamic parchment manuscripts, see Déroche et al., Islamic Codicology, pp. 32–47. The rise of paper in early Islamic society is discussed in Bloom, Paper before Print, pp. 42–89.   2 Milwright, ‘On the Date of Paul Kahle’s Egyptian Shadow Puppets’.   3 For examples of medieval Islamic leather found in excavations in Egypt and Syria, see Peacock and Blue (eds), Myos Hormos – Quseir Qadim: Roman and Islamic Ports on the Red Sea. Volume 2, pp. 140–53; Nicolle, Late Mamluk Military Equipment, passim.   4 This practice is also noted in studies of the tanners of Antioch and Safranbolu in Turkey. Bazantay, Enquête sur l’artisanat à Antioche, p. 34; Doğanalp-­Votzi, ‘Histories and Economics of a Small Anatolian Town’, p. 323.   5 Cf. the description of sieve making in Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 324–6.  6 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, I, p. 243. Sant is a type of acacia tree native to Arabia.   7 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 82 (Chapter 44).  8 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 231–2. The transliteration of Persian terms have been slightly adapted from the original publication.   9 Excerpt from the chapter about the tanner (dabbāgh) in al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 142 (Chapter 101). 10 Al-­Shayzari, ʿAbd al-­Rahman b. Nasr (fl. twelfth century), Nihāyat al-­rutba fī ṭalab al-­ḥisba. Buckley (trans.), The Book of the Market Inspector, p. 93. 11 Ibn al-­Ukhuwwa, Muhammad b. Muhammad (d. 1329). Levy (ed. with partial trans.), The Maʿālim al-­ qurba fī aḥkām al-­ḥisba, p. 280 (Arabic), p. 91 (English). Qaraẓ is a type of acacia tree. 12 Olesen, Afghan Craftsmen: Three Cultures of Itinerant Communities, pp. 230–1 (from the chapter ‘The Ghorbat Sievemakers’, pp. 206–83). Ḥalvā is a sweet made with sesame. On leatherworking in Afghanistan, see also Charpentier, Bazaar-­e Tashqurghan, pp. 114–18.

CHAPTER 19

Spinning, bleaching and dyeing

With the exception of felts (see Chapter 21), all textiles require the organisation of the fibres into thread. This involves the techniques of spinning and plying. Spinning involves twisting the plant fibres or animal hairs onto a spindle. At its simplest, this involves holding aloft the unspun material and allowing it to be drawn out by the weight of the spindle. An important consideration is the direction of the spin, as this imposes itself on the resulting thread. These are known as s-­spun (anticlockwise) and z-­spun (clockwise), respectively. Once practitioners have learned one of these techniques, they never seem to adopt the other, and whole regions of the Islamic world appear to have adhered to either the s-­spun or z-­spun mode. Plying has the effect of increasing the thickness, regularity and strength by combining two or more spun threads. Typically the plying of thread was done in the opposite direction to the initial spinning. Plying was a more involved technique than spinning, but was carried out using a relatively simple wooden apparatus (known in English as a Lazy Kate).1 Bleaches and dyes could be applied to the unwoven threads (see Figure 19.1) or to the finished cloth, depending upon the desired visual effect.2 For example, the technique known as ikat involves applying bands of different colours along the length of loosely twisted bunches of threads.3 When woven, this introduces variegated patterns. Separate colours could also be employed for the warp and weft threads to produce a type of textile known in Arabic sources as būqālamūn (see Chapter 20). The dyes themselves were made from a variety of plant and animal sources (on the dyeing of paper, see Chapter 22). Another consideration was the need in some cases for alum (typically a hydrated potassium aluminium sulphate), in order to fix the dye. Natron also had a role in the bleaching of cloth (see Chapter 6). The first two readings detail the techniques employed in the spinning of sheep wool and goat hair. The first comes from Palestine at the end of the Ottoman period (1516–1918) and describes the spinning performed by men while they tended their flocks. The second deals with spinning among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq. The third reading comes from a ḥisba (market law) manual and approaches the practical and ethical dimensions of the sale of spun cotton and flax. It is clear from the account that this particular activity was carried out primarily by women. For this reason, men trading in flax had to be proven to be ‘honourable and of good character’. The next reading (four) is part of a letter from Jewish merchants, preserved in the Cairo Geniza. It demonstrates the attention traders paid to the preparation of cloth. Reading five is a legal document from Ottoman-­period Jerusalem. It records a petition drawn up by the guild (ṭāʿifa) dyers of the city to the local judge (qāḍī) to stop cheaper indigo-­dyed cloth

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Figure 19.1  Interior of a dyeing workshop in Kashan, Iran, 2015. Photograph: Seyedhamed Yeganehfarzand.

p­ roduced in Hebron being sold in Jerusalem. The sixth reading is a thirteenth-­century account of the collection, sale and application of alum. The final reading (seven) gives a description of the traditional method of fermenting indigo. By the early 1950s this process was already giving way to the use of synthetic dyes. * * * § 19. 1. The men spin a good deal of coarse thread from the wool of their sheep and the hair of their goats. A mass of raw material is wrapped loosely round the left hand, and the spindle with which it is spun is attached to it by a piece of the thread. The spindle is simply a stick about 9 inches long, with two cross-­pieces about 1 ½ inches from the lower end. It is weighted with a stone or piece of potsherd, and is used in the following manner: A long thread is drawn out with the fingers of both hands, and roughly and loosely twisted. When about 3 feet long it is held tightly between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, at the further end from the spindle, and a vigorous spin is given to the latter by a dexterous turn of the right hand, the thread being thus twisted as tightly as desired by its rapid revolution. The two or three feet of finished thread are then wrapped around the lower end of the spindle, looped over the upper end of the shank to keep it in place, and then the process repeated. It is astonishing to see what an amount of coarse thread a man can thus spin in a day, and of what thickness he manages to keep it. This thread is used

148  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s for various purposes, such as making ropes, haircloth for tents, nose-­bags for horses, and for weaving the cloaks so much worn in winter. The men work very industriously at this during the wet days of winter and spring when no field labour is possible. The women do a small amount of it but, naturally, have not the same time as the men.4 § 19. 2. Spinning The spindle (mokhzal) consists of a long reed shaft with a whorl usually made from one or more oblong sections of reed or wood drilled to fit on it. But the shape and fabric of the whorl often varies. In a pinch anything can serve, such as a drilled potsherd, an ancient toy chariot wheel from the surface of an excavation mound, even a gob of dried mud. The hole is almost never dead center and the whorl is never in perfect balance. If the spindle is to be used only by men, the tip of the short end is notched, if only by women, the tip of the long end. Occasionally it is notched at both ends so that it can be used interchangeably by either sex. Both men and women in the villages wrap the roving or fluffed wool around their wrist and wrap the finished thread around the spindle above the whorl. Men use the ‘drop and spin’ method, twisting the short end of the shaft clockwise with the fingers of their right hands. They let the spindles drop, spinning, while they tease out the wool with the fingers of their right hands from the wool wrapped around their left wrists, held in their left hands or stuffed up the sleeves of their dishdashas (Z spin). After a length is spun it is wound around the staff, its end caught in the notch, and the process repeated. Men usually make slings, gun belts, and cords for binding, tethering, carrying and so forth. Women usually spin in a sitting or crouching position. They rub the spindle against their right thigh, from the hip to the knee, with their right hand to start the spindles spinning counterclockwise (S spin). Women most often sew clothes, embroider blankets, and weave such things as bags and pillows. Spinning wool is a primary task for women but not usually for men. Men and boys are most often seen spinning when shepherding animals at pasture. The spin direction of the wool made in the village can give indications as to the prevalent use of one or the other type of spindle and in this case the sex of the spinner. When the spun wool is removed from the spindle, it comes off in a cone-­shaped form. The spun wool is usually stored in a chest or sidana until it is sold or needed for a project. Single-­ply spun thread is used for sewing, making thread-­covered boxes and decorative amulets, and for spinning into yarn.5 § 19. 3. Cotton-­spinners They must not mingle new cotton with old nor red with the white. The cotton must be carded repeatedly so that the black husks and broken seeds shall be removed. If the seed is allowed to remain it shows in the weight and if left in a jubba or blanket and then washed and crushed it will cut the article and people’s clothes will suffer damage. Some card the bad red cotton and place it at the bottom of the pile with clean white cotton on top and this does not appear in the spinning. They must be forbidden from allowing women to sit at their shop-­door to wait for the carding to be completed, nor must they converse with them. The carded cotton must not be placed in cold wet places, for that increases its weight, which diminishes when it dries. That is fraud.

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Flax-­spinners The best Egyptian flax is the white J-­NAWĪ [vowelling unclear] variety, and the best variety of that is the smooth-­leaved and the worst is the short rough variety which snaps easily. The poor quality must not be mingled with the good nor that from Lower Egypt with that from Upper Egypt nor that from Upper Egypt with the kūrī variety; all such practices being fraudulent. They must not leave women sitting at the doors of their shops without need. No one must be permitted to engage in the trade in flax who is not proved in the muḥtasib’s court to be honourable and of good character for their dealings are with women.6 § 19. 4. In my previous letter I have informed you about the arrival of the yarn. I was not remiss with regard to it, but, immediately after its arrival, I delivered it to a trustworthy Jewish craftsman. Earlier, I showed it to various craftsmen who told me that it would make a thousand robes of the bazaar type and slightly more of the home-­made kind. Among the rolls of yarn, there were four spoiled ones which were coarse and deformed. I also gave him (to the weaver) two robes of the bazaar type, in accordance with your instructions. After each roll is finished, the craftsman is to receive 3 quarter dīnārs. The embroidering will require ⅛ dīnār and ½ qīrāṭ, and the bleaching and pounding, 5 qīrāṭs, the total [for a roll] being 1 ⅛ Nizāriyya dīnārs. The material is with the craftsman up to the present time. He will present it this week. I shall inform you how much of the yarn went into the weaving and how much remained. The bleaching will not be completed until after Passover. For it is now winter, and God does not make bleaching possible in winter time, when it would not be as brilliant as during the summer. Had you sent the yarn a month before the [autumn] holidays, the whole work would have been easily completed in a short time.7 § 19. 5. On 25 Shaʿban 1081 (7 January 1671) Yusuf bashsha ibn Mahmud came to the court. He notified the qāḍī that he was representing the dyers (al-­ṣabbāghīn) ṭāʾifa in Jerusalem, and claimed that several people have arrived in the city from Hebron, among them a certain Shaʿban and his brother. Having purchased clothes and indigo dye (nīl) in Hebron, these people sell their products directly to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, this threatening the livelihood and standing of ṭāʾifa members. Yusuf bashsha requested that the qāḍī prohibit this practice. After checking the details of the complaint, the qāḍī did so.8 § 19. 6. It is a stone which is needed in many things, the most important being dyeing. There is some demand on the part of the Byzantines (Rūm) for their requirements; for they cannot do without it nor avoid using it. The mines are in the desert of the Saʿid (Upper Egypt); the custom of the Dīwān therein is to spend thirty dirhams and sometimes even less in acquiring every qinṭār (one hundred raṭls) of it in Laythī qinṭārs. The Arabs bring it down from the mine to the riverbank of Qus, and the riverbank of Akhmim, Suyut, and Bahnasa if its sale is from the Oases (wāḥāt). It is carried to Alexandria from whichever bank it is found upon, at the time when the (flood-­) water runs into the canal leading to it. Now allowance is made for the employees here, except that which is required for the inspection of their market (matjar). This is what is required by precautions on behalf of the Dīwān. . .It is bought by the Laythī qinṭār and sold by the Jarawī qinṭār. Formerly, there was an established sale of twelve thousand dīnārs to the merchants of Byzantium, whatever surplus there was over that, being by the efforts of the employees in concert

150  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s with the merchants. Its price used to vary from four, five, to six dīnārs and intervening prices. Whatever the merchants used to spend over and above this on account of a demand, was by the efforts of the employees. The quantity sold to the felt-­makers (labbād), reed-­mat-­makers (ḥuṣurī), and dyers (ṣabbāgh) came to eighty Jarawī qinṭārs a year, the price being seven and one-­half dīnārs. No one was allowed to buy it from the Arabs and come down and trade with it, but the Dīwān. If anybody was found to possess any of it, it was destroyed according to the amount, along with a severe punishment. It was not customary to bring any of it to Damietta and Tinnis, and as for the transport of it to Alexandria, there was a kind called Kawwārī (?) brought from the Oases. An estimate of one dīnār and two qīrāṭs was made for the employees for the transport of each qinṭār of it, and that used to be carried to the place of marketing as we have related, but the demand for it was small.9 § 19. 7. The ancient method of dyeing with indigo in a fermentation vat was the only method employed in Persia until thirty years ago. But the introduction of the synthetic product brought with it the simpler and more rapid method of dyeing with sodium ­hydrosulphite. The latter technique need not detain us here, as it may be found in any modern handbook on dyeing. The former, which is still practised in many dye-­houses throughout the country, is worthy of record. The methods employed are not everywhere the same, as local products are generally used to induce fermentation, and they differ from place to place. But the principle is the same throughout. I propose to describe a technique which is employed in a number of localities in Persia. The vats are large earthenware vases, wider at the top than at the bottom and about 5 feet high. The dye liquor is prepared as follows: 13 lb. of ordinary red potter’s clay are mixed with water to the consistency of syrup in a copper vessel. Half the quantity is then emptied into the vat; to the remainder are added ½ lb. of finely ground Bengal indigo, 1 ½ lb. of finely ground potash (obtained by burning plants), 2 ½ lb. of grape sugar and ¾ lb. of slaked lime. This mixture is boiled until it is reduced to three-­quarters of its volume; it is then poured into the vat containing the remainder of the clay and water, and then stirred. The vat is then covered with a wooden top and thick cloths, and left alone for 3 days, care being taken to keep the temperature above 15°C. After 3 days, ¼ lb. of ground indigo is added each day for 12 days, the liquor being stirred for several minutes each time. Finally, ¾ lb. more lime is added and the liquor stirred for 5 minutes. When the operation is complete the liquor should be tested with a small quantity of white yarn. If the vat is ready the yarn, which is yellow-­green on withdrawal, should slowly turn blue on exposure to the air. When in use the vat can be fortified by the addition of more indigo. The liquor from the vat may be used to induce fermentation in other indigo vats.10 notes   1 For discussions of traditional spinning and plying of thread, see Amiry and Tamari, The Palestinian Village Home, pp. 46–7.   2 For references to the dyeing of threads and cloth in the Geniza, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. Volume 1: Economic Foundations, pp. 106–8, passim.

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  3 On this technique, see Barnes, The Ikat Textiles of Lamalera; Thompson, Silk, Carpets, and the Silk Road, pp. 66–8. Textiles of this type were produced in Yemen and were known in Arabic as washī or ʿaṣb. See Serjeant, ‘Material for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest’, pp. 75–88; Baldry, Textiles in Yemen, pp. 5–12.  4 Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land, p. 257.  5 Ochsenschlager, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden, pp. 217–19.   6 Ibn al-­Ukhuwwa, Muhammad b. Muhammad (d. 1329). Levy (ed. with partial trans.), The Maʿālim al-­ qurba fī aḥkām al-­ḥisba, pp. 177–8 (Arabic), pp. 45–6 (English) (slightly adapted from original).  7 Goitein, Letters of Medieval Jewish Merchants, pp. 107–8, no. 20 (Mosseri Collection L 39b, as from line 5).  8 Jerusalem Sijill 171: 590. Translated in Zeʿevi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s, p. 158 (slightly adapted).   9 Ibn Mammati, Qawānīn al-­Dawānīn (Cairo, 1308/1900–1), p. 23. Translated in Serjeant, ‘Material for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest’, pp. 115–16 (slightly adapted). The precise weight of the qinṭār varied from region to region. 10 Edwards, The Persian Carpet, p. 33.

CHAPTER 20

Weaving

At its simplest a loom can be a wooden apparatus set on the ground with the warp threads attached onto the frame. The weft threads are attached to a shuttle that is passed across, with the operator lifting and lowering warp threads by hand. More sophisticated looms were set up within houses or workshops and had mechanisms to allow sets of warp threads to be lowered and elevated, usually through the pressing of treadles located beneath the loom. As the shuttle is passed across, different patterns can be achieved through the employment of these treadles (for an example of the initial ‘programming’ of a loom to create complex designs on zīlū rugs, see Chapter 21). The simplest mode of weaving involves the raising of alternate warp threads as the shuttle passes across (known as plain or tabby weave). Variations can be achieved through the raising of warp threads at intervals of two or more (creating twill). From the earliest phases of Islamic history, people have admired the best silks and linens. The finest outfits would be embroidered with the name and titles of the ruler (known in Arabic as ṭirāz).1 There was a great demand for Islamic fabrics in medieval Europe, and these items are commonly mentioned in mercantile records from ports such as Genoa and Venice.2 Scholars have also pointed to the ways in which architectural decoration, such as glazed tilework, appears to imitate the quality of the clothed body.3 A striking aspect of the writing about textiles in Arabic and Persian sources is the ability of writers to distinguish between fabrics or different materials and identify ones from different cities or regions.4 The first reading is a saying attributed to ʿAli ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–61). This is one of a series of traditions in early Islamic writing in which weavers (though not the cloth they produced) are seen to be morally questionable. The next two readings are drawn from ḥisba manuals. The first is an eastern Islamic treatise and records different views on the question of whether a tailor should be allowed to work within a mosque. It is not apparent whether this question was of anything more than theoretical importance. The second ḥisba excerpt is more practical, outlining the ways in which weavers sought to cheat their clientele. Reading four gives a description of the fine products of the textile factories of Tinnis in Egypt. The fame of this centre attracted orders from across the Islamic world and, if we are to believe the author of the passage, the emperor in Constantinople. The fifth reading deals with another well-­known site of manufacture, the Egyptian port of Damietta. The author, Yaqut al-­ Hamawi (d. 1229), continues the trope (see reading one) of the baseness of weavers. Reading six records the visit of the Mamluk sultan al-­Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun (r. 1293–4, 1299– 1309, 1310–41) to the royal textile factory (Dār al-­Ṭirāz) in Alexandria. His presence at this

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workshop is also a telling indication of the importance of fine textiles in Mamluk (1250–1517) society. The last three readings (seven to nine) deal with more humble weaving activities in the urban environment and the countryside. The first is a short account of the weavers of Homs in Syria. Although they were paid by the piece rather than with a salary, these men could evidently afford a reasonable quality of life. The second is a description by John Lewis Burckhardt of the looms used by the Bedouin in Syria and Arabia. These simple structures could be set up wherever the nomads made camp. The final reading deals with similar weaving techniques in rural Palestine. * * * § 20. 1. He who walks in the street with a weaver will lose his daily bread; he who talks to a weaver will be afflicted by the weaver’s evil; he who visits a weaver’s shop will find his body turning yellow.5 § 20. 2. It is reprehensible for teachers (muʿallim) and copyists (warrāq) to work in the mosque if they are being paid for so doing unless they have no alternative. Khaniyya and Muhammad b. Salama: On the grounds of necessity (ḍarūra), there is no harm in a man plying his trade as a tailor and sewing in a mosque while at the same time safeguarding it against intrusion of pack-­animals . . . It is reprehensible for a tailor to sew garments in a mosque because ʿUthman saw a man doing just that and, disapproving of it, had him expelled from the mosque.6 § 20. 3. Weavers The muḥtasib must order them to weave a length of cloth well and closely textured, make it to the full length and width agreed upon, to use fine yarn and to take the black crust off the cloth with a rough black stone. He should prevent them from sprinkling the cloth with flour and roasted gypsum while it is being woven, because this conceals its coarseness and makes it appear closely textured. This is swindling the people. When one of them weaves cloth from poor quality and knotted yarn he must sell it separate from the rest of the cloth. If not, this is swindling. Some of them weave the surface of the cloth out of good and uniform yarn, then weave the rest of it from thick knotted yarn. The ʿarīf must therefore watch and keep an eye on them regarding this. If one of them takes yarn from someone to weave them cloth, he must take it by weight. Then, after weaving, he should wash the cloth and return it to its owner by weight so as to remove any suspicion regarding him. If the owner of the yarn claims that the weaver has replaced his yarn for another, the muḥtasib should send the weaver before the ʿarīf. If he submits to the ʿarīf’s decision then that is the end of it, but if not, the muḥtasib must have the issue judged according to Islamic law. Some of them have a stone basin in front of their shops in which to rub the cloth. Then when they leave, dogs come and lick it. The muḥtasib must therefore charge weavers to put wooden covers over the cloth or to wash it seven times a day if necessary, once with dust. He must prevent them from stretching out their cloth in the Muslims’ roads because this inconveniences passers-­by. He must also stop them from throwing the flour and other edible matter which is in the cloth under the feet of the Muslims. But God knows best.7 § 20. 4. Tinnis makes colored qaṣab (rangīn) used for turbans, headdresses (wiqāya), and women’s clothing. Nowhere else is such fine qaṣab made as at Tinnis. White qaṣab

154  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s is made at Damietta; the qaṣab woven in the sultan’s workshop (kārgāh) is neither sold nor given to anyone. I have heard that the ruler of Fars (one of the Buwayhids) had sent 20,000 dīnārs to Tinnis to buy a complete set of royal robes (yik-­dast jāma-­yi khāṣṣ). His agents stayed several years in the town without being able to manage this transaction. There are famous weavers there who weave royal robes. I was told that one of them had woven a piece of cloth designed for the turban of the sultan (dastār). He received for this work the sum of 500 Maghribī dīnārs. I have seen this turban. It is estimated to be worth 4,000 Maghribī dīnārs. It is at Tinnis, and nowhere else that they make the stuff called būqalamūn, the color of which changes according to the different hours of the day. It is exported to the c­ ountries of the East and the West. The Greek sultan, they say, sent a person to offer a hundred towns for Tinnis. This was refused. His wish was to procure qaṣab and būqalamūn from it.8 § 20. 5. ‘It is noted for its good climate and its manufacture of fine sharb linen’. . . al-­Hasan ibn Muhammad al-­Muhallabi said: ‘One of the curious things about Damietta and Tinnis is that the weavers in them who make these fine garments, are Copts of the lowest, ­humblest, and meanest of people as regards food and drink. For the larger part of their diet consists of fresh salt fish or evil-­smelling Sir fish, and most of them eat without washing their hands (afterward), then return to those valuable and highly esteemed garments and set to work at weaving them. Then the garment is cut (from the loom), and the person who handles it has not the slightest doubt that it has been perfumed with nadd scent’. Another curious thing about Damietta, he said, is that on the east (qiblī) side upon the canal is a place used for the preparation of leather, known as the ‘factories’ (maʿāmil), which is let for the manufacture of cloth of sharb, and it is hardly possible that they can be of a good kind except they come from there. Should a span (shibr) be left over and taken to other factories, the broker purchasing the garment is aware of it, and the price of it is lowered because of the difference in the quality of the cloth.9 § 20. 6. He (the sultan) was conducted to the Dār al-­Ṭirāz (the textile factory) by his minister. He dismounted, entered and went up the staircase to the place where there were the looms and the stores. He observed every weaver at his loom weaving various decorated textiles and complete clothes (badlat) of different colours, already folded for the use of the harem of the sultan. He went around the looms, observing them and putting his head below them to see their lower parts and enjoyed himself by looking at the weavers while they were working and throwing their shuttles to and fro. He raised his head up to see the tops of the looms where the ‘draw-­boys’ raised up and lowered the top threads: he observed how the motifs of birds, geometric designs, and other patterns were produced by these threads that went up and came down till each of the birds and other motifs were completed. He continued to go around looking at every kind till he passed by an old weaver working at his loom, throwing his shuttle once to the right and once to the left, and producing in this way a beautiful fabric like spring flowers.10 § 20. 7. . . . as we passed through the narrow but remarkably clean streets I noticed that in almost every house there was a loom, whereupon a weaver was weaving the striped silk for which Homs is famous, while down most of the thoroughfares were stretched silken

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yarns. The zaptieh said that the workers were paid by the piece, and earned from seven to twelve piastres a day (one to two shillings), a handsome wage in the East. Living is cheap, he added; a poor man could rent his house, that is a single room, for a hundred piastres a year, and feed his family on thirty to forty piastres a week or even less if he had not many children.11 § 20. 8. Among all the Bedouin tribes goat’s hair constitutes the material of the coverings of tents, and of camel and provision-­bags. The tent-­covers are chiefly worked in Hauran, and the mountains of Heish and Belkaa, where goats abound more than among the Aenezes; who, on the other hand, fabricate of wool, wheat and barley-­sacks, camel-­ bags, rowáks or (hind parts of tents), &c. The Arab women use a very simple loom; it is called nutou, and consists of two short sticks, which are stuck into the ground at a certain distance, according to the desired breadth of the shauke, or piece to be worked. A third stick is placed across over them; about four yards from them, three sticks are placed in the same manner, and over the two horizontal cross-­sticks, the woof (sádouh). To keep the upper and under woof at a proper distance from each other, a flat stick (called mensebhh) is placed between them. A piece of wood serves as the weaver’s shuttle, and a short gazelle’s horn is used in beating back the thread of the shuttle. The loom is placed before the meharram, or women’s apartment, and worked by the mother and her daughters. The distaff (meghezel el souf) is in general use among the Aenezes. At Palmyra, I saw several men using the distaff; and among the Kebly Arabs all the shepherds manufacture wool. Of camel’s hair the Arab women make bags, with which the camel’s udder is covered, to prevent the young ones from sucking: those bags are called shemle. The cords (metrek), with which the bags are tied, and okál, are the short strong cords with which the sitting camel’s thigh and shin bones are fastened together, to prevent his rising up while loaded. Camel’s hair is likewise used in knitting the mèaraka, or bonnet worn by the men. Some mix an equal quantity of wool and camel’s hair, in the manufacture of their sacks, or bags: the poorest people only make the piece entirely from camel’s hair, which is much less esteemed for its quality than goat’s hair.12 § 20. 9. Haircloth for the tents – or ‘houses of hair’, as they are called in Arabic – is woven in a good many places from the coarse thread just described. This haircloth is made of the black goat’s hair, not other colour, apparently, being permissible, the only exception being that sometimes there is a longitudinal stripe of dark gray. This work is now, I believe, invariably done by women; but the fact of this having been St. Paul’s trade (Acts xviii. 1–3) shows that this was not the case in Apostolic times. The process is simple and primitive to the last degree. The long threads to form the warp are stretched out in some convenient and fairly level spot in the village. That which is to form the woof, instead of being placed in a shuttle, is wound lengthways on a flat piece of wood about 30 inches long and 3 inches wide, somewhat resembling a giant netting-­needle. With this in her hand, the weaver laboriously threads the woof through the warp, and then with an iron hook (Sîa) deftly tightens up the thread against the part already woven. The threads of the warp are passed through a series of loops attached to a piece of wood, and suspended so that every other thread is alternately raised and lowered, much as in a European loom, through the mechanism of the rudest possible description, having to be turned by hand each time the shuttle is passed through the warp. It goes without saying

156  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s that the process is very tedious, but, owing to the dexterity which the women acquire not so much so as might be supposed. A strong, rough kind of carpet is woven in the same manner in some districts as well as sacks, bags, and such-­like articles.13 notes   1 On the practice of creating tirāẓ fabrics, see Contadini, Fatimid Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum, pp. 39–58.  2 Ashtor, Levant Trade in the Late Middle Ages.   3 For example, Golombek, ‘The Draped Universe of Islam’.   4 Serjeant, ‘Materials for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest’, Ars Islamica 9 (1942), pp. 54–92; see also the following issues of Ars Islamica 10 (1943), pp. 71–104; 11–12 (1946), pp. 98–145; 13–14 (1948), pp. 75–117; 15–16 (1951), pp. 29–85. For examples of different types of textile recorded in probate inventories from medieval Jerusalem, see Lutfi, Al-­Quds al-­Mamlūkiyya.   5 Saying attributed to ʿSay ibn Abi Talib. In al-­Raghib al-­Isfahani (d. 1108), Muḥāḍarāt al-­udabāʾ (Cairo, 1287 ah), I, p. 284. See Goldziher, ‘Die Handwerke bei den Arabern’, pp. 203–5. Gwendolyn Goldbloom (trans.), ‘The Crafts Among the Arabs’, p. 148.   6 Al-­Sunami, ʿUmar b. Muhammad (fl. fourteenth century). Izzi Dien (trans.), The Theory and the Practice of Market Law in Medieval Islam, pp. 70–1. The ʿUthman mentioned is the third caliph (r. 644–56).   7 Al-­Shayzari, ʿAbd al-­Rahman b. Nasr (fl. twelfth century), Nihāyat al-­rutba fī ṭalab al-­ḥisba. Buckley (trans.), The Book of the Market Inspector, pp. 85–6.   8 Nasir-­i Khusraw (d. 1088), Safarnāmā. Translated in Serjeant, ‘Material for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest’, Ars Islamica 13–14 (1948), p. 95 (slightly adapted). The Buwayhids or Buyids were a Shiʿi dynasty who ruled in Iran and Iraq between 934 and 1048. The ‘Greek sultan’ is the Byzantine emperor.   9 Yaqut al-­Hamawi (d. 1229), Kitāb al-­muʿjam al-­buldān. Serjeant, ‘Material for a History of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest’, Ars Islamica 13–14 (1948), p. 98 (slightly adapted). 10 Al-­Nuwayri, Shihab al-­Din Ahmad b. ʿAbd al-­Wahhab (d. 1332), al-­Ilman bi’l-­iʿlam fi ma jarat bihi al-­ akham wa’l-­ʿumur al-­maqdiyya fi waqiʿat al-­Iskandariyya (National Library of Cairo, ms 3942 History). Translated in Marzouk, History of the Textile Industry of Alexandria, pp. 65–7 (slightly adapted from original). Al-­Nuwayri’s text was written between 1366 and 1374. He settled in the city in 1337. 11 Bell, Syria, the Desert and the Sown, p. 182. 12 Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys, I, pp. 67–9. 13 Wilson, Peasant Life in the Holy Land, pp. 257–9.

CHAPTER 21

RUGS, CARPETS AND FELT

Rugs, carpets and felt

Two famous textile products of the Islamic world are flat-­weave rugs (often known as kilims) and knotted pile carpets. Few carpets survive prior to the fifteenth century, but images of these elaborate floor coverings appear in paintings. Surviving examples are more plentiful in later centuries, and some of these can be correlated with accurate depictions of specific types in Renaissance paintings. Some types even carry now the names of the artists ­(including Holbein and Lorenzo Lotto) who frequently included them in their portraits and religious works.1 Carpets were often produced in urban centres, but they could also be made by villagers and nomads.2 Pile carpets rely upon a technique of knotting short threads of different colours around the warp threads. These knots divide into two main types, one symmetrical and the other asymmetrical.3 Aside from the choice of materials, the fineness of a carpet is often judged according to the size and density of the knots. Kilim designs are often localised in character with regions, or even individual villages, specialising in particular types.4 The last major form of textile created in the Middle East and Central Asia is felt. This is an unusual material in that it makes use of unspun animal fibres (mainly sheep wool). These are formed into sheets using pressure, often applied by the human body. Felt is an effective ­insulator, often manufactured into clothing, floor coverings and for the walls of tents (yurts or rajs). The first reading in this chapter considers the types of loom set up within Persian village houses. The association between the kitchen and the loom is an indication of the gender-­specific nature of the work in most cases. The second reading records the practices of the craftsmen responsible for producing a specialised flat-­weave rug known as a zīlū. The information needed to weave these features has to be ‘programmed’ into the cords (known as majes) that lift different sets of warp threads.5 The third reading details the manufacture of village carpets in mid twentieth-­century Iran. The master would chant the pattern, rather than recording it in visual form. Reading four looks at carpet making in Tabriz in northwestern Iran. The author notes the unusual feature of men and women working together at the loom. The last two readings deal with the manufacture of felt. The first considers the separate stages involved in the fulling of a felt hat. The final reading reflects on the sheer physicality of the procedures involved in pressing and rolling the felt (namad). Notable, too, is its ritualised character, with the repeated recitation of the name of ʿAli (cf. the practices of Persian bricklayers discussed in Chapter 3). * * *

158  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 21. 1. The third major feature often housed in the kitchen is the loom. Upright looms, used exclusively to weave pile carpets, are built on two sturdy vertical poles sunk into shallow round holes excavated into the floor. If a household’s loom is dismantled ­seasonally, the poles are stored vertically in a corner but the holes are not covered or filled in. Not all Aliabad houses have looms; the use of a loom is predicated on access to wool, and implies either ownership of sheep or availability of cash for its purchase. Some houses without vertical looms are inhabited by older women who do not know how to weave pile carpets, but who occasionally produce a variety of flat-­weave pieces on horizontal looms set up in unroofed areas. The absence of a vertical loom, therefore, need not reflect comparative poverty or the absence of sufficient sheep, and there is no significant association between wealth quartile and presence or absence of a loom. Most vertical looms in Aliabad are located in kitchens, but they are sometimes situated in the foyer, and rarely in the living room. Only one of the village’s 22 looms is situated in a second-­story room; this household’s head volunteered the opinion that because the looms are heavy, his was an unusual location, and he explained that it was possible only because of the underlying flooring consisted of brick vaulting.6 § 21. 2. Like any other rug, the zilu has a pattern, but this is not put to paper or a zagireh or any other sampler. The pattern of the zilu is programmed beforehand and set in a place that we can only call the ‘memory’ of the zilu. This memory resembles a set of electric cables that have been stripped of their insulation, so that the thin wire appears naked. The difference is that with the zilu these cables are strands of cotton, which are known as majes. . . The strands within the maj are connected to some of the warps and move them back and forth. The master weaver separates the maj into batches before weaving ­commences. In the zilu under discussion, seven majes operate at once to divide the warps from one selvedge to another. This occurs through the release of the lever known as the kamaneh ‘hoop’. Once the warps have been divided, the apprentice shoots a strand of weft through the space created between them and immediately begins to pound it down. When this is finished, the master weaver returns the warps to their original place by way of the maj through the use of a double-­prong named a kali. To continue with the pattern, he then puts another set of majes to work. This zilu in this illustration is a simple one with around twenty majes. Complex designs that do not follow a set order, such as calligraphy, increase the number of majes and sometimes brings them up to seventy strands. In this case, the planning, ­implementation, and execution of the weave require a complete mastery of the craft. One of the most important steps in the weaving of a zilu is the programming of its pattern. Like a computer program, this has to be flow-­charted fully and stored to memory. The time that goes into organizing and implementing the pattern is more important and greater than that taken to weave only one or two zilus with it. Therefore, with one pattern, several zilus of one shape and size are woven. Consequently, the warps are made as long as possible, sometimes over 50m (165ft.), and wrapped around the upper loom beam. With the weaving of every half-­metre (1ft.6in.) of rug on the lower beam, both beams are turned and the warps are transferred from the top to the bottom.7 § 21. 3. Certain things were particular about the rooms in which the carpets were made. As in most houses there are no windows, but they differed in having a hole or glass panel

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in the roof. On either side, for they are mostly made in pairs, are the carpets. On each of these sides there is one beam above and one below; both projected into holes in the walls. Arranged vertically between them are the many warp threads which form the foundation. The tension of the warp is obtained by having bars passing through the beams which can be turned and then locked in position. As the carpet is made it is occasionally wound onto the lower main beam of the loom. Behind the carpet sit those who are making it, usually women and children but sometimes men. The children in the villages start work when they are five or six years old, although this is against the law. All the weavers squat on another beam which rests on the floor: again this is against the law for the weavers’ seat must be raised above the floor to a specified height. They work for about 9 hours a day and receive a very low wage in comparison with other trades. Admittedly, the boys who mix clay for the potter or assist the tinsmiths in the bazaar are probably paid still less, but the hand-­made carpet industry only really flourishes where no alternative employment is available. Certainly, where factory employment is available the weaving masters would lose their labour. Although there are many laws in carpet making which are not adhered to, I do not think there is any benevolence behind the lethargy in enforcing them; it is merely that laws always appear to be less rigidly applied in the villages of any land. One row of knots is done at a time. Each knot is twisted around two threads and the remaining length of wool cut with a knife. The women make the knots amazingly quickly, the children take a little longer. The pattern is called by someone sitting in between the carpets who sings it to them in a strange, chanting voice. His words are repeated by one of the four who are following him; four because the two sides of the carpet are symmetrical and there are two carpets. During this chanting only the knots which mark the end of a colour are filled in, the remainder being completed when he has ceased. At the finish of a row the knots have to be thumped down into position causing a characteristic noise. This has to be done evenly to ensure that the line is straight. Most of the carpets being made in Jupar were three yards wide and, when completed, five yards long. This is not the commonest size for carpets, but it just happened that a lot of them were being made at the time we were there. They take five weavers about half a year to make. The Jupar carpets were of the 80.40 type which have something like 16 knots to the inch. With this size a weaver can make 8,000 knots in one day, although a record of 19,000, said to have been done by an Armenian woman, is quoted.8 § 21. 4. The weavers of Tabriz are the fastest in Persia. I was amazed and fascinated by the speed and accuracy with which they worked. For tying a knot they use a knife with a projection like a button-­hook on the end. Unerringly, this hook picked out the correct warp string (out of, it seemed to me, a hundred possibilities) and with the flick of the wrist a knot was tied. We timed one of the weavers. He was tying the knots at a rate of one a second; 8,000 knots a day is a common performance; the best weavers can tie 15,000. . . . I was surprised to see in Tabriz – that stronghold of the Moslem faith – men and women working side by side at the same loom. A few years ago such a thing would have been unthinkable. The recrudescence of the influence of the priesthood has succeeded in re-­ introducing the veil into Persia; will it succeed in eliminating women from the Tabriz carpet factories? The general opinion seemed to be that economics will prevail over the church.

160  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Wages in the Tabriz carpet industry have been steadily rising during recent years. In August 1948 the rate varied with the different factories between 21 and 23 rials per Kabal of 14,000 knots. Four weavers working at a loom would be expected to weave a minimum of two Kabals or 28,000 knots per day. In that case, the head-­weaver of the four would receive a minimum of 42 to 46 rials, out of which he would pay his three shagirds or assistants. The wages of the shagirds varied between 6 and 10 rials.9 § 21. 5. Hat Fulling Wool (pashm), often mixed with goat underhair (kork, kolk), is degreased with potash, rinsed, and after drying combed (shāneh zadan) on a wool comb (shāneh) or loosened with a bow (kamān zadan). A circular layer of this wool, a so-­called bat (angereh), about twice the size of the finished hat, is spread (vāz kardan) in even thickness over a shallow copper dish (tāveh, touveh) that is mildly heated from underneath by a charcoal fire. The fuller (gāzūr, qaṣṣār, namad-­māl) or kolāh-­māl if he is a hat fuller, sprinkles this bat with a thick soap solution (āb-­i ṣābūn) from an earthenware dish beside him. While the wool and soap water warm up, he presses the fibers with his hands, first gently, then harder, and releases them again. As soon as the felt begins to form he places a flat cotton pad into the centre of the bar, approximately the required diameter of the hat. He lays the second bat of beaten wool, smaller in size than the first one, over the pad and folds the surplus of the larger one over, thus joining the two halves (lab gereftan), then saturates the whole in soap water. After he has squeezed it mildly for a while he places it on a piece of cotton fabric and rolls the prefelted bats and fulling cloth into one roll, thus preventing interfelting. He puts this roll back in the dish with warm soap water, where he rolls it backward and forward with both hands and one foot. This hardening (namad mālīdan, mālīdan) operation takes about 10 to 15 minutes, after which the fuller carefully unrolls the felt, tears the center of the bat apart, widens the opening (bāz chīdan), takes the cotton pad out, and forms the opening into a rim (gūsheh). From time to time he pulls the felt over a wooden block (qāleb zadan), perfects the rim, and places the whole back into the hot dish for further shrinking (moshteh shodan) until it obtains the shape of a hat and the required density. During the process thin patches are overlaid with small wool bats and these are worked in. If the fuller works in a small village he immediately proceeds to finish the raw felt into a hat, but in larger communities this is left to a specialist, the hatter . . . Large felt rugs, tent coverings, cloaks and blankets are worked along similar lines, except that the large wool bats are placed on the ground (ham kardan) and are sprinkled with soap water, after which the fullers walk over them to achieve the first interlocking (pashm gereftan), usually several of them walking side by side and working the wool with their bare feet. The mildly compacted bat is then rolled up in a canvas or reed mat (ḥaṣīr) and is placed in a long earthenware mold built into the ground and heated from underneath. In Khorāsān they pour boiling water (āb-­i jūsh) over the roll. Several men walk on this roll (pūk kashīdan) and turn it over with their feet while they lean against a wooden bar at waist height. For large rugs and tent covers it often takes several hours before the felt is sufficiently dense. Most of the nomadic people like their felt rugs with colored ornament (gol). They dye (rang kardan) the wool prior to fulling in one color, open the roll, and place wool of different colors according to the ornaments planned onto the base felt, often with different patterns on front and reverse, and continue with fulling. The ornaments become an integral part of the felt. After the fulling, soap and fuller’s

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earth (sang-­i qibṭī) are washed out, the felt is dried, and, if used for tent covers, waterproofed with animal fat.10 § 21. 6. . . . in the Ramsar area the next step is to sprinkle the whole namad lightly with plain water, ab pash-­i kardan, then roll it up in the canvas around which rope is tied. Now begins the hard work for the two (or more) fullers who stand on it and roll over it for over an hour from the wall to the wall, sometimes stopping against one wall and pressing their hands against it while going through a series of complex foot movements to compact the namad into a relatively thin and stable piece. Usually a rhythmical vocal times the process to the cadenced breathing of calling upon the name of Ali, inhale ‘A’, and exhale the ‘-­li’. The craftsmen put their feet on the roll, hands on knees, then roll the tied namad forward with their heels pressed down firmly, lift their feet and hit it firmly, exhaling loudly and pulling the roll backward under their toes, rolling it forward again by the heels. The rhythm is simple, forward one-­two-­three-­four, back one-­two-­three-­four; emphasis on the four is similar to the rhythm of the tonbak drum used by the folk musicians when they start playing. After working it for an hour the namad is opened and it emerges carrying the impression of the woven mat, the design embedded in the wool. The craftsmen hold it on both sides and pull at it to stretch and correct its shape. Soap mixed in hot water – in Ramsar it is only hot pure water – is sprinkled over the edges, and rubbed in; the edges are turned over to the back of the namad and the corners are rounded so that the edges are straight and of the same thickness to the rest of the namad. The edge is firmly rubbed in to bind it together. With a small brush made from the root of a bush, the mixture of soap and water – or again just water – is sprinkled over the entire surface. The namad is rolled and now they work on the rolling of the felt with hands. The namad is unrolled, is sprinkled on the wrong side, and rolled again. Now the hard work begins. After this a cake of soap may be rubbed over the entire surface and the namad rerolled. The rhythm of felting now becomes more intense. Forearms rub it hard, turning the namad over as they cry out ‘Ya Ali’. This movement is now followed by a still harder rolling, which is followed by continuous hitting of the namad with knees and hands. Most difficult is the final stage when two people with arms crossed, lift the namad in unison, turn it over and slap it down with their hands, pushing with full weight as they raise themselves on their toes. This completes the actual making process. The namad makers carry out these processes stripped to the waist and are bathed in sweat when the finished piece emerges. It is then laid out to dry for a period of three to four days, depending on the time of the year. After that it is washed and brushed so that the surplus wool is removed and the pattern in subdued colors shows through the wool.11 notes   1 Pinney and Denny (eds), Carpets of the Mediterranean Countries; Mack, Bazaar to Piazza, pp. 73–93.   2 For an example of nomadic carpet production, see Whitworth Art Gallery, The Qashqáʾi of Iran, pp. 64–90. Also Housego, Tribal Rugs.   3 These are often known as the Turkish and Persian knots, respectively. On the techniques of carpet making, see Middleton, Rugs and Carpets: Techniques, Traditions, and Designs.

162  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s  4 Petsopoulos, Kilims: The Art of Tapestry Weaving; Tanavoli, Persian Flatweaves.   5 On the creation of written patterns in Kashmir, see Thompson, Silk, Carpets, and the Silk Road, pp. 60–1, Figs 59–60.  6 Kramer, Village Ethnoarchaeology: Rural Iran in Archaeological Perspective, pp. 100–2.  7 Tanavoli, Persian Flatweaves, p. 268. Illustrations have not been included and minor adjustments have been made to the text to account for this.  8 Smith, Blind White Fish in Persia, pp. 100–2.  9 Edwards, The Persian Carpet, pp. 59–60 (slightly adapted). 10 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 223–4. The Persian transliteration of the original publication has been adapted. 11 Dhamija et al., ‘Namad Felt Mats’, pp. 283–4.

PART 6

Writing and Painting

CHAPTER 22

PAPYRUS AND PAPER

Papyrus and paper

The three most important writing materials throughout Islamic history are papyrus, parchment and paper. All were relatively expensive before the modern period, and people sometimes resorted to writing on objects, including potsherds, the bones of large animals (known as ostraca), reeds and leather. Papyrus – the pre-­eminent carrier of writing in the ancient world – was made by pressing together strips of pith from the inside of the papyrus plant (Cyperus papyrus).1 By the first century of the Common Era, parchment came into greater use. It, too, was a durable and non-­absorbent writing material and was better suited to the codex form of the book (while papyrus was favoured for the rotulus or scroll).2 Parchment could be made in any place with a ready supply of livestock – sheep and goats were the principal source across the Islamic world – but the fact that an adult beast would only supply enough skin for about six sheets made it a luxury commodity.3 Paper replaced papyrus in the bureaucracies of the Middle East during the tenth and eleventh centuries. By the eleventh century it was also common to find paper being used for the writing of the Qurʾan. The first textual evidence for papermaking in the Islamic world comes from Samarqand in the mid-eighth century, and the craft was being promoted in the Abbasid capital of Baghdad within a few decades. The technology of papermaking was adopted from China.4 The basic material of paper is cellulose (i.e. plant fibre). This was derived from a wide variety of plant sources, as well as rope, baskets and rags (on the possible use of wrappings from mummies, see Chapter 28). First, the fibre was allowed to decompose (a process known as retting) and then it was broken down through repeated hammering. This pulp had to be bleached and rigorously washed to remove active chemical agents and impurities from the finished paper. Paper sheets were made by catching the pulp (held in suspension in water) on a flexible screen that was typically made of filaments of dried river grass stitched together.5 Paper in this initial form has a microscopic structure reminiscent of felt (see Chapter 21). In order to make it suitable for the application of ink or pigment, paper sheets have to be coated in size. This can be made from animal glue or plant starches (such as the water from boiling rice). The paper sheet can then be given a shiny and minimally absorbent surface by ­polishing on a board using a hard stone, piece of glass or an animal tooth.6 A telling indication of the cost of the highest quality paper appears in a request written by one of the most famous Muslim scribes, Ibn al-­Bawwab (d. c. 1002). In a letter to one of his patrons, he asks to be recompensed for his work not with money, but with a consignment of Chinese paper.7 It was not uncommon for previously used paper to be written over. For example, a surviving notebook

166  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s of the Egyptian scholar al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442) was made by cutting up a large diploma of office (marsūm) issued by the chancery of Cairo.8 The first reading comes from one of the earliest Arabic geographical works and records the practice of gathering and utilising papyrus reeds on the island of Sicily. Papermaking in Samarqand is the subject of reading two. The author, al-­Thaʿalibi (d. 1038), claims that the secret of the manufacture of paper was learned from Chinese prisoners-­of-­war (specifically, from the battle of Talas in 751). Reading three is by the Persian administrator and scholar Rashid al-­Din al-­Hamadani (d. 1318) and discusses the raw materials needed for papermaking, the initial stage of retting in limewater and the final stage of polishing the sheets. The Baghdadi book merchant Ibn al-­Nadim (d. 995 or 998) is the author of reading four. He considers the qualities of the different types of paper, papyrus and parchment used across the world. Reading five is an excerpt from a letter by Mawlana Sultan ʿAli quoted in Qadi Ahmad’s book on famous calligraphers and painters written in c. 1606–7. The sixth reading also reflects on the polishing of paper prior to its use for writing. The account illustrates the ways in which relatively coarse paper could be transformed. By the time this description was written, there was no significant paper production in the Middle East (cf. Chapter 29). The final reading (seven) describes the activities of the paper mill in Isfahan in the late nineteenth century. * * * § 22. 1. . . .and the marshes of Palermo are completely over grown by this ‘papyrus’ (bardīr), that is the bardīr reed from which the tūmār, or sheets are made. I know of nothing in the whole world which compares to the Egyptian papyrus plant with the exception of the Sicilian reed. Much of it is used for ship’s ropes, but a very small amount is made into tūmār for the sultan, depending on his needs.9 § 22. 2. Its specialities include paper, which has driven out of use the Egyptian papyrus and parchment which previous generations employed; this is because it looks better, is more supple, is more easily handled, and is more convenient for writing on. It is only made in Samarqand and China. The author of the Kitāb al-­masālik wa’l-­mamālik (‘Book of Roads and Provinces’) relates that amongst the Chinese prisoners-­of-­war captured by Ziyad ibn Salih were some artisans who manufactured paper in Samarqand; then it was manufactured on a wide scale and passed into general use, until it became an important export commodity for the people of Samarqand. Its value was universally recognised and people everywhere used it.10 § 22. 3. They collect the taller and stronger female plants, taller than the male and the same height as the Persian reed. It is broken and softened in water to give clean hemp fibre. This is twisted into thick ropes such as those used for ships’ rigging. When these are worn out, they are sold to papermills for use as raw material for papermaking. The quality of the resulting paper depends upon the development of the plant when harvested; only the fully ripe plant yields the coarse bast fibres needed for rope making. It depends on the time of year that it is prepared – it is best in spring (for bleaching the half-­stuff) – the care with which it is rinsed and the quality of the water used for rinsing. It is affected by the degree to which it is macerated through boiling the stuff in lime water and on the humidity of the ground on which it is prepared (the stuff is kept in damp ditches before pounding). Finally, the quality depends on the smoothness imparted to the paper by rubbing both sides with a glass polisher.11

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§ 22. 4. Remarks about Types of Paper It is said that first of all Adam wrote on clay. Then for a period after that the peoples wrote on copper and stone for the sake of durability. This was before the Flood. To meet the needs of the moment they also wrote on wood and the leaves of trees, as well as on the tūz, bark with which their bows were mounted to make them last long. We have discussed this matter in detail in the chapter on philosophy. Later on they tanned hides on which people wrote. The Egyptians wrote on Egyptian paper made from the papyrus reed. It is said that the first person to do this was the prophet Yūsuf (Joseph), for whom be peace. The Greeks write on white silk, parchment and other things, as well as on Egyptian scrolls and al-­fulḥān, which is the skin of wild asses. The Persians used to write on the skins of water buffaloes, cows, and sheep. The Arabs used to write on the shoulder blades of the camel and [on] likhāf, which are thin white stones, and on ʿusb or palm stems; the Chinese on Chinese paper made of ḥashīsh, which is the most important product of the land; the Indians on brass and stone, and also on white silk. Then there is the Khurāsānī paper made of flax, which some say appeared in the days of the Banu Umayyah, while others say it was during the Abbasid regime. Some say that it was an ancient product and others say that it is recent. It is stated that craftsmen from China made it in Khurasan like the form of Chinese paper. Its types are the Sulaymānī, the Ṭalḥī, the Nūḥī, the Firʿawnī, the Jaʿfarī, and the Ṭāḥirī. For a number of years the people of Baghdad wrote on erased sheets. The registers spoiled at the time of Muhammad ibn Zubayda were parchments, which after being erased were once more written upon. It is said that books used to be made of parchment tanned with nawrah and [were] exceedingly dry. Later the Cūfic tanning was with dates, giving flexibility.12 § 22. 5. On āhār paste Prepare the āhār paste from starch. Learn these words from an old man (repeating) ancient words. First make a paste, then pour in water. Then boil this for a moment in a hot fire; Then add to this starch some glue (liʿāb-­i sīrīsh). Strain [so that it is] neither too thin nor too thick, Spread it on paper and see That the paper should not move from its place; When you are applying āhār to your paper Moisten the paper slightly with water, carefully.

On Polishing Paper The paper must be polished so That no creases appear in it. The board for polishing should be wiped clean With a strong hand, but neither hard, nor softly.13

§ 22. 6. During my visit they took me to the house of a good scribe, and I was fortunate enough to find him actually engaged in copying a work of Bar Hebraeus. I greatly

168  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s admired the ease and quickness with which he made his bold, well-­formed letters, and the unerring way in which he added the vowel points and other diacritical marks. In answer to my questions he told me that he bought his paper from the grocers in the bazâr who used it for wrapping up sugar. It was good, stout, rag-­made paper manufactured in Russia, very rough on both sides, and in size small folio. Before use each sheet was laid on a smooth board and well rubbed and rolled with a small round bottle, like a whisky bottle, and under this treatment the paper became so beautifully smooth and shiny that the reed pen rarely spluttered. The scribe took a sheet of the paper and ruled dry lines on it with a metal stilus to mark the margins and the number of lines in the column of text to be written upon it, and having rubbed it with his bottle he sat down and wrote whilst we looked on. He wrote a few lines in the usual way from right to left, and then he turned his sheet of paper half round so that the lines already written became perpendicular instead of horizontal, and then proceeded to write his text perpendicularly with the greatest ease. He had much to say about the selection of reeds for pens, and he explained how to cut them, and how he made his thick inks, both red and black.14 § 22. 7. The group of the paper makers (kaghadhgar) Of old there has been a big manufactury in Isfahan, which houses the equipment, the cistern and the workers. Formerly, they made several kinds of paper. One was fostaqi, on which writing came out clearly and beautifully; it had elegance and lasted long. It was better than fostaqi paper made elsewhere in the country. Several books have been written on it and its beauty is self-­evident. Another kind of paper was rather thick and lasted longer than any other paper. Old decrees and sheets that have lasted to this day demonstrate this clearly. Another kind of paper is known as chahar baghal. Old specimens are of a quality inferior to termeh paper and that made more recently is rather impure and of lesser quality. If there were a demand for it then they could make it as good and outstanding as before. If they showed more attention and were more careful they could make it even better than in the past, such as they made for the emaneh-­ye hejleh. There was a sayyed in the time of the late king, who produced handmade paper outside the paper factory in his own house. He made very large sheets of chahar baghal paper, which he sold for six ʿabbasis. Such excellent paper was not to be found anywhere else. Some people preferred khanbaleq paper and samples of it can be found in some houses. Finally, there is a kind of paper that is very common in this time, which is of an ­inferior quality. The Isfahani papermill is not doing well at present.15 notes   1 For examples of Islamic papyri, see Khan, Selected Arabic Papyri.   2 On the relationship of the codex to the early roll form of book, see Weitzmann, Illustrations from Roll to Codex.   3 On the study of Islamic parchment, see Déroche et al., Islamic Codicology, pp. 32–47.  4 Bloom, Paper before Print, pp. 32–45.

papyrus and paper   5  6  7   8   9

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Loveday, Islamic Paper, pp. 34–9; Soteriou, Gift of Emperors: Hand Papermaking in India, pp. 116–22. Loveday, Islamic Paper, p. 44; Soteriou, Gift of Emperors, pp. 134–8. Rice, The Unique Ibn al-­Bawwāb Manuscript, pp. 7–8. Bauden, ‘The Recovery of Mamluk Chancery Documents’. Ibn Hawqal, Muhammad Abu al-­Qasim (d. after 978), Kitāb al-­masālik wa’l-­mamālik. Translated in von Karabacek, Arab Paper, p. 17. 10 Al-­Thaʿalibi, Abu Mansur ʿAbd al-­Malik b. Muhammad b. Ismaʿil (d. 1038). Bosworth (trans.), The Laṭāʾif al-­Maʾārif of Thaʿālibī, p. 140. The geographical text The Book of Routes and Provinces was written by Ibn Khurdadhbih (d. 912). 11 Rashid al-­Din Tabib (d. 1318), Dīwān al-­inshā. Translated in von Karabacek, Arab Paper, pp. 34–5. For a more detailed account, see the North African scholar al-­Muʿizz Ibn Badis (d. 1062) and his ʿUmdat al-­ Kuttāb wa ʿUddat Dhawī al-­Albāb (‘Staff of the Scribes and Implements of the Discerning’). Loveday, Islamic Paper, p. 31 (citing trans. in Levey, Medieval Arabic Bookmaking, p. 39). 12 Ibn al-­Nadim, Abu al-­Faraj Muhammad b. Ishaq (d. 995 or 8). Dodge (trans.), The Fihrist of Ibn al-­ Nadīm, I, pp. 39–40 (slightly adapted). 13 Section of the epistle of Mawlana Sultan ʿAli in Qadi Ahmad’s (d. 1606) Treatise on Calligraphers. In Minorsky (trans.), Calligraphers and Painters, p. 114. 14 Budge, By Nile and Tigris, II, pp. 72–3. 15 Mirza Husayn Khan Tahvildar, Jughrāfiyā-­yi Isfahān, (ed.) M. Sittuda (Tehran, 1342/1963), Chapter 89. Translated in Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama in Nineteenth-­century Iran, p. 179. Floor explains that emaneh-­ye hejleh relates to the practice of hejleh bastan, the construction of a paper bridal chamber for men who had died prior to marriage. The relevant phrase in the text can read as follows: ‘[T]hey could make it even better than in the past, such as they made for the deceased imām jumʿa (leader of prayer)’. My thanks to Seyedhamed Yeganehfarzand for this observation. For the Persian terms for papermaker, see the Glossary.

CHAPTER 23

CALLIGRAPHY

Calligraphy

The first script of Arabic employed for the writing of the Qurʾan is a sloping form commonly known as Hijazi. This is largely replaced in the last years of the seventh century by a new angular script that scholars term Kufic (because of the tradition that it originated in the Iraqi city of Kufa).1 At the end of the tenth century more cursive modes of Arabic (most importantly, naskh and thuluth) were adopted for the writing of the Qurʾan, and in later centuries a much wider variety of scripts appears in manuscripts, monumental inscriptions and the portable arts. The act of writing was accorded elevated status in Islamic culture. Scribes are unusual among Islamic artists and artisans due to the fact that their achievements were celebrated and, in some cases, their biographies recorded. Famous examples include Ibn Muqla (d. 940), Ibn al-­Bawwab (d. c. 1022) and Yaqut al-­Mustaʿsimi (d. 1298). The attainment of calligraphic skills was seen as a noble achievement, and even princes and sultans considered it worthwhile to spend their leisure time practising calligraphy. Each script was governed by strict proportional systems, each of which would have to be learned. A talented scribe was expected to be conversant with several scripts. Inks also had to be prepared by the scribes or their assistants (see below). A knowledge of the qualities of paper (absorbency, texture and so on) was also vital.2 Scribes had to work in collaboration with other craftsmen, including papermakers, painters (for illuminations or illustrations) and bookbinders. The colophons from manuscripts sometimes record the work of those who undertook the calligraphy and paintings.3 Scribes were also needed for other projects, such as the design of inscriptions on architecture. The expansion of scripts intended for books into monumental form required considerable skill, particularly if the inscriptions were meant to be read from a considerable distance.4 Other adaptations were required to transfer elegant scripts for Arabic and Persian onto portable artefacts.5 The first reading is a refined appreciation of the value of beautiful writing that draws on Qurʾanic quotations and ḥadīth to emphasise the points. The second reading is a description of the different ways of cutting a reed pen. The third reading comes from a treatise on penmanship by Abu Hayyan al-­Tawhidi (d. after 1009–10), and deals with the methods of nibbing a reed. Reading four is an appreciation of pens and inks given by an American author in the early years of the twentieth century. At this time reeds were giving way to steel pens. The fifth reading is from Ibn al-­Bawwab’s ‘Ode on the Art of Calligraphy’. This poem was much quoted in later sources, not for its practical value to scribes, but rather because it was attributed to one of the most famous scribes. Reading six is a commentary on Ibn al-­Bawwab’s poem and

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deals with the preparation of black and red inks. The seventh reading returns to Abu Hayyan al-­Tawhidi’s epistle and considers the rules for writing with a calamus (pen) on paper. The eighth reading is an example of calligraphy on a miniature scale – in this case, finger rings. The last set of readings (nine to thirteen) are manifestations of the connoisseurship of fine writing. The first of these is an exhortation to assemble examples of masterly calligraphy in order to improve one’s own work. This comes from a sixteenth-­century Persian poem. The tenth reading comes from an anonymous eleventh-­century text, the Book of Gifts and Rarities. Old reed pens were held to be instructive for scribes wishing to emulate the achievements of luminaries such as Ibn Muqla (d. 940) and Ibn al-­Bawwab.6 Reading eleven is an entertaining account of the discovery of a sheet of writing in the hand of Ibn al-­Bawwab. The owner assumes that the name of the scribe (literally, ‘son of the doorkeeper’) is an indication of the low commercial value of the piece of paper. The twelfth reading comes from the memoirs of the soldier and poet Usama ibn Munqidh (d. 1188) and reflects upon his father’s dedication to the practice of calligraphy. The final reading (thirteen) is from Gertrude Bell’s (d. 1926) Syria, the Desert and the Sown and describes a visit to a famous scribe in the Syrian capital. Bell’s own connoisseurship was such that she could recognise the styles of notable contemporary calligraphers. * * * § 23. 1. The art of writing is an honourable one and a soul-­nourishing accomplishment; as a manual attainment it is always elegant, and enjoys general approval; it is respected in every land; it rises to eminence and wins the confidence of every class; being always held to be of high rank and dignity, oppression cannot touch it, and it is held in remembrance in every country, and every wall is adorned by its hand. Honour enough for it in this connexion is that the Lord of Lords, whose names are hallowed in His incontrovertible Revelation, swore – ‘By the pen and what they write’ (Qurʾan 68.1), and He spake these words: ‘Recite! thy Lord is the most generous. Who hath taught by means of the pen, Hath taught man what he knew not’ (Qurʾan 96.3–­5).

It is honour and exaltation enough for the writing pen For ever, that it was by the pen that God swore.

The Prophet (peace be upon him!) said: ‘Beauty of handwriting is incumbent upon you, for it is one of the keys of man’s daily bread’. A wise man has said: ‘Writing is the offspring of thought, the lamp of remembrance, the tongue of him that is far off, and the life of him whose age has been blotted out’. Jahiz says: ‘Writing is a tongue to which the heart runs and is a depository of secrets, the investigator of news, and the preserver of historical memorials’. Another has said: ‘Writing is antimony to the sight and illumination to man’s insight’. Another has said: ‘Fine utterances [set out] in elegant handwriting are a pleasure to the eye, and a joy to the heart, and fragrance to the soul’. Others have written: ‘Writing excelleth speech, in that writing is of profit both to him that is near to him and to him that is far off; but this is not the case with speech’. With regard to the inventor of writing, the learned differ; some have said: Since God Almighty, in accordance with [the verse] ‘And He taught Adam all names’ (Qurʾan 2.29), taught Adam (on our Prophet and on him be peace!) the name and the utilities of everything, the utilities of the pen must also have been included in that total, and Adam communicated this knowledge to Seth, so that he is the originator of writing.7

172  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 23. 2. Remarks about Sharpening Pens Nations use different ways of sharpening their pens. The Hebrew way of sharpening is with an extreme angle. The Syriac trim is with an angle to the left, or maybe to the right, or perhaps they turn the pen on its back, or split the reed in two, sharpening one half which they call ṣulb and use for writing. The Greek trim is a very oblique deviation to the right, because they write from the left to the right. The Persian trim is with the nib of the pen fringed. The scribe separates it either against the floor or with his teeth, so as to embellish the penmanship. Sometimes they write with the lower end of an unsharpened reed, calling this reed khām. With it they write ilhamāh dīnāt, which are books of religious inspirations, dowries, and other things. The Chinese write with hairs which they fit into the heads of reeds as painters do. The Arabs write with various kinds of pens and [have various] ways of trimming them. The custom is to have a slant to the right, but the scribes trim pens without an angle.8 § 23. 3. . . . The nibbing consists of four different processes: 1) The opening (al-­fatḥ). In a tough calamus the hollowing is done deeper, in a soft one less deep, and in a medium one betwixt and between. 2) The paring (al-­naḥt) consists of two kinds: that of the sides of the calamus, and that of its core. That of the sides should be even with regard to both edges and should not be inclined (?) toward one of the two parts created by the split (of the point of the pen), because it would weaken the edge of that particular part. The pith, too, of the calamus in its core should be evenly distributed, and the split should be central to the jilfa of the calamus, whether it be thin or thick. 3) The splitting (al-­shaqq), too, depends on the type of calamus available. If it is tough, most of the jilfa should be split; if it is soft, about one-­third of it, and if it is medium quality, something betwixt and between. 4) The cutting of the point (al-­qaṭṭ) is done in different ways: oblique, even, upright, and inclined. The best is the oblique one with a medium slant. Some people tend toward roundness in cutting the point, and praise it and are eager to achieve it. I mean by ‘round’ that no trace of bias is visible and that your hand holds the knife evenly and does not in the least lean toward any side. The upright one consists in the perfect evenness of both the rind and the pith. The one inclined in its relation to either the pith or the rind is not recommendable.9 § 23. 4. Reed pens, etc. – How widespread and uniform the general type of Oriental writing was is shown by what [Edward] Lane tells us he saw nearly half a century ago in Egypt. The ink used there was thick and gummy. The scribes wrote with reeds, not with quill pens, as Arabic characters, like most of the characters in Oriental languages, cannot easily be made with quills or metal pens. The paper was thick and glazed. Scissors were a necessary part of the apparatus of a writer, to trim the edges of the paper, since torn edges were considered in bad taste. The Egyptian places his paper on his knee, or on the palm of his left hand, rarely upon a kind of pad. He rules his paper by laying under it a piece of pasteboard, with strings stretched and glued across it, and slightly pressing the paper over each string. The Oriental ink-­horn and reed pen of later times are close patterns to those in use thousands of years ago. . . . Modern pens in the Orient. – It is not uncommon now for travelers to see Orientals using steel pens. Reed pens are slowly passing into disuse, since steel pens are now cut so as to

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adapt them for writing Arabic. The ancient ink-­horn is likewise fast disappearing in the Orient. Arabs even may occasionally be seen using a fountain pen! In fact, many Oriental utensils, habits and manners are passing away before the swift advance of Western customs. Orientals are lamenting the disappearance of their long-­cherished ways and manners, but yield doggedly to the inevitable, mourning that their loved characteristics in a few years will utterly have vanished from among them.10 § 23. 5. Only a patient person achieves what he desires. Begin by writing on a wooden slate, wearing it out With a resolution kept free from haste. Do not be ashamed of your bad writing When you begin to imitate [the letters] and draw lines. The matter is difficult [at the beginning], and then becomes easy. Many a thing that is difficult [at the beginning], turns out later on to be easy. Eventually, when you have achieved what you have hoped for, You will be filled with joy and gladness. Then, thank God and do His pleasure! God loves all those who are grateful. Furthermore, pray that the fingers of your hand will write Only what is good for you to leave behind in the house of deception. Everything a man does, he will be confronted with on the morrow, When he is confronted with the written decrees [on the Day of Resurrection].11 § 23. 6. Into your inkwell you should mix Soot, compounded with vinegar or unripe grapes. He chose soot because of its smoothness and beautifying quality, and the extracts for their smoothness, grip, and because they were less likely to decay. Ibn al-­Waḥīd said, ‘I believe that the ingredients should be mixed cold; that is the recipe of al-­Samʿānī, which consists of: one quarter of gallnuts (ʿafṣ); half a part of gum arabic (ṣamgh); a quarter part of vitriol (zāj), ground and mashed with pomegranate juice (māʾ al-­julnār) in a mortar for some days until it ferments and is clarified. Then alum (shabb), pure white salt (milḥ al-­andarāʾnī), verdigris (zinjār), and aloes (ṣabr) should be added. For every raṭl add half an ūqiyah of gum arabic. Let it be put in the sun for two weeks. Ibn al-­Baṣīṣ said, ‘The inkwell wad (līqah) should be of silk washed with soap and well teased out and very dry. Then take the high quality ink and pour it over the wad and stir it. The ink is produced from the following ingredients: Socotra aloes – a dirham’s weight; Genoa saffron – a dirham’s weight; verdigris, unground (bi-­lā ḥakk?) – three dirhams’ weight; pure white salt – three dirhams’ weight. Let the ingredients be beaten separately. Let good, sound, unpierced fresh gallnuts be taken and be crushed and broken in thirds and quarters to the weight of three ūqiyahs. Let them be steeped for three days with myrtle leaves and boiled until a third evaporates. Let it be clarified through a filter on to the above-­mentioned ingredients and be fermented for seven days. Then take the clarified liquid and put it in a glass jar. Let good, unpounded gum arabic be put in it: it will retain its essence (i.e. of the gum). Let it be blackened with Cyprus vitriol. The viscous liquid makes suitable ink. The scribe who wishes may extract soot from flax oil and use it in

174  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s place of the gum arabic. It will give a blackness and beautify it. Let pure Cyprus vitriol be added to intensify its blackness and beauty’. ‘When this has been done, put in the wad, and when it is submerged and settled in the inkwell, if the scribe thinks that its strength is deficient he can pour in vinegar or the pulp of unripe grapes’. Diluted red ochre, orpiment and camphor may be added to increase its luminosity and beauty. This is the meaning of what he says (in the verse): Add to it red ochre which has been diluted, orpiment and camphor. He means Iraqi ochre (mughrah ʿirāqiyah), which has a reddish tinge, to give it bulk and arrest the drying-­up of the moisture. Orpiment (zirnīkh) will improve its colour, keep flies away and kill them. Camphor (kāfūr) will preserve it and scent it. When you have fermented it, take some paper, smooth and sized, Flatten it in a press to be free from creasing and distortion. When you have fermented your inkwell and nibbed your pen, go and take some heavy, smooth paper, sized (makhbūr), as he says, for polishing, on which the script will not be disjointed, the passage of the pen will be smooth and it will not snap. If it is pressed after cutting it will remove creasing and this will not affect its limpidity and polish. The Shaykh Ibn al-­Bawwāb, May God Most High have mercy upon him, has said: ‘Choose well three things, for on them the splendour of fine script depends: Ink, strong paper and a pen, which when you have gathered them together you can be glad And if you are missing any when the new moon appears, by the tail-­end of the month you will have them’.12 § 23. 7. The secretary, Saʿid b. Humayd said: These are some of the things a penman must know. He must hold the calamus at that part of it most suitable to hold it and which is as distant from the ink as possible. He must give the calamus a lot of the land of the writing paper. He must not write with the defective side of the edge of the calamus. He must apply to it the fairest standards and use the best measurements for its form, so that nobody might feel any desire for an inferior (handwriting?) and so that no aspiration for a superior one might enter one’s mind. He must distribute it evenly on the line, and he must execute it so as to be in keeping with the vowel signs (?) he is going to apply. He must connect one letter with the other according to the rules which he has previously laid down with regard to the narrowness and width of the letters. He must not break up a word and write one of its letters on another line. He must arrange the beginnings and the ends of the writing of his manuscript symmetrically. He must not embellish it improperly, but he must not deny it that (embellishment) to which it is entitled. Otherwise its elegance will be left behind, and its symmetry will be destroyed.13 § 23. 8. Ḥakkām al-­Khawātim It is the name for drilling the cast metal [finger] ring from ramlī brass. And sometimes it is made from silver, and it is also drilled onto worked ring stones from minerals like carnelian (ḥajar al-­ʿaqīq) and blood stone (ḥajar al-­dam), and other than them. The people of this craft are mostly [located] in front of Bāb Sarāyā al-­ʿAskariyya or

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al-­Māliyya. And the majority of them are in the roads and sidestreets, and they are found between the palaces, in the shops. However, those of them in the shops perfect the drilling of rings with very marvellous calligraphy, and they take for every letter a fixed amount of dirhams for the drilling of them, and they are written in ‘islāmbūlī’ [script]. Most of those for whom the rings are engraved are commanders and officers in the army, and others from among the rich . . . They sit upon the ground and drill the rings for the fellahin, the army, and for sufi mendicants for ten pāra (piastres) or twenty pāra for the one named al-­qamrī. Every one of them is beautifully crafted, and it is a graceful craft, and they make a living from it that supports and clothes them.14 § 23. 9. Collect the writings of the masters, Throw a glance at this and at that. For whomsoever you feel a natural attraction, Besides his writing, you must not look at others, So that your eye should become saturated with his writing, And because of his writing each of your letters should become a pearl.15 § 23. 10. 382. There were found boxes full of sharpened and muḥannashah (?) pens, besides others made of fulful and other kinds of reed. The pens were from those sharpened by Abu ʿAli Muhammad b. ʿAli b. Muqla, Ibn al-­Bawwab, and others. 383. There were also found a number of complete manuscripts of the Qurʾan (khatmāt), in the handwriting [calligraphy] of both Ibn Muqla and Ibn al-­Bawwab, [the letters of which] were written in gold outlined (mukaḥḥal) with lapis lazuli.16 § 23. 11. ‘I heard’ said al-­Barfati, ‘that a certain man, a schoolmaster in one of the quarters of Baghdad, had many clippings (jazzāz) which he had inherited from his father. It occurred to me that he might have something in the fine scripts (al-­khuṭūṭ al-­mansūba). I called on him and I said, “I should like you to show me what your father has left you, as I might be interested to acquire some of it”. He took me to an upper room and I sat down to search until I found a sheet (waraqa) in the hand of Ibn al-­Bawwab in the riqāʿ script . . . I added to this leaf some things which I did not really want and said: “How much for this?” “Sir!” he said, “Is there nothing in all this that would suit you?” “I am in a hurry” I replied, “perhaps I shall return to you on another occasion”. “What you have selected” he went on, “is of no value. Take it as a gift from me!” “This I will not do” I retorted, and I gave him some piece of clipping (qurāḍa) which was worth half a dāniq (the smallest coin) and he considered it to be excessive. “You take nothing that deserves this amount, Sir, take something else with it” he insisted. But I replied that I required nothing else and took my leave. When I descended to the ground floor, I felt ashamed and said to myself: “There is no doubt that the man had no idea of the value of what he was selling me; by God! it will never do to acquire Ibn al-­Bawwab’s writing by an act of dishonesty”. So I returned to the man and said to him: “My brother! This leaf is in the hand of Ibn al-­Bawwab”. “What can I do if it is in the hand of the ‘Doorkeeper’s son’?” he replied. “It is worth three imāmī dīnārs” I replied.

176  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s “Please do not joke” was his reply. “Could it be that you wish to return it or find it too expensive?” “No!” I said, “bring a pair of scales!” He brought them and I weighed out three dīnārs and said: “Do you wish to sell me this paper for that amount?” He answered in the affirmative and I took the paper and went on my way.’17 § 23. 12. A Qurʾan copier. – My father wrote a magnificent hand, which that lance thrust did not affect. But he used to copy nothing except the Qurʾan. One day I asked him, ‘O my lord, how many copies of the Qurʾan hast thou made?’ To this he replied, ‘Before long ye shall know’. When he was on the point of death, he said, ‘In that box are different copies, each one of which contains the Qurʾan in full. Place them (referring to the copies) under my cheek in the grave’. We counted them and they turned out to be forty-­three copies, each containing the full text. One of the copies was a huge one which he wrote in gold and in which he included all the sciences of the Qurʾan – its different readings, its obscure terms, its Arabic style and grammar, its abrogating and abrogated passages, its commentary, reasons for its revelation, and its jurisprudence. This copy, which he styled al-­Tafsīr al-­Kabīr (‘Great Commentary’), was written in black ink alternating with red and blue. Another copy he transcribed with letters of gold, but this had no commentary. The rest of the copies were written in black ink with the following in gold: the first words of the tenth and fifth parts of the book, the number of verses, the first words of the sūras, the titles of the sūras and the headings of the sections. My book does not require mention of this fact. But I did mention it in order to appeal to those who read my book to solicit Allah’s mercy upon my father.18 § 23. 13. There was another morning no less pleasant when I went with the faithful Selim to pay my respects on a charming old man, the most famous scribe in all the city, Mustafa al-­Asbaʿi was his name. He lived in a house decorated with the exquisite taste of two hundred years ago inlaid with coloured marbles and overlaid with gesso duro worked in patterns like the frontispiece of an illuminated Persian manuscript and painted in soft rich colours in which gold and golden brown predominated. We were taken through the reception rooms into a little chamber on an upper floor where Mustafa was wont to sit and write those texts that are the pictures of the Moslem East. It was hung round with examples from celebrated hands ancient and modern, among which I recognised my friend Muhammad ʿAli, son of Beha Ullah the Persian prophet, to my mind the most skilful penman of our day, though Oriental preference goes out to another Persian of the same religious sect, Mushqin Kalam, and him also I count among my friends. We sat on cushions and drank coffee, turning over the while exquisite manuscripts of all dates and countries, some written on gold and some on silver, some on brocade and some on supple parchment (several of these last being pages of Kufic texts, abstracted from the Qubbat al-­Khazneh before it was closed), and when we rose to go Muṣṭafa presented me with three examples of his own art, and I carried them off rejoicing.19

notes   1 The best introduction to this topic is Blair, Islamic Calligraphy. On the development of early scripts, see Déroche, The ʿAbbasid Tradition; George, The Rise of Islamic Calligraphy.

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  2 On Islamic paper, see Loveday, Islamic Paper.   3 For examples of colophons in Mamluk Qurʾans, see James, Qurʾāns of the Mamlūks, pp. 34–6, 68–9, 150, 198–9; on the illustrated Maqāmāt manuscripts, see Grabar, The Illustrations of the Maqāmāt.   4 Neçipoğlu, ‘Qur’anic Inscriptions on Sinan’s Imperial Mosques’.   5 On the use of inscriptions on portable artefacts, see Blair, Islamic Inscriptions, pp. 97–204.   6 Roxburgh, ‘On the Transmission and Reconstruction of Arabic Calligraphy’.   7 Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-­Amuli (fl. fourteenth century), Nafāʾis al-­funūn (India Office Library, Ethé 2221). Translated in Arnold, Painting in Islam, p. 2. Al-­Jahiz (d. 869) was a famous author and scholar from Basra, Iraq.   8 Ibn al-­Nadim, Abu al-­Faraj Muhammad b. Ishaq (d. 995 or 8). Dodge (trans.), The Fihrist of Ibn al-­ Nadīm, I, pp. 38–9. Khām is a white reed pen used by the Persians. Ilhām means inspirations, dīnāt is religion and siyāq is dowries.   9 Translated in Rosenthal, ‘Abū Ḥayyān at-­Tawḥīdī on Penmanship’, pp. 24–6. 10 Rice, Orientalisms in Bible Lands, pp. 230–1. 11 Ibn al-­Bawwab (d. c. 1022), ‘Ode on the Art of Calligraphy’ (Raʾiyyah fī l-­khaṭṭ) as recorded in Ibn Khaldun, al-­Muqaddima. Rosenthal (trans.), The Muqaddimah, II, pp. 338–9. Also in Blair, Islamic Calligraphy, pp. 161–2. 12 Translated in James, ‘The Commentaries of Ibn al-­Baṣīṣ and Ibn al-­Waḥīd on Ibn al-­Bawwāb’s “Ode on the Art of Calligraphy” (Raʾiyyah fī l-­khaṭṭ)’, pp. 172–3. The last quoted verses of Ibn al-­Bawwab seem to come from another composition. The weight of a dirham is 3.12 grams. 13 Rosenthal, ʿAbū Ḥayyān at-­Tawḥīdī on Penmanship’, pp. 43–4. 14 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 101–2 (Chapter 68). 15 Sultan ʿAli Mashhadi (d. 1520), Sīrat al-­suṭūr (‘The Way of Lines of Writing’), dated 1514. In Minorsky (trans.), Calligraphers and Painters: A Treatise by Qadi Ahmad, p. 117. Also reproduced in McWilliams and Roxburgh, Traces of the Calligrapher, p. 68. 16 Al-­Qaddumi (trans. and annotated), Book of Gifts and Rarities, p. 234 (slightly adapted). Fulful may be from a palm leaf. 17 Yaqut, ‘Abd Allah al-­Hamawi (d. 1229), Irshād al-­arīb ilā maʿrifat al-­adīb, ed. D. S. Margoliouth (London: Luzak and Co., 1929), VI, pp. 365–7. Translated in Rice, The Unique Ibn al-­Bawwāb Manuscript, p. 9 (slightly adapted). For another account concerning the prices fetched for the work of well-­known artists, see Welch, Artists for the Shah, pp. 186–7. 18 Usama ibn Munqidh (d. 1188), Kitāb al-­iʿtibār. In Hitti (trans.), An Arab-­Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades, p. 81 (slightly adapted). 19 Bell, Syria, the Desert and the Sown, p. 148 (slightly adapted). A photo of Mushqin Kalam appears on p. 149.

CHAPTER 24

PAINTING

Painting

We know relatively little about the style of painting that existed in the Hijaz in the period prior to the birth of Islam in the seventh century.1 For Mecca and Medina, we have to rely on written sources such as the ḥadīth and other historical and biographical sources.2 The ḥadīth includes rather negative references to paintings and representational motifs on textiles (­hangings and cushions), and the makers of (representational) images are often viewed in an even harsher light (see below). What is particularly at issue in this respect is the idea that the painter or sculptor was placing himself in direct competition with the supreme creator, Allah.3 While the Qurʾan contains no explicit condemnation of image making – in comparison with the Second Commandment in the Old Testament (Exodus 20:4–6; Leviticus 19:4–6) – Muslims appear to have decided at a very early stage to eradicate representations of animate life from their religious architecture, manuscripts of the Qurʾan and all other objects associated with the practice of faith. No such restrictions existed in the art produced in secular contexts. It is true that there have been phases of iconoclasm throughout Islamic history – as there have been for both Christianity and Judaism4 – but these were relatively unusual. For example, the art of the Umayyad (661–750) and early Abbasid periods (749–c. 900) reveals an active patronage of representational art.5 In later centuries religious scholars (ulema or in Arabic, ʿulamāʾ) continued to cite the crucial ḥadīth on the subject of images and image making in legal writings, but it is difficult to establish the extent to which these injunctions affected the attitudes of patrons and painters. The first phase of Arabic book illustration betrays the influence of Late Antique and Byzantine painting and, to a lesser extent, the styles employed in the manuscripts produced by Christians (such as Copts, Nestorians and Syrians) living in the Middle East.6 Further development of secular manuscript art took place in the Persian-­speaking lands of the Islamic East.7 From the sixteenth century onward the biographies of the greatest artists were recorded by librarians (for example, in the prefaces written for albums of paintings) and other scholars.8 The best painters tended to be employed within the courts of sultans and princes. Some painters concentrated on the ornamentation of objects and domestic interiors. In many parts of the Middle East the practice of painting the walls and woodwork of elite houses reached a high level of sophistication (see Figure 24.1). An important aspect of architectural painting in a more popular context is the decoration of the façades of houses following the successful completion of the hajj (see below). The first reading is a group of three ḥadīth concerned with the appropriateness of p­ainting. These are taken from the highly influential collection of traditions assembled by

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Figure 24.1  ‘Damascus Room’, Syria, eighteenth century. Shangri La, Honolulu, Hawai’i. Courtesy of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.

Muhammad ­al-­Bukhari (d. 870). Reading two comprises two aphorisms from a genre of Arabic writing that draws upon Greek scholarly sources of antiquity (known as wisdom literature). Both texts offer sly critiques of painting. The third reading comes from a manual of ḥisba and condemns the practice of tattooing. This text has been included on the grounds that this form of bodily adornment constitutes a form of drawing or painting.9 The fourth reading is another legal text, but from a more recent period. This is a fatwā (legal pronouncement) by the reformist scholar Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) dealing with the legality of image making. Reading five is a report by al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442) on a painting competition held during the Fatimid period in Egypt (969–1171). The text invites comparison to Pliny the Elder’s (d. c. 79 ce) description of the painting competition between the Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasios in the fifth century bce.10 The next two readings (six and seven) are appreciations of painting in the Middle East by nineteenth-­century European observers. Neither is particularly impressed by what he sees in Egypt and Iran respectively, judging the work of painters to be lacking knowledge of perspective and sculptural form. The eighth reading is a description of the activities of house painters in late nineteenth-­and early twentieth-­century Damascus. This can be compared with a technical account of a similar craft – the painting of papier-­mâché in Iran – written in the 1970s (reading nine). Unlike their counterparts in Syria, Persian painters had access to European commercial paints. Reading ten describes the practice of a master painter in Qajar Iran (1785–1925). The author notes the practice of pouncing designs from cartoon drawings. Reading eleven comes from the golden age of Persian painting and provides brief accounts of the master Mirak Naqqash and his son, Bihzad (on the biographies of painters, see Chapter 4).

180  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s The former is an interesting case, because he moves from his initial profession of bowmaking to the domain of book art. The narrative in reading twelve is an illustration of the fact that celebrated painters were often well aware of the prices their own works fetched among contemporary collectors. The thirteenth reading is a description of the working practices of a twentieth-­century Egyptian painter, Ahmed Mahmoud el Senosy. He is one of a group of artists in Egypt who specialises in the painting of elaborate murals to celebrate the successful completion of the Muslim pilgrimage. * * * § 24. 1. Narrated Saʿid bin Abu al-­Hasan: While I was with Ibn ʿAbbas a man came and said, ‘O father of ʿAbbas! My sustenance is from my manual profession and I make these pictures’. Ibn ʿAbbas said, ‘I will tell you only what I heard from Allah’s Apostle. I heard him saying, “Whoever makes a picture will be punished by Allah till he puts life in it, and he will never be able to put life in it”.’ Hearing this, that man heaved a sigh and his face turned pale. Ibn ʿAbbas said to him, ‘What a pity! If you insist on making pictures I advise you to make pictures of trees and any other unanimated objects’. Narrated Ibn ʿAbbas: The Prophet said, ‘Whoever claims to have seen a dream which he did not see, will be ordered to make a knot between two barley grains which he will not be able to do; and if somebody listens to the talk of some people who do not like him (to listen) or they run away from him, then molten lead will be poured into his ears on the Day of Resurrection; and whoever makes a picture, will be punished on the Day of Resurrection and will be ordered to put a soul in that picture, which he will not be able to do’. Narrated ʿAwn bin Abu Juhayfa: My father bought a slave who practiced the profession of cupping. (My father broke the slave’s instruments of cupping). I asked my father why he had done so. He replied, ‘The Prophet forbade the acceptance of the price of a dog or blood, and also forbade the profession of tattooing, getting tattooed and receiving or giving ribā (usury), and cursed the picture-­makers’.11 § 24. 2. There was a painter in his days (that is, in the days of Diogenes) who gave up painting and became a physician. [Diogenes] said to him: ‘I suppose, when you saw that mistakes in painting lie open to the eye, while mistakes in medicine are covered by the earth, you gave up painting and entered medicine’. A painter said to a philosopher: ‘If you were to plaster your house, I would paint it for you’. The philosopher replied: ‘It needs plastering most, once you have painted it’.12 § 24. 3. Mughrib summarised: The Prophet’s curse is upon those women who depilate themselves and others, those who file their own teeth and those of others, those who add extra hair to their own and other’s heads and those who tattoo themselves or others. Tattooing is defined as ulceration and pricking of the skin which is then packed with indigo and kohl or has charcoal or other blackening substances introduced to it. The Prophet cursed those who engaged in such practices either in an active or passive role.13 § 24. 4. It may occur to you to ask as you read these words, what is the legality of these images in Islamic law, if their purpose is, as stated, to draw the different expressions of

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human emotion or their physical attributes. . .And I say to you that the painter has painted and the result has been ascertained, there is no argument about that, and the purpose of idolatry and deification of statues or pictures has been erased from minds. . .and if you raise the question with a muftī and ask him about the Hadith, ‘the image-­makers are the people who will suffer most on Judgement Day’, as is stated in the Ṣaḥīḥ, I think most likely he will say that the Hadith appeared in the time of paganism, and that images were made at that time for two reasons: for amusement and for blessing, for example, in making images of saints . . . the artist in both cases is working against God and gives him associates, and if those two obstacles are removed, then the purpose of drawing human beings is the same as the drawing of plants and trees in crafts . . . there is no disagreement about the benefits of drawing . . . and you cannot answer the muftī that pictures could be an expression of idolatry, as I think he would say to you that your tongue could also express lies, but this does not necessarily mean tie it up, as it can choose whether to speak truth or lies . . . on the whole I think that Islamic law is far from prohibiting one of the best educational methods [drawing] once it has established that it is not a danger to religion, neither to belief nor to practice . . . 14 § 24. 5. And this case is similar to that of al-­Qasir and Ibn ʿAziz in the time of Yazuri, the chief minister of Hasan b. ʿAli b. ʿAbd al-­Rahman (i.e. caliph al-­Mustansir), for he often used to incite them and stir one up against the other, since he was especially fond of an illustrated book (kitāb) or anything like a picture or gilding. Thus he invited Ibn ʿAziz from Iraq and excited his evil passions for [the vizier] had sent for him to contend with al-­ Qasir, because al-­Qasir demanded extravagant wages and had an exaggerated opinion of his own work – and it really merited so high an estimate, for in painting he was as great as Ibn Muqla was as a calligrapher, while Ibn ʿAziz was like [Ibn] al-­Bawwab. . .Now Yazuri has introduced al-­Qasir and Ibn ʿAziz into his assembly. Then Ibn ʿAziz said ‘I will paint a figure in such a way that when the spectator sees it, he will think that it is coming out of the wall’. Whereupon al-­Qasir said ‘But I will paint in such a way that when the spectator looks at it he will think that it is going into the wall’. Then [everyone present] cried out: ‘this is the more amazing [than the proposal of Ibn ʿAziz]’. Then Yazuri bade them make what they promised to do: so they each designed a picture of a dancing girl, in niches also painted, opposite to one another – one looking as though she were going into the wall, and the other as though she were coming out. Al-­Qasir painted the dancing girl in a white dress in a niche coloured black, as though she were going into the painted niche, and Ibn ʿAziz painted the dancing girl in a red dress in a niche that was painted yellow, as though she were coming out of the niche. And Yazuri expressed his approval of this and bestowed robes of honour on both of them and gave them much gold.15 § 24. 6. Painting and sculpture, as applied to the representation of living objects, are, as I have already stated, absolutely prohibited by the religion of El-­Islám. There are, however, some Muslims in Egypt who attempt the delineation of men, lions, camels, and other animals, flowers, boats, etc., particularly in (what they call) the decoration of a few shop-­fronts, the doors of pilgrims’ houses, etc., though their performances would be surpassed by children of five or six years of age in our own country. But the Muslim religion especially promotes industry, by requiring that every man be acquainted with some art or occupation by which he may, in case of necessity, be able to support himself and those dependent upon him, and to fulfil all his religious and moral duties.16

182  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 24. 7. I cannot say much of the painters of Persia; they have some little knowledge of light and shade, but know nothing of perspective. The portrait painters, I have heard, take likenesses with very great exactness. Those who paint landscapes, &c. generally study some daub sent out from England, or perhaps one from China, and those they look upon as master-­pieces. They give the preference to our figures but say that the colouring of the Chinese is much superior. The vivid glare of a Chinese drawing, bears about the same proportion to an English landscape, as the colouring of a Flemish painting does to the mellow richness of the Italian school. It is no uncommon thing in a Persian painting, to see a man nearly as tall as a ­mountain; or, in their representation of a battle, a line of guns, on which are formed a line of infantry, over whom is another of cavalry. I have also heard of a picture, which describes the commencement of an action, and in another part the defeat of the enemy.17 § 24. 8. House painter (dahhān) He is also known as al-­marrāsh, a colloquial word . . . It is a craft in which many are presently involved. He labours at adorning and decorating the faces of property and house walls with pigment and painting. This work improves them, and they are employed by one who wants to beautify his property and house walls, ceilings and shops. The artistic skillfulness and precision [of painters] differs, according to the level of preparation, as is the case with the majority of handicrafts. His craft is well known, and does not require a long explanation. It (the paint) is made from the glue called al-­kathīrā (gum tragacanth). He soaks it for a short length of time until it breaks down into the form of shreds (like scraps of paper or cloth). [Then] he adds raw egg which he pours on it and he mixes it, stirring vigorously. Then he adds to it (the mixture) the colours which he desires, and he mixes it a little. After that he adds a quantity of powdery gypsum to the mixture. When the paint is oil-­based, for increased beauty due to its shine and brilliance, it can be thinned with naphtha. Then the artist takes a brush with a bristle head and draws what he wants. [These take the form] of a well-­drawn picture, like a painting of an amazing landscape and beautiful places or of a sea and a ship or of cypress trees or flowers like roses, or other kinds from any type of thing which he wants to make. Considering everything involved, it is a trade and craft which one does well ­[financially], and it is in vogue [in Damascus]. The majority of the well-­to-­do choose to decorate their houses, dwellings, and their rooms, like halls. Properties do not sell well unless the greater portion [of the interiors] is decorated. Similarly, most of the bath houses of Damascus are decorated with various paintings. This is a wonder of the science of man, but cannot be achieved without the knowledge of God, for He is all knowing (omniscient) and all wise.18 § 24. 9. A single coat of sizing is now applied – for the best, karireh or gum tragacanth; for cheaper, the sizing will be serishom, gelatin of animal hoof (not to be confused with serishom of the bilingual dictionaries which is properly serishom-­mahi, fish glue), or angom, gum arabic. If the ground of the painting is to be dark, then this is added next. Otherwise the painting is done directly on to the single sizing. Colors were formerly mixed with egg white, but now painters use serishom or angon or shir-­i angur, the residue from boiling down grapes, also known as dush-­ab. A good mixture would be ninety-­five percent mineral color and three percent serishom and two percent shir-­i angur. Good

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reds are made from Armenian clays, the lajvardi and blues from minerals. Copper oxides were once used but abandoned as they are lethal. Most colors used today are imported gouaches and British Windsor is preferred. Brushes now are also usually imported, for while the traditional brush allowed for finer work and a characteristic stroke, the economics of art today make them impractical, for the preparation of the brush could take as long as the painting of a pen box. The old brush was of the hair of the Persian cat, the best being from the back of the neck and down the spine almost to the tail, with only the first growth used off the young adult cat. This is springy, and later cuts would have blunt tips. The hair is cut to half its length and soaked in water, being careful to preserve the orientation. Then they are laid out one by one on paper to dry. They are then ‘combed’ with the thumb and then aligned. Then a crow quill – actually a pigeon feather – is placed on a glass sheet and the tip cut off at a slight bias and cut again where the feather branches out. The hairs are then assembled and tied with a thread, dipped in glue to shape the brush head. The thread tying it is led through the wide end of the quill and out of the point. The brush head of cat hair is placed point first into the quill top, pulled through by the thread until it emerges from the tip. The wet glue on the hair affixes it to the wall of the quill when dry. After the decoration is painted, the oil must be applied. The decoration itself is often done by two artists, one doing the main illustrative cartouche, the other adding the bordering floral of eslimi. If gold work is done this is usually by a third man. The finishing oil coat must be applied in a dust-­free atmosphere. The traditional formula was bazrak, sesame seed oil, seventy percent, jala oil, fifteen percent, and sanderus, a kind of rosin also used in batik, fifteen. The sesame was boiled and as the other elements were added this had to be covered quickly as it is highly flammable and many artists were injured in explosions. It was boiled to a paste, then cooled in batches to be used over the years. The procedure is similar to Chinese and Japanese urushiol, but here only up to eight applications, each being in a glass box to keep out the dust then sunned for two hours. Today Sadolux brand imported oil is applied in three coats.19 § 24. 10. Spent some time at the house of Aka Ali Nakosh (Aqa ʿAli Naqqash), one of the king’s principal artists; he was doing a set of costumes for me with several pupils around him. His figures, though having Persian stiffness about them were very nicely made out and finely coloured – his productions had a ready sale at high prices. The outlines of his pictures were pricked upon pieces of paper, and by dabbing a small linen bag of red lead over the holes, produced the forms, either right or reverse, on the paper under them. When he came to the gilding part, he took some gold leaf, put it into a small quantity of melted glue and rubbed it well with the finger in a saucer with a little salt; the sediment was laid on the paper with a hair-­pencil, like paint, and when dry, burnished with an agate or dog’s tooth. The water is poured off, when laid by, to void spoiling the gold, when used again fresh water must be supplied and melted as before. When his gold is fixed, he arranged his colour in little pots, one tint above another, most of them mixed with white, which made the transparent colours become opaque; he filled up the outlines with thick colour without any softening, and threw in his shades by working deeper tints over the first – his efforts were strong and rapid. He grinds his flake white in glue and water with a little serishoom (a kind of thick juice extracted from the grape), or where it is not to be had sugar-­candy may be substituted: all other colours he grinds in gum water only.20

184  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 24. 11. Then there is Amir Ruhullah, known as Mirak Naqqash, originally from Herat and one of the bowmaker sayyids. At first he was engaged in memorizing the Koran and practicing writing, but after his father’s death he was inclined to be a copyist. Since he was of the bowmaking sayyids, he also practiced that trade. Later he entered the service of Mawlana Waliullah and took up outlining (taḥrīr) and illumination (tadhhīb), but he gave that up too and took a fancy to depiction, in which craft he became without equal or peer. In the time of the late Sultan Husayn Mirza he was shown favor and, among other things, was given the post of royal librarian. The pupil and son of the aforementioned sayyid, the most excellent of the moderns in depiction, the pride of the ancients in illumination and outlining, the rarity of his age, Master Kamaluddin Bihzad, is beyond description. In this album [his work] is much in evidence, and he had the honor of being attached to the royal library of His Majesty the Sultan Abu’l-­Muzaffar Shah Tahmasp the Safavid the Musavid the Husaynid Bahadur Khan, by whom he was shown great favor and at whose court he bade farewell to life and was buried next to the great poet Shaykh Kamal in Tabriz. The chronogram for his death is ‘Catch a glance at THE DUST OF BIHZAD’S GRAVE’, which was composed by Amir Dost Hashimi.21 § 24. 12. El Senosy is dedicated to perpetuating the ideals of the Great Pilgrimage in ­pictures. He feels that he can share what he has learned about art not only by teaching but by making good Hajj paintings for the community. He estimates that he has decorated over two hundred Hajji houses, although the majority of these paintings no longer exist. For each project he prepares the walls before beginning to apply paint, so that each design will be shown to its best advantage. He works from preliminary sketches drawn on paper at home. He used good quality oil-­and lacquer-­based paints, and thus his paintings stay bright longer than many works by other artists. One of the most important images El Senosy uses in many of his paintings is a stylized dove which, to him, is the ultimate symbol of peace. He often perches the bird on the shoulder of a pilgrim with upraised arms facing the Sacred Kaabah. He also introduced elongated water jugs into some of his paintings to symbolize the cleansing ablutions that are so much a part of Muslim ritual and daily prayers. El Senosy is a compulsive painter; he delights in decorating almost any surface. He sculpts, makes puppets, and covers the interior walls of his house with bold calligraphy and fanciful abstract patterns. He has decorated all of his furniture – tables, stools, ­refrigerator – and has even installed colorfully decorative tiles around the family’s washbasin. He enjoys singing and playing the drums, which he has meticulously painted along with his other musical instruments. The school where he teaches is a large building in the center of Isna whose classrooms and hallways are filled with examples of his artwork. One senses that if El Senosy encounters a plain, unadorned surface, he feels naturally compelled to enhance it with color and design.22 notes   1

Al-­Ansary, Qaryat al-­Fau, pp. 129–40. See also Ghabban (ed.), Roads of Arabia, pp. 338–41 (paintings from the site of Qaryat al-­Faw).   2 On attitudes towards the arts in early Islam, see Creswell, ‘The Lawfulness of Painting in Early Islam’;

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Grabar, The Formation of Islamic Art, revised edition, pp. 75–103; Hawting, The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam.   3 For a full discussion of these texts and their probable date, see van Reenen, ‘The Bilderverbot, A New Survey’.   4 On the destruction of images in Late Antiquity and during the early Islamic period, see contributions in Bryer and Herrin (eds), Iconoclasm. For a broader historical approach to this question, see May (ed.), Iconoclasm and Text Destruction in the Ancient Near East and Beyond.  5 Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 29–33; Fowden, Quṣayr ʿAmra.   6 On the book arts of this period, see Ettinghausen, Arab Painting, pp. 59–124; Hoffman. ‘The Beginnings of the Illustrated Arabic Book’. Also contributions in Contadini (ed.), Arab Painting: Text and Image.   7 On the main themes in Persian painting, see Grabar, Mostly Miniatures; Sims, with Marshak and Grube, Peerless Images.   8 On these prefaces, see Thackston (trans. and ed.), Album Prefaces and Other Documents; Roxburgh, Prefacing the Image: The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-­Century Iran.   9 For an early image of a tattooed dancer (from a paper sheet dating to the Fatimid period), see Hoffman, ‘The Author Portrait in Thirteenth-­century Arabic Manuscripts’. Cf. Kahle, ‘A Gypsy Woman of Egypt in the Thirteenth Century ad’. 10 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, XXXV.36. 11 Sahih al-­Bukhari, 3:34:428; 7:87:165; 3:34:299. 12 Al-­Mubashshir ibn Fatiq (fl eleventh century), Mukhtār al-­ḥikam, ed. ʿAbd al-­Rahman Badawi (Madrid, 1958), p. 76; al-­Tanūkhī, Muhammad ibn Sahnun (d. 870), ʿUnwān al-­ḥikma (Ms. Or. Bodleian Marsh 287 [Uri 323]), fol. 202a. These two passages are translated in Rosenthal, ‘Art and Aesthetics in Graeco-­Arabic Wisdom Literature’, pp. 3, 4. 13 Al-­Sunami, ʿUmar b. Muhammad (fl. fourteenth century). Izzi Dien (trans.), The Theory and the Practice of Market Law in Medieval Islam, p. 62. 14 Muhammad ʿAbduh, ‘Al-­ṣuwar wa’l-­tamāthīl wa fawāʾiduhā wa ḥukmuhā’, al-­Manār 8 (1904): 35. Translated in Vernoit, ‘The Visual Arts in Nineteenth-­century Muslim Thought’, p. 31. A muftī is an interpreter of Islamic law. Ṣaḥīh is one of the major collections of ḥadīth. 15 Ahmad b. ʿAli al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442), Kitāb al-­mawāʿiẓ wa’l-­iʿtibār bi-­dhikr al-­khiṭaṭ wa’l-­āthār (Bulaq, 1853–5), II, p. 318. Translated in Arnold, Painting in Islam, p. 22. 16 Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians, p. 309. 17 Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz, by the Route of Kazroon and Feerozabad, p. 48. 18 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 148–9 (Chapter 108). Translation by Wesley Thiessen. 19 Kerimi, ‘Painting’, pp. 381–2. Rosin (colophony) is solid formed through the heating of pine or conifer resin. 20 Price, Journal of the British Embassy to Persia, I, p. 36. Reproduced in Floor, Wall Paintings and Other Figural Mural Art, pp. 30–1. 21 Dust Muhammad’s (fl. sixteenth century) preface to the Bahram Mirza Album (Topkapı H. 2154). Thackston (trans. and ed.), Album Prefaces and Other Documents, p. 15 (complete text is pp. 4–17). Chronogram is Khāk-­i qabr-­i Bihzād = 942. 22 Parker and Neal, Hajj Paintings: Folk Art of the Great Pilgrimage, pp. 140–1.

PART 7

Architecture and Engineering

CHAPTER 25

BUILDING TECHNIQUES

Building techniques

The architecture of the Islamic Middle East and Central Asia is extremely varied in character. This diversity can be attributed to many factors, including the availability of building materials and fuel, the indigenous craft traditions and environmental considerations.1 For example, most parts of Egypt and Greater Syria are well provided with high quality building stone, while regions further east tend to rely mostly upon clay-­rich soil in order to make structures from baked brick, mud brick or pisé (rammed earth).2 This is not to say that materials could not be shipped from considerable distances when required. For example, rafts could bring bulk items along navigable rivers such as the Nile, Euphrates and Tigris. Financial considerations generally forced patrons and their architects to make most extensive use of the raw materials that existed in the vicinity of the building site, however.3 Each group of materials brought with it both constraints and possibilities. Stone has considerable resilience and load-­bearing properties, but is time-­consuming to shape. Baked brick is not as strong under compression, but its relative lightness affords masons more flexibility in the creation of roofing (domes and vaults). Clay was an abundant and cheap resource, but baked brick also required another more precious commodity: fuel. A cheaper alternative is to shape bricks and leave them to harden in the sun. Mud brick buildings require regular maintenance, particularly in the winter. Wood is important for roofing, floors, doors, windows (such as mashrabiyya), furniture and decorative panels. Beams of wood might also be added to mud brick walls in order to strengthen them against earthquakes. Even river reeds could be pressed into service for building work. There is evidence for the movement of masons, carpenters and others for large building projects throughout Islamic history (see Chapter 2). These ambitious projects doubtless had an energising effect on urban planning, architecture and architectural decoration through the sharing of knowledge between different workshops. Information might also be distributed through drawings and texts. Unfortunately, relatively few architectural drawings, pattern books and manuals have survived prior to the nineteenth century, and there remains much to be understood about how these sources functioned on a practical level.4 The first reading is from a ḥisba manual and highlights the involvement of the Prophet in the craft of building. The second reading is a description of the construction methods employed by the Marsh Arabs of Iraq.5 The third reading also comes from the region of the Marsh Arabs, but looks at the construction of houses from pisé.6 Reading four is an intriguing description of the sinking of foundations in damp soil in Egypt. The fifth reading discusses the creation of

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Figure 25.1  Aerial view of Shibam, Yemen, taken c. 1966. Photograph: R. Digby Milwright

the foundations of traditional tower houses in Shibam, Yemen (see Figure 25.1; on the animal sacrifices associated with laying the foundations, see Chapter 3). In the sixth reading Sir John Chardin gives a description of the methods used in the manufacture of mud brick and baked brick in Iran. The seventh reading considers the methods for making plaster in Yemen. This hard and durable coating was produced through a labour-­intensive process. Reading eight is by the British traveller Laurence Oliphant (d. 1888) and records the rather rudimentary techniques of stucco work that were employed in Palestinian domestic architecture. The ninth reading comes from the earliest phase of Islamic history and describes building work in the new garrison city (miṣr, pl. amṣār) of Kufa, Iraq. The description is interesting for its reference to the reuse of old bricks from the ancient town of al-­Hira.7 Reading ten is a report on the construction of a dome over a reservoir in the city of Herat in Afghanistan. Although the story has something of the quality of a folktale, it illustrates the potential dangers when working for powerful patrons. The last two readings (eleven and twelve) dwell on practical issues. The first is an account of the monies expended on a building project in the Egyptian capital, dating to 1215. It is noteworthy that the price for skilled artisans also had to take account of meals.8 The last reading is a calculation of the costs of brick making on Hassan Fathy’s (d. 1989) highly influential Gourna housing project in Egypt.9 While some calculations reflect the availability of modern equipment (a water pump and a light railway for transporting items), the bulk of the information probably reflects quite closely the non-­mechanised tradition of building practices in rural areas. * * * § 25. 1. The building profession is not a humiliating trade, otherwise the Prophet would not have undertaken it.10

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§ 25. 2. The women squatted in the entrances to the shelters and busied themselves with cooking rice for their men or with suckling their babies, and looked out over the stacked household goods to the intense activity all about them. Some of the houses were already complete and looked as if they had stood there for years; some were skeletal frameworks of a gold lighter in tone than the deep blue sky behind them; some were stately rows of straight outward-­leaning reed columns, plumed and feathered at their summits, not yet bent together to form arches. I was able to watch each stage of the building; and to time it, too, for several houses which were not yet begun when we arrived at 10.30 were complete when we left two hours later. Three or more men worked on each house, and they began by digging, with a spade much like the peat-­cutters of the Scottish Highlands, two parallel rows of holes for the feet of the reed arches. Into these holes, two and a half feet deep, they set the base of the long twenty-­foot columns in such a way that they leaned outward from the floor-­space at an angle of about seventy degrees. Next they made from cut and bound reed bundles a tripod five or six feet high, to be used as we would use a step ladder. Standing on this surprisingly firm and rigid structure a man would reach up and catch with the foot-­edge of the spade the upper part of the reed column, bend it down to his own level, and hold it there while he or an assistant reached for the other half of the arch. These two he would bind together with twisted lengths of sedge leaf, and move his tripod along to the next column. When the row of five arches was complete, the slenderer bundles of horizontals, fourteen of them in all, connected the whole structure into an integrated anatomy ready for its covering of reed matting. Two hours to build a house – a practical and inexpensive method of prefabrication.11 § 25. 3. Buildings made of pisé Whereas mudbrick houses are usually built by wealthy or important families and can use several workmen in addition to a master brick maker, pisé structures are normally built by the members of the families who are going to live in them. The mud structure for a pisé home is made in the same way as for a brick house, but with much more variation from house to house as the person determining proper mixture and consistency is normally the head of the household. Usually this results in more organic material being used in the mixture and often the temper is composed of larger and coarser pieces. In my experience, the mud mixture is never as carefully fabricated or mixed as it was for bricks. Lumps in the mud being used were perfectly acceptable. For economy of time and effort the structure is usually situated as close as possible to the source of the mud. The building site is converted into a level platform with good drainage, even if this requires bringing in mud and building up the location, or leveling the walls of a former house that stood in the same place, and thus creating a platform significantly higher than the surrounding ground. The walls of the pisé building are usually laid directly on the ground or leveled ­platform, though shallow foundations are sometimes built. The builder carries mud to the site and constructs a wall by forming it freehand to the required width and in the required position. Usually not more than a 20 cm high section can be erected at one time without danger of collapse. After the lower section dries sufficiently he adds another section. The drying process for each section takes from two to four days depending on climatic ­conditions, water content of the mixture, and height and thickness of the wall segment. The builder joins the courses by smoothing the juncture with his hands. He hides most

192  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s imperfections in his work by a final plastering as in the mudbrick structures. He chooses a fairly thick reed, dips it in water, and rubs it back and forth across the surface to create a smooth finish with the plaster. This plastering is crucial for the preservation of the structure and the plaster must be renewed every year. Usually this is done in the villages immediately after the wet season. A plastered mudbrick structure can survive in these villages for two or three generations. Builders sometimes place reed mat strips between courses or between every couple of courses. Those who use this device claim that the mats inhibit the absorption of salts from the ground into the mud wall, something that can weaken the structure. They also say that mat sections help in binding the courses of mud together. When such mats are used they are placed over the section below while the mud is still wet and gently pressed partway into the mud.   Roofs of both mudbricks and pisé buildings can either be flat or pitched and the beams supporting them of either wood or reed depending on the building’s size. Flat and slightly pitched roofs are usually surfaced with layers of loosely lain reeds over closely spaced reed-­bundle rafters and tamped mud. Sometimes the layers of loosely lain reeds are replaced with layers of loosely woven reeds or layers of reed mats, and of course both are covered with tamped mud. Highly pitched roofs are usually covered with reed mats alone. Certainly, to own a house made of mud was to count oneself among the village elite.12 § 25. 4. As for the foundations, called in Egypt zarubiyya, these are very ingenious in their construction. This is how it is done. They make an excavation for the foundations until they reach dampness, and water begins to appear. Then they place a wheel made of sycamore wood or other similar, on the damp earth, after well levelling the place. The thickness of this wheel is in the neighbourhood of two-­thirds of a cubit, and the diameter of its circle, two cubits. It is similar to those which are placed at the bottom of wells. Then they build on the wheel masonry in brick and lime to a height of twice a man’s height, made like a kiln. Then divers descend into the wells; they continue to excavate and to measure the water out, and withdraw the water and sand. They extend their digging all round under the wheel, and as soon as, by means of this digging, the wheel cannot carry, in the space that has been made, the weight of the masonry which it supports, it sinks. To measure the sinking, the divers continue their work, and dig under the wheel, while the masons, on their part, continue to build the building. Thus the masons do not cease building and the divers excavating, the masonry sinking always more and more by its own weight until it finds solid earth and can arrive at a degree of excavation which is known by the workers. When the first well is finished, they commence another similar, on the same lines, four cubits distant from the first. They continue to do this along all the length of the foundations; and when this work is done they lay the usual foundations after having filled the wells.13 § 25. 5. The foundations are dug 2 dhirras deep below the surface of the earth and 3 dhirras wide. Stones are used for the foundation mortared together with a mixture of wood ash and lime. In places where there is any doubt as to the solidity of the ground on which the house is to stand long pieces of ’elb wood are laid in pairs lengthwise in the foundations. Wood for this purpose must be cut in winter; if this is done it is said never to rot. The stone foundation or sās is continued for 2 dhirras above the level of the ground. When the building operations have reached this stage a foundation sacrifice of a goat or

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sheep is made on the walls. The house is centred round a solid pillar built on the same foundation as the walls. For a house of the dimensions proposed this pillar or ’arus el beit will be 3 ½ by 3 dhirras wide and of the same thickness from top to bottom. The stairs of the house invariably go up round the ’arus. The bricks are made of clay mixed with straw, the standard size being 1 ¼ dhirras in length by ⅔ in breadth by 4 banan of fingers’ widths in thickness. When the clay of the required consistency and thickness for making the bricks has been laid out they are cut out by a wooden frame which makes two bricks at a time. The bricks cost five dollars a thousand. The thickness of the walls of the first storey is 1 ⅞ dhirras, of the second 1 ½, of the third 1 ¼, of the fourth 1 dhirra, of the fifth ¾, of the sixth ⅝, and of the seventh ½ a dhirra. The bricks are mortared together with wet clay. As ’elb wood grows to no great length the size of the room is determined to some extent by the length of the pieces available as girders. The girders are usually very short and supported by carved pillars each costing twenty dollars. The ground floor of the house is usually the highest and the others are all the same. Some of the houses in Shibam are built on the slope of the hill and are therefore provided with cellars. The height of the wall facing the outside of the city in these circumstances is about 70 dhirras or 105 feet high. Bigger houses are constructed of two or more houses built together. The life of a house is said to be two hundred to two hundred and fifty years, but the age it reaches depends on the privies being kept dry and cleaned out regularly. If this is not done the damp saps the lower part of the clay walls and causes splits necessitating demolition . . . 14 § 25. 6. The Tiles or Claybrick, are made in thin Wooden-­Moulds, eight Inches long, six Inches broad, and two Inches and a half thick. The Brick-­makers tread the Clay with their Feet, they usually blend it with pounded Straw, cut small, to make it stick the better, and that the Bricks and Tiles which are made from it be not brittle, and may last longer; they draw afterwards their Hand over them, to smooth them, after they have dipt them in a Tub of Water, mixed with Straw cut smaller than the first; they take out the Mould and set the Tile a drying, which is done in three Hours time, then they take them up, and lay them one against another, where they make an end of drying. Those Tiles cost but eight or nine Pence a Hundred at the Place where they make them, but if you have them made at Home, and find Materials, you give them but about three Pence a Hundred. The poor People make their Tiles without Straw, except a little on top of them. As to the burnt Bricks, they are made of two Parts Clay, and one Part Ashes, well work’d together in Wooden-­Moulds, bigger than the Tile-­Mould; they lay them several Days in the Sun a drying, then set ’em in a great Kiln, sometimes twenty Cubits high, one against another, at some distance, which distance is filled up with Plaster; they stop the Oven and keep the Fire in it for three Days, and three Nights together. Those Bricks are red and hard, and cost about a Crown a Hundred.15 § 25. 7. Plaster. Mortar and plaster were of two types: that made with earth and that with lime. The earth plasters and mortars were made in very much the same way as the bricks, but with a greater admixture of chaff or chopped straw in the external plaster, and especially careful selection of the earth to ensure that it had a good admixture of clay. The lime plaster, or ramād, used externally, and as a mortar in the best foundations

194  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s and stair piers, had a large quantity of ground wood charcoal as a setting agent, as well as coarse and fine sand. Ramād plaster was laid on a subcoat of earth/straw plaster, and the mixture was beaten very laboriously into a fine powder before being mixed with water. After being applied, it was finished with whitewash. Internally, the lime skim coat was used without ash; it was laid over the mud/straw subcoat and burnished with a smooth flint until it was polished and reflective. A more sophisticated version of this internal polished plaster used egg-­white as a binding agent, which was said to impart a greater sheen. Householders used to boast of the large number of eggs that had been used in the finishing of the house. The lime was burnt in small mud-­brick kilns, using dung as fuel, either in some open place in the city or on the outskirts. When the lime was sufficiently baked, it was mixed with water in a trench, and from ten to twenty men then beat it with heavy sticks to break up all the lumps, standing on opposite sides and smacking it alternately, chanting as they worked.16 § 25. 8. If some of our appliances are rough-­and-­ready, they often possess the merit of cheapness. Plastering, for instance, is an expensive luxury; but the natives have a way of plastering the walls that is nearly as good, and by no means as costly. This is entirely done by the women, who come and sift the soil, which they mix with cut straw and water, and knead into a paste. When they have plastered the walls and floor with this, they make another with a peculiar fine clay, which they dig from certain places in the hillsides, and, mixing this also with finely chopped straw, lay it on as an outer covering. It makes a very pale yellow coating for the walls, which is by no means unsightly. It is not so good, however, for the floors, as it is said to give a harbour for fleas than other more expensive cement which is made from lime, and is called barbarica. This is better also for the flat roofs, as it more impervious to water in the rainy season.17 § 25. 9. In a plot destined for that purpose, Saʿd [b. Abi Waqqas] built a citadel facing the spot where the miḥrāb of the mosque of al-­Kufa is today. He built it and incorporated the treasury in it. He himself lived right next to it. Then, [somewhat later, robbers] dug a tunnel to the treasure chamber and stole from its contents. Saʿd notified ʿUmar of this by letter describing to him the layout of the governor’s residence and the treasure chambers vis-­à-­vis the congregation area as situated north of the building. ʿUmar replied, ‘move the spot where you actually perform the prayer ritual to a place as close as possible to the building housing the treasure chambers; in doing so, you make it the direction for prayer. For in the mosque there are always people present, day and night, they will act as the guards of what is also their treasure’. Thus the place where the prayer ritual was performed was brought closer (facing the treasure chambers) and then Saʿd set about building it. A dihqān from the people of Hamadhan, called Ruzbih b. Buzurgumihr, said to him, ‘I shall build it for you, and I shall also build a citadel for you; I shall make some sort of connection between the one and the other so that they constitute one and the same building’. Thus he planned the citadel of al-­Kufa according to a well-­considered design. Then Ruzbih commenced building it from baked bricks taken from a citadel the Persian kings used to have in the neighbourhood of al-­Hira, which today is still in its place. Saʿd did not allow this to continue, however. He built the mosque facing the treasure ­chambers, with the entire length of the citadel being situated to the right of that side of

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the mosque facing south. Then he extended it to the right, up to the far end of the Square of ʿAli b. Abi Talib with this square as the prayer direction. Then he extended it yet more so that the prayer direction of the mosque encompassed the whole square as well as the right side of the citadel. The building was supported by pillars made of marble originally from Christian churches belonging to the king. [This roof structure] had no walls, a situation that lasted until the building [complete with walls], as it is today, was constructed in the time of Muʿawiya b. Abi Sufyan at the hands of Ziyad (his adopted brother and governor of Iraq). When Ziyad set out to construct it, he invited several architects who were born in the Jāhiliyya to come to him. He described to them the location of the mosque, its size and how he wanted it to reach up into the air, saying, ‘I want something higher than anything I have ever heard described’. Then a certain architect, who had previously been in the service of the king, said to him, ‘This can only be done when supported by pillars made from blocks of stone quarried at Ahwaz; these blocks have to be pierced and hollowed out, then filled with lead and [held together by] iron bars, so as to enable you to raise the pillars made of these blocks thirty cubits into the air. Then you build a roof over them and, to grant [the whole structure] extra solidity, you build walls on all sides (i.e., supporting the edges of that roof structure)’. Ziyad answered, ‘This is a description of a structure about which I used to have inward discussions that I have never been able to settle’.18 § 25. 10. The dome, according to tradition, was constructed by command of Shah Abbas the Great, and after it was partially built the governor of the town, a violent, overbearing man, commanded the architect to finish it within a very brief space of time. In vain the artist expostulated and informed him that it was impossible to do this in the time specified; the despot would listen to no reason or explanation, and the unfortunate man, to avert the consequences that might be perhaps fatal to his life, took the first opportunity of leaving Herat. A year elapsed, the building remained unfinished, for no other person could be found who had the talent to complete the work; at length the architecture reappeared, and the governor, finding himself in a difficulty and anxious to have the edifice finished, consented, though unwillingly, to remit the sentence of death, but ordered him to be bastinadoed. Before, however, the punishment was inflicted, the governor, at his earnest request, accompanied him to the reservoir, and the architect, directed his attention to the walls, which were a considerable height above the earth, said, ‘Do you not see that the foundations of this building have sunk at least a foot in the ground since I left the city? If at that period I had refused to erect the cupola you would have cut my head off, or the same fate would probably have awaited me had it fallen down after it was finished. You refused to hear me, and I ran away to save my life. The time has arrived when I can successfully terminate my labours, and I have returned to do so’. A free pardon followed this explanation, and the architect, filling the reservoir with chopped straw pressed in sacks, and heaping them up to the requisite height and form to make his centre, constructed over them one of the most elegant cupolas ever built.19 § 25. 11. Spent on Dār b. Pinḥās on the date of Thursday, the 6th of Marheshwan, 127 of the documents: A crowbar, ¼. The weigher of the lime, ½. Transportation, 1 ½. The apartment, ¼. A meal, 1 ½. The axe (axes?), ¼. A rope, ¾. Clay 8 ½. Special masons, 12. Supervision, 2. The second day: For lime, 15. Special masons, 17. Supervision, 2 and meal, 2. Repairs on the tenth: A meal, 2. Special masons, 18. For soil, 3 ½. Supervision,

196  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s 2. During the last ten days of this (month): Pillars, 10. Transportation, ½. Helpers and a mason, 12 ½. A ladder, ¼. Supervision, 2. On the 27th of this (month): For lime, 10, Transportation, ¾. A meal, 1 ½. Special masons, 12 ½. A long ladder, ½. Supervision, 2. On the 12th: Pillars, 4 ½. A ladder, ½. A meal, 1 ½. The weigher of the lime, 1. Special masons, 12 ½. Supervision, 2. On the 11th: Clay, 2. A meal, 1 ½. Lime and transportation, 3 ḥimls, 30. Special masons, 20. Supervision, 2. On the 17th: Clay, 8 ½. Gypsum, 10. A meal, 2. Masons, 10, Helpers, 10.20 § 25. 12. Brick Making 1. Only rough field tests were made for the determining of the composition of the soil and the resistance of the bricks made. 2. Earth was dug from the piles left along the bank after the excavation of the Fadleya Canal bordering the site of the project. The soil was of Nile silt deposits, composed almost entirely of silt and clay like most of the land irrigated by the basin of Upper Egypt. 3. The shrinkage of the bricks made of pure clay, with no straw and molded very wet in the traditional way, was about 37 percent after drying, with bad cracking which took place a very short time after molding. 4. Bricks were made of mixtures of different proportions of earth, sand and straw. The following composition gave the best results: 1m3 earth, ⅓m3 sand, 45 lbs straw. This quantity produced 660 bricks measuring 23 × 11 × 7. The molds used measured 24 × 12 × 8 cms. 5. Samples of bricks made with this composition were kept as a standard for comparison. Cost Analysis of Making 1,000 Bricks (a) Earth. It was intended to extract the earth required for brick making from the site of the artificial lake originally designed for this purpose . . ., but unfortunately the canal irrigating the Hosha of Kamel Boulos Bey which was to feed the lake was abandoned and replaced by an artesian well. So the earth had to be fetched from the residue of the excavation of the Fadleya Canal . . . It was transported along a light railway in tipping hand trucks of 0.5m3 capacity. Two workmen to each truck transported 10 loads of earth from the canal bank and two loads of sand from the dumps on the site, which is the amount necessary to make 3,000 bricks per day. The wage of each workman is: 10 PT (Egyptian pounds). Therefore: Cost of transporting of earth and sand per 1,000 bricks = 20/3 = 7 PT. (b) Straw. The price of straw fluctuated between 60 PT and 120 PT for the hamla (hamla is a unit weight measure of 555 lbs) during the whole time of the work from 1944–­45 till 1952–­53 except for 1952–­53, when the price rose to 210 PT. So cost is calculated at 120 PT. Therefore: Cost of straw per 1,000 bricks = 12 × 45 × 1,000 = 15 PT. (c) Sand. Sand was transported by lorries from the quarries about three miles to the north of the village. Cost of 1m3 of sand including transportation = 22 PT. Therefore: Cost of sand per 1,000 bricks = (1,000 × 22) ÷ (660 × 3) = 100/9 = 11 PT.

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(d) Water. Water is supplied to the project by a pump worked by a petrol engine. The water is used for brick making, mixing mortars, and irrigating the trees. . . . Therefore: Cost of water needed for 1,000 bricks = 64.3/12 = 5.5 PT. The Brick Making Team Workmanship was given to the brick makers at a global price of 25 PT per thousand. A ‘team’ is usually composed of two brick makers for molding and two ordinary laborers, one for mixing and the other for transporting the mortar. The team can produce normally 3,000 bricks per day. The pay of a brick maker is 25 PT and of the workmen 10 PT. Putting the Bricks on Edge and Stacking For drying the bricks were put on edge on the third day after molding, and they were lifted from the brick making grounds to be stacked on the sixth day. Three workmen were assigned to each two teams of brick makers at a wage of 10 PT per day, each. These three workmen could handle 6,000 bricks per day. Therefore: Cost of putting the bricks on edge and stacking per 1,000 bricks = 30/6 = 5 PT. Transportation of Straw Straw was stacked in large stores after being weighed at the time of reception. The quantities withdrawn for the daily use of brick making were weighed as well. One camel was hired for 20 PT per day for the transportation of straw from the stores to the brick making yard, serving the four teams of brick makers producing 12,000 bricks daily. Therefore: Cost of transportation of straw per 1,000 bricks = 20/12 = 1.6 PT. Supervision Charges One supervisor at 15 PT was employed for the four teams. His job was to control the measurement of the ingredients and to supervise the mixing and molding operations. (The mixture is to be left to ferment for 48 hours at least before molding.) Therefore: Supervision expenses per 1,000 bricks = 15/12,000 = 1.2 PT.21 notes   1 For a demonstration of regional diversity in specific building types, see Frishman and Khan (eds), The Mosque: History, Architectural Development, and Regional Diversity; Hillenbrand, Islamic Architecture: Form, Function, and Meaning.  2 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 108–10.   3 On the logistical issues of large-­scale building, see DeLaine, The Baths of Caracalla; Milwright, ‘Fixtures and Fittings: The Role of Decoration in Abbasid Palace Design’.   4 Bloom, ‘On the Transmission of Designs in Early Islamic Architecture’; Neçipoğlu, The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture.   5 On the building practices of this region, see Ochsenschlager, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden, pp. 145–69. Also Costa, ‘The Palm Frond House of the Baṭinah’. Reprinted in Waines (ed.), Patterns of Everyday Life, pp. 67–8.

198  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s   6 Cf. the description in Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 108–9.   7 On this practice, see Milwright, ‘Fixtures and Fittings: The Role of Decoration in Abbasid Palace Design’, p. 85.  8 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society. Volume 1: Economic Foundations, pp. 96, 113; Milwright, ‘Fixtures and Fittings: The Role of Decoration in Abbasid Palace Design’, pp. 101–2.   9 On his work, see Steele, An Architecture for People. 10 Al-­Sunami, ʿUmar b. Muhammad (fl. fourteenth century). Izzi Dien (trans.), The Theory and the Practice of Market Law in Medieval Islam, p. 125. 11 Maxwell, A Reed Shaken by the Wind, pp. 152–3. 12 Ochsenschlager, Iraq’s Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden, pp. 98–9. 13 ʿAbd al-­Latif al-­Baghdadi (d. 1231), Kitāb al-­Ifāda wa’l-­iʿtibār. Zand et al. (ed. and trans.), The Eastern Key, p. 45 (Arabic), p. 181 (English). 14 Ingrams, ‘House Building in the Hadramaut’, pp. 371–2. Elb (in Arabic, ʿilb) is a type of tree native to Yemen. Dhirra (dhirāʿ) is a cubit. 15 Chardin (d. 1713), Travels in Persia, p. 258. 16 Lewcock, Wādī Ḥaḍramawt and the Walled City of Shibam, pp. 98–100. 17 Oliphant, Haifa: or, Life in Palestine, p. 166. 18 Al-­Tabari, Abu Jaʿfar Muhammad b. Jarir (d. 923), Taʾrīkh al-­rusul wa’l-­mulūk. Juynboll (trans.), The History of al-­Ṭabarī, pp. 71–3 (slightly adapted). Also Alami, Art and Architecture in the Islamic Tradition, pp. 190–1. The events take place in 17 h (638 ce). The Jāhiliyya (literally, ‘age of ignorance’) refers to the period before the revelation of Islam. 19 Ferrier, Caravan Journeys and Wanderings in Persia, Afghanistan, Turkistan, and Beloochistan, p. 174. The footnote to this passage reads: ‘The size of the dome here mentioned may have required this arrangement, but in general it is dispensed with by the architects in those countries; and I have seen the most beautiful and lofty arches and domes erected by the Heratees without any support of the kind. – L’. 20 Account of building operations in Geniza: Bodl. MS Heb. c. 50, f. 14 (A147). Dated 1215. In Gil (ed. and trans.), Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations, pp. 408–9. Sums are given in dirhams. 21 Fathy, Gourna, a Tale of Two Villages, pp. 198–201 (part of Appendix 1: ‘Cost Analysis of Labor and Rates of the Execution of Works’). The final section deals with the cost of the light railway = 2 PT per 1,000 bricks. The total costs are then summarised as 72.7 PT per 1,000 bricks.

CHAPTER 26

V A U L T I N G A N D A R C H I T E C T U R A L D E C O R A TION

Vaulting and architectural decoration

Two defining characteristics of Islamic architecture are the elaborate systems of vaulting and the employment of extensive surface decoration, particularly in tile and plaster. Masons, carpenters and plasterers over the centuries worked in a range of media that would largely have been familiar to artisans prior to the seventh century. Furthermore, all of the main structural elements – columns, piers, arches, domes and barrel vaults – were already in use in Byzantine, Sasanian and Arabian architecture during the Late Antique period. The most important areas of experimentation were with other components. The zone of transition between a square plan and a dome above required the employment of concave structural elements known as squinches (in Byzantine architecture the pendentive was preferred for this purpose). The squinch has its origins in pre-­Islamic Persian architecture, but Islamic masons recognised that it could be transformed from a simple supporting element into a focus of visual interest. From the tenth century the squinch was broken into smaller concave and convex units. The experimentation with the squinch probably provided the impetus for the most famous aspect of Islamic architecture, the muqarnas vault (see Figure 26.1). The earliest example of a muqarnas dome appears in Iraq in the late eleventh century, and by the following century there were muqarnas domes, ceilings and niche hoods in other regions of the Islamic world. The painted ceiling of the Norman Cappella Palatina in Palermo, Sicily also incorporates ­muqarnas.1 The same period also witnessed radical transformations in two-­dimensional ornament, with the emergence of complex interlace patterns (usually known as girih or gereh). These patterns rely upon multiple lines of symmetry in order to create interlocking stars and polygons.2 Girih patterns required extensive planning and probably relied on pattern books assembled by master masons.3 The two most commonly encountered decorative media in Islamic architecture are stucco (plaster) and glazed tiles. Lime and gypsum stucco were ideal for covering cheaper building materials, such as mud brick or rubble and mortar, and could be carved and moulded into three-­dimensional forms and decorated with incised lines, painting (true or dry fresco) and, in some cases, even gilding. In each region of the Islamic world, artisans experimented with the potential of stucco and numerous regional styles developed between the late seventh and the twentieth centuries.4 Glazed tiles with lustre-­painting have been located in the excavations of the Dar al-­Khilafa in Samarra (ninth century). By the eleventh century tiles were in greater use, although more ambitious programmes of decoration appear in the following

200  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s

Figure 26.1  Muqarnas vault inside the tomb of ʿAbd al-­Samad, Natanz, Iran, 1299–1312. Photograph: Marcus Milwright.

century.5 Tiles could be cut into a variety of interlocking shapes, each carrying their own painted designs. The first reading is by Hans Wulff and describes the practices of stucco workers in mid twentieth-­century Iran. The technique of continuously stirring the stucco slows the drying process and provides the artisan with more time to apply and shape the material. Reading two is an account of an interview between a noted scholar of Persian art, Arthur Pope (d. 1969), and a mason. Although the latter is represented in rather condescending terms, the description demonstrates how a skilled artisan was able to conceive of a complex three-­dimensional form (a squinch) without recourse to drawings. The actual methods of planning and executing a muqarnas vault are outlined in readings three to five. All three are written by European observers in the last years of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. The sixth reading is from an interview with a craftsman in Yemen. He describes the ways in which he designed painted geometric designs for lime stucco (nūra). He claims that both the linear patterns and the colouration are not pre-­ planned, with much of the information held within his memory. The last two readings (seven and eight) are devoted to glazed tile decoration in Iran. The first is a general account of tile mosaic practice in Iran in the twentieth century. The final reading is part of a report on the restoration of the Shaykh Lutfallah mosque in Isfahan in the 1930s. The fact that the decoration is repeated symmetrically across the dome is important, for only one section (a strip comprising one-­sixteenth of the whole) is required to construct the entire design. * * *

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§ 26. 1. The gypsum (gach) delivered to the building often contains small, uncrushed particles. It must, therefore, be sifted first (gach bīkhtan). This is done by the laborer called gach-­bīz. The Persian gypsum sets particularly rapidly after having been mixed with water, and this would prevent careful application and handling. To overcome this difficulty the soft gypsum-­water mix has to be constantly stirred by the plasterer’s assistant until it has lost most of its original setting power and has become rather creamy. This plaster is referred to as ‘killed plaster’ (gach-­i kushteh) and when applied to walls and ceilings can be handled with leisure and does not set hard for forty-­eight hours. When it eventually does so it becomes just as hard and strong as our Western type of plaster. Depending on the design, the plaster is rendered (gach mālīdan) to the wall in several layers. The plasterer has a quantity of ‘killed plaster’ on a wooden float (kopeleh) from which he applies it to the wall with a steel trowel (māleh) . . . the plaster is spread between two previously prepared plaster edges. The wet plaster is then molded by a profiled board (kashō). After the plaster has sufficiently set the surface is smoothed over (pākīzeh kardan, rūsāzī kardan), first with a trowel if the profile allows this, then with a wet cotton pad (pambeh-­āb) or a fine-­hair brush (qalam-­i mūhī). If carved ornaments are to be applied the design is traced (tarāhī kardan) onto the previously prepared layers, and the new plaster is built up sufficiently thick for the required ornament. This is often done with the aid of wooden molds or frames (qāleb). As soon as the plaster begins to set (hoḥkam shodan) the plasterer starts to cut away (borīdan) any surplus plaster to bring out the required design. For the cutting or carving he uses a series of differently-­shaped knives (kārd-­i gach-­borī), i.e., a pointed knife (dambor), one with a round end (būmgerd), one with a concave end (būmkhwor, kārd-­i qāshoqī), and a square end (naqālī); another with a hooked end (kārd-­i būm-­konī, būm-­konī) is for cutting away the background. If columns are to be covered with plaster a straw or reed rope (sāzū) is wound around the column (sāzū-­bāz, pīchīdan be sotūn). The coarse fibers of this rope give the plaster a good grip and also act as an elastic medium against cracking if the wooden core of the column expands and contracts due to changes in moisture. For very fine stucco work the still wet plaster is dusted with powder consisting of a blend of finely ground talcum powder and gypsum. Rubbed into the surface this treatment gives the plaster a high gloss. The powder is called ‘gold leaf’ (zar-­varaq). If the plaster is later to be painted it is first soaked with linseed oil (roughan-­i ­bazr-­ʿalaf), followed by a coat of sandarac oil (roughan-­i sandarūs), which is applied with a hair brush (qalam-­i mūhī).6 § 26. 2. There had been opposition to Pope speaking with this ‘mere bricklayer’, but his citing ancient Persian tradition that the bricklayer was in times past, architect and contractor, overcame this. To the credit of those who first looked down on Ustad, his status in their eyes subsequently rose to the height it deserved and he was treated with the respect due to his accomplishments. Pope was worried that Ustad might be presenting ta’arof, politely answering to satisfy the honored guest. I did my best to trip him up, to no avail. Then Pope asked him details of building a brick squinch. He seemed stumped. So I handed him a sheet of paper and a pencil. He held them at arm’s length, a look of total hopelessness on his now childish face. The look of disbelief on Pope’s face shocked us all. Ustad blinked in fear of being rejected. He was illiterate: more, he was incapable of presenting a three-­dimensional object in flat two dimensions. He put the pencil aside, then folded the paper intricately to construct an actual squinch.7

202  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s § 26. 3. Having described the use of the tracing board in Persia I shall now proceed to the floor of the workroom, which is generally the space within the building in progress, and here the full sized details are worked out either by enlargement by squares or geometrical methods mostly empirical. The preparation of this floor requires their greatest care, as its finished space is fine plaster of Paris evenly laid. The patterns, once worked out, are incised on the plaster, which being greased is ready to serve as a mould for slabs of plaster which are cast from it. These, which take the place of tracings of full sized details with us, are given out to the workmen and serve as templates to shape the work to. Perfect accuracy and fitting of the several parts are thus assured as all emanate from one original.8 § 26. 4. I come to the ornamental work: the surfaces, where much raised, are executed in a plaster of Paris, possibly stamped but never cast. The plaster, when being mixed with water, is beaten up so as to prevent its crystallizing, and is at the same time mixed with a decoction of madder root or with sugar. The plaster thus treated will not harden for several days . . .   A large part of the lining of the walls is of wood and this is prepared for painting in a very peculiar way – somewhat as I described that to the ceiling of Kait Bey’s tomb at Cairo. The flat boards are covered over with a coating of rough hemp cloth, soaked with a kind of gesso, which forms a body for a thin layer of this delicate plastering on which the painting is done. The cloth conceals, of course, any defects in the wood from shrinkage, &c, but each board is coated separately and the cloth returned around the edges, so that the shrinkage at the joints is almost as prominent as with us. The tone of the gilding will strike one, at once, as peculiar – a good specimen of it may be seen in the room from Damascus now at the Kensington Museum – there is seldom any real gilding, the effect being produced by a delicate kind of gold size. This can be coloured with a reddish or greenish tint at pleasure, and the result, when skilfully done, is a very charming variety of gilded tints, none glaring nor so brilliant as to destroy any neighbouring decoration.9 § 26. 5. The plan was first made out on the floor, the outlines of the several levels being strongly marked out. Then thin slabs of stone were cut to the outline of each level and subsequently built in the wall at the required height. It should be noticed, therefore, that there would always be above the curved form of each course of stalactites an upright vertical surface from 1.5 inches to 2 inches deep; this is the template. When the bearing of the templates becomes too great, they are supported in the centre by chains fixed above the stalactite ceiling, and in the case of pendant stalactite similar chains are suspended to take them. These chains are afterwards coated with plaster to make them rigid like columns. The positions of these templates and chains are carefully ascertained by plumbing from above down to the ground plan. The result will be a series of shelves or brackets, on which the plasterer commences his work, commencing at the bottom and moulding each stalactite niche resting on the lower template and working it up to the upper one.10 § 26. 6. The dialogue here includes how he started working in this craft some 30 years ago. On how he learnt the technique from watching other masters work while he assisted at the time in handing them the material. He said ‘. . . this was in the beginning: and my eyes observed. A year later I started [practising] with the patterns and [with] every year I develop’. When asked about the use of geometry and colour for the floral patterns

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he makes he said; ‘The geometry is not a [fixed] system . . . it is the development of a pattern – and the pattern and its colouring stem from the mind’. He spoke of ‘cooking’ the colours to change their shades. These are the chemical colours they import from Aden, while before that they used to be imported from Singapore – as in the decoration of ʿIshshah (the house of ʿUmar Al Kaf) that Rajab had undertaken. Although nūrah may be coloured he said that it was no longer in demand as coloured.11 § 26. 7. A noted characteristic of Islamic architecture is the use of polychromatic faience mosaic to face the exterior walls of mosques, palaces and tombs. The principal elements in the patterns are curving stems, leaves and blossoms in countless pieces of small, carefully cut and fitted segments of glazed tile. Deep blue, turquoise and purple predominate, accented by deep green and bright yellow or black and white. Each cut piece is rubbed down with a rasp until the edges and sides are smooth and even and taper from the glazed surface to a ridge or point in the back. These fragments are placed face down in the outlines drawn on a plaster bed. When a section is complete, it is covered with a thick coat of plaster, which settles into the gaps left by the taper of the units. The units are so close that the plaster barely shows on the surface. The size of each section is determined by convenience in handling, and care has to be taken in assembling and joining these sections when they are raised to a vertical position on the wall. Workmanship is so skilled, however, that it is impossible to tell from the finished work where the division occurs, and the panel appears to be painted on the wall. Slight irregularities in the bed on which the pattern is assembled results in slight modulations in the surface of the finished work and, as the tiles used are brilliantly glazed, these differences in angle make spots that gleam and sparkle in the bright sunlight.12 § 26. 8. The point that is necessary to remember is that of the sixteen sections of the dome (gunbad), each of which is 20 metres long, nearly two-­thirds, the tiles of the upper part, were broken or shattered, and that one-­third, the lower part, which had been exposed to external elements, was intact. Moreover, what adds to the importance of the repair (taʿmir) of the dome is the care (diqqat) taken in the repair of the upper portion, for in the end, after the repairs were complete, one could in no way tell the difference between the old (qadim) and the new (jadid) parts. The artists (ustadan), who worked only with total heart and modest expectation on this task – because this is a religious and national monument – need to be appreciated. They are Ustad Ghaffar, tilemaker (kashi tarash), and Ustad Nasrallah, painter and plaster molder (naqqash va gachbur).13 notes   1 On the evolution and spread of muqarnas, see Tabbaa, The Transformation of Islamic Art, pp. 103–36.   2 On the construction of such patterns, see Broug, Islamic Geometric Patterns.   3 On pattern books, see Neçipoğlu, The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. On earlier diagrams, see also Ghazarian and Ousterhout, ‘A Muqarnas Drawing from Thirteenth-­century Armenia’.   4 For example, Shani, A Monumental Manifestation of Shiʿite Faith in Late Twelfth-­century Iran: The Case of the Gunbad-­i ʿAlawiyān, Hamadān.   5 On the formative phase of Islamic tile decoration, see Pickett, Early Persian Tilework. For a short general survey, see Porter, Islamic Tiles.

204  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s  6 Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 134–5 (transliteration has been adapted from original).   7 Assadollah Behroozan, Tehran Journal (6 February 1978), p. 6. Reproduced in Gluck and Siver (eds), Surveyors of Persian Art, p. 454. The scholar referred to in the passage is Arthur Upham Pope (d. 1969). Taʿāruf is the practice of treating others politely.   8 Casper Purdon Clarke, ‘The Tracing Board in Modern Oriental and Medieval Operative Masonry’, Transactions of the Lodge Quatuor Coronati 2706.6 (1893), p. 101 (the full article is pp. 99–107). Quoted in Neçipoğlu, The Topkapi Scroll, p. 45. For a wider discussion of these techniques, drawing on additional primary accounts, see pp. 41–57.   9 Clarke and Lewis, ‘Persian Architecture and Construction’ (1880–1), pp. 167–8. Qaʾit Bay ruled as Mamluk sultan, 1468–96. 10 R. Phené Spiers, Architecture East and West (1905), pp. 37–8 (drawing on the work of Casper Purdon Clarke). Quoted in Neçipoğlu, The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture, p. 46. 11 Damluji, The Valley of Mud Brick Architecture, p. 384 (whole interview is on pp. 384–6). 12 Nyrop and Smith, Area Handbook for Iraq, p. 141. 13 Salnamah-­i maʿarif-­i Isfahan sal-­i tahsili, 1313–­1314 (Report of the Isfahan Ministry of Historical Monuments in Isfahan, 1934–6), p. 96. Translated by Myron Smith and reproduced in Overton, ‘From Pahlavi Isfahan to Pacific Shangri La’, p. 66. ‘Masters’ is an alternative translation for ustādān.

CHAPTER 27

ENGINEERING

Engineering

In 929 caliph al-­Muqtadir (r. 908–32) received an embassy from the emperor in Constantinople.1 Among the wondrous items to be seen in the caliph’s palaces were automata ­(mechanical objects). The Byzantine emperor also owned automata, and written descriptions of later Islamic courts – from Spain to Central Asia – confirm the enduring popularity of these luxury items. Elaborate clocks were also made for palaces and even larger examples were built above the entrances of mosques and other religious buildings (the remains of one mid ­fourteenth-­century example still exists on the façade of the Bu ʿInaniyya Madrasa, Fez, Morocco). These mechanisms relied upon hydraulic pressure, pneumatic displacement and gearing. The works of some of the most famous engineers of antiquity, including Philo of Byzantium (d. c. 220 bce) and Heron of Alexandria (d. 70 ce), were influential as regards the evolution of the discipline during the Islamic period.2 The names of some of the greatest Islamic engineers have been preserved – most notably, the Banu Musa in the ninth century and al-­Jazari (d. 1206).3 The former were three brothers (sons of Musa ibn Shakir) who worked in the Bayt al-­Hikma (‘House of Wisdom’) established by the Abbasid caliph al-­Maʾmun (r. 813–33) in Baghdad. Their book, the Kitāb al-­Ḥiyal (Book of Ingenious Devices), explained how to build a range of trick vessels and automata, as well as more functional items. Abu al-­ʿIzz b. Ismaʿil b. al-­Razzaz al-­Jazari worked in the courts of the Artuqid princes of northern Mesopotamia and continued the traditions of the Banu Musa. He, too, performed practical tasks, such as the casting of a set of bronze doors (see Chapter 11), but is best known for his automata and water clocks. His illustrated book on the subject was copied many times. Areas in which engineering principles were vitally important were mining (see Chapter 9) and the collection and transportation of water, both for human use and for irrigation purposes. Examples for human use include the cisterns and water catchments along the major hajj routes, such as the Darb Zubayda (from southern Iraq) and the Darb al-­Sham (from Damascus).4 Irrigation systems carried water from springs and aquifers over considerable distances to areas designated for cultivation. This necessitated the construction of networks of canals, aqueducts and underground canals (usually known as qanāt). Other types of hydraulic engineering encountered include dams, water mills and retaining walls.5 The first reading is part of al-­Jazari’s description of the construction of model drummers and trumpeters on a monumental water clock (binkām) that marked the passing of the solar hours. The next section of this account describes how motion was imparted to the hands of the

206  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s drummers and the trumpets. The second reading is a description of the excavation of qanāt in Iran. The laying of the water channel required subtle calculations of the incline, but was achieved with remarkably simple tools. When the article was written in 1968, qanāt apparently still provided 75 per cent of the water used throughout the country. Reading three comes from the Book of Ingenious Devices by the Banu Musa (see above). One of the major problems with deep excavations (mines, wells and qanāt) was the provision of fresh air, and the text explains the manufacture of a pump comprising bellows connected to pipes. The fourth reading is an account of the construction and renovation of waterwheels (noria or in Arabic, na‘ūra) in Antioch. These mechanisms lift river water into irrigation canals. They were more efficient than the simple bucket lever (known as a shādūf), but were costly to build and maintain. The final reading (five) describes the plugging of a breach in a water course through the creation and repair of a bund (retaining wall) with earth and bundles of fibrous plant matter. The text is part of a portrait of the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq written in the first half of the twentieth century. This comes from an account by an unnamed Mullah to explain why Shaikh Nasir is also known as ‘Father of the Bunds’ and Abu Mayitain (‘Father of the Two Dead Men’). Shaikh Nasir supervises the building of a bund of trodden earth faced with camel-­thorn. The melodramatic account successfully captures the physical effort required to avoid a disastrous inundation of the fields. * * * § 27. 1. Section 4: On the construction of the men Seven men are made from jointed wood; I shall explain the construction of one of five [percussion players] and one of two [trumpeters]. For one of the five one takes dry knot-­ free wood which is pieced together into the shape of the torso (baṭn) of a man, the back being hollow. The left thigh, lower leg and foot are joined to this, – they are not hollow. The right thigh, lower leg and foot are hollow, with a straight hole inside extending from the bottom of the foot through to the torso. For the right hand (yad, also meaning arm) a shoulder and [upper arm] up to the point of the elbow are made and fixed in position. From the point of the elbow a slit is made through to the hollow part of the torso – this is for the forearm. Then one makes a forearm, palm and fingers, which are clasped around the drumstick. A piece about 1 sp[an] [long] is separated from this forearm [i.e. there is a continuation piece] beyond the point of the elbow and a hole is pierced laterally at the end of the separation [i.e. where it joins the forearm]. In it an axle is inserted the ends of which rest in the slit made at the elbow, and the hand is mounted on this [axle] – when it moves it moves up and down. In the end of the extension inside the body there is a hole with an iron ring in it, to which [is attached] the end of a copper wire – the other end comes out of the hollow foot. When the man stands on his feet and the end of the copper wire is pulled down the arm moves upwards, and when the end of the wire is released the hand moves downward by natural disposition. Now the other hand is made. With the drummers the face of the drum is held from underneath, and with the cymbalists, the edge of the cymbal is held in the usual place. A head is now made, adorned by the craftsman to the best of his ability, and painted in the colour of human skin. He is clothed in fine garments, which conceal the mechanism for the hand, with a headcovering such as musicians wear when on duty. Four men are made on this pattern – two trumpeters and two cymbalists. As for the drummer who leads them all, who is kneeling, his body is hollow, and his thighs also, holes extending to the knees; the action of the hands is as described above, and each carries a drumstick. Then two trumpeters are made [standing] close together, in the hand

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of each of them a trumpet of usual design, with the end in his mouth in the normal way. The trumpeters are placed on the right of the platform and the drummer with a drum is near them; next to him is the leader, kneeling with two large kettle drums made of copper in front of him. Next to him comes a drummer with a drum and two cymbalists [all] in a line. The feet of each man are fixed securely – it is easy to do that. Beneath each foot in which there is the end of a wire, a slit is cut leading to the hollow interior of the platform, and beneath the knees of the leader there are two slits. The ends of the copper wires hang down inside the platform. Slung over the shoulders of the drummers are wooden drums, like the well known drums.6 § 27. 2. The project begins with a careful survey of the terrain by an expert engaged by the prospective builders. A qanat system is usually dug in the slope of a mountain or hillside where material washed down the slope has been deposited in alluvial fans. The surveyor examines these fans closely, generally during the fall, looking for traces of seepage to the surface or slight variations in the vegetation that may suggest the presence of water sources buried in the hillside. On locating a promising spot, he arranges for the digging of a trial well. Two diggers, called muqannī, take up this task. They set up a windlass at the surface to haul up the excavated material in leather buckets and proceed to dig a vertical shaft about three feet in diameter, one man working with a mattock and the other with a short-­ handled spade. As they load the spoil in the buckets, two workers at the surface pull it up with the windlass and pile it around the mouth of the shaft. If luck is with them, the diggers may strike an aquifer at a depth of 50 feet or less. Sometimes, however, they dig down 200 to 300 feet to reach water, and this necessitates installing a relay of windlasses at stages 100 feet apart on the way down. When they arrive at a moist stratum – a potential aquifer – the diggers scoop out a cavity to its impermeable clay bottom, and for the next few days the leather buckets are dipped into the hole periodically to measure the rate of accumulation of water in it. If more than a trickle of water is flowing into the hole, the surveyor can conclude that he has tapped a genuine aquifer. He may then decide to sink more shafts into the stratum in the immediate area to determine the extent of the aquifer and its yield. The surveyor next proceeds to chart the prospective course of an underground conduit through which the water can flow from this head well or group of wells to the ground surface at some point farther down the slope. For the downward pitch of the conduit he selects a gradient somewhere between one foot in 500 and one in 1,500; the gradient must be slight so that the water will flow slowly and not wash material from the bottom of the conduit or otherwise damage it. For his measurements the surveyor uses simple instruments: a long rope and a level . . . The surveyor lets the rope down to the water level in the well and marks the rope at the surface to show the depth. This will be his guide for placing the mouth of the conduit; obviously the mouth must be at some point a little below the water level indicated by the rope. A series of vertical shafts for ventilation will have to be sunk from the surface to the conduit at certain measured intervals (perhaps 50 yards) along its path. Consequently the surveyor must determine the depth from the surface for each of these shafts. He uses a level to find the drop in the ground slope from each shaft site to the next and marks the length of this drop on the rope. This tells him how far down from the surface each shaft would have to be dug if the conduit ran a perfectly level course. He then calculates the additional depth to which each should be dug (in view

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Figure 27.1  Diagram showing a mechanism for pumping fresh air into wells, from Banu Musa, Kitāb al-­ḥiyal. Drawing: Naomi Shields. After drawing by Donald Hill.

of the prospective pitch of the conduit) by dividing the total drop of the conduit from the well’s water level to the mouth by the number of proposed ventilation shafts.7 § 27. 3. The construction of an instrument for wells that kill those who descend into them [see Figure 27.1]. If the person uses it in any well he wishes, it will not kill him or harm him. It is suitable to use this instrument in wells that kill and in dangerous pits, and if the person has this instrument which we are describing with him, he may descend into any well he wishes for a while and he will not fear it, nor will it harm him, if God wills may He be exalted. The example of that is that we make the well which kills him who descends into it (abjd), and we make a long pipe (e) from copper, reeds, skin, or wood – anything available from which pipes are made. A skin (ziqq) is made like the skin of the blacksmiths with which they blow on the fire [i.e. a bellows] – it is marked (wlḥ). Position (ḥ) is the position where we attach the handle of the bellows. At position (w) is a hole (w) which penetrates [the bellows] and the pipe is fitted tightly to the bellows at the place, so that no wind or air enters the bellows at this place, and nothing can come out of it. At point (l) a hole (z) is made in the bellows, and a [flap]-­valve is attached to it as the blacksmiths do, so that air can enter this hole in the bellows and nothing can come out of it. When we have made that we place [?] pipe (ew) in well (abjd) at the time when the person descends into it, and we hold [?] its end (e) at the side of the man’s nose

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and mouth and then blow continuously with the bellows. So the air which is suitable for the person who has descended into the well is adequate for the person’s needs, and the foul, thick air which is in the well does not harm him, so he who descends into the well is safe . . . 8 § 27. 4. The manufacturers of ‘noriahs’. A major source of activity for woodworkers is the manufacture and repair of the large wooden wheels installed on noriahs located on the banks of the Orontes. These either transmit energy to power water mills or are employed for irrigation. The manufacture and repair of the noriah is generally paid for by the owners of gardens and orchards [benefiting from it], each paying a share based on the importance of their respective gardens. The rights and easements of the noriah are normally transmitted by inheritance or sale. For the nine noriahs installed in the immediate vicinity of Antioch, there are four specialist bosses who employ about twenty workers and labourers. In general, the wooden sections are prepared in the workshop and then transported for assembly at the river [bank]. First, the sections are put together in a flat area created on the ground, starting with large square wooden beams of pine. Then inside the square is a sort of cross linking the four sides of the square, the intersection of which corresponds to the median axis of the future wheel. That part is usually made of mulberry wood. Lastly the spokes that connect the sides of the square to the great circle line are put in place and tin buckets made from benzine cans are fixed to the pallets of the device. The pieces are aligned and numbered and then assembled on the masonry support built into the river at the end of the dam. The noriahs deteriorate quickly; repairs are required each year. On occasion, usually after five or six years, it is necessary to change all the components of the periphery that have become rotten through contact with the water. Their price varies, of course, according to the importance of each. One can estimate that the construction of a wheel ten feet in diameter costs about 6,000 francs.9 § 27. 5. He sent more messengers, to bring in even the old men and old women, the young girls and the young boys. And those who were already assembled he divided into parties, the women cut camel-­thorn and tamarisk, and the rough grass that grows beside the river, [while] the men bring earth. Only the strongest men he kept to stem the flow of water. Of these, half stood on one side of the breach, half on the other. At a word from the shaikh they rushed into the water, turning their backs to the current, each man staying himself on his misha, which he thrust into the ground before him. Thus they tried to check the rush of water; but the current was fierce and strong, and the quivering mishas showed how hard the men had to struggle to keep their footing. In the middle, where the stream was swiftest, not a man could stand for more than a moment; one after another was whirled off his feet. At that time Nasir was some thirty years of age, and at the height of his strength, taller and broader than any man there. Throwing off his garments, he seized a misha and dashed into the water, calling upon his brothers to follow him. In the middle of the breach he stood upright, staying the stream with his back as the others did; thus the chain of men met across the breach, and the rush of water was stayed enough for other workers to begin to make a ring of bunds, one close to the breach, the other farther back and stronger, lest the first should break. Bundles of camel-­thorn were brought by the women and laid down, and on them earth

210  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s was heaped. Some dug it as best they might from beneath the water, others farther afield, two working together to fill an ’aba, which they would then carry by the corners to the bund. More men formed a line, passing clods of earth from hand to hand. Night came; by Allah’s mercy the moon was full, and work went on. The living barrier still held back the flood, men being replaced by fresh men as their strength was exhausted. The women and children still brought their bundles, but more slowly now, as they had to go farther and farther afield to find the scrub. Then came three camels of the shaikh, bearing dates for the hungry labourers; no halt was called, but they ate in hasty mouthfuls, while still striving against their untiring enemy. For the wind blew still hard from the north, and the strength of the river seemed rather to grow than to lessen. All night the work went on. At dawn came a long string of camels and cows, bearing bundles of green barley, freshly cut from the shaikh’s own crops, for strengthening the bund. ‘Rather would I lose the whole of my barley’, said Nasir, ‘than see my word broken’. By noon the two ring bunds were finished. The weary men from the water, their faces grey with fatigue, the men worn out with digging earth and carrying, threw themselves down where they were, and slept. The women also, withdrawing a little way apart, slept. . . . Only Shaikh Nasir and ’Abdullah slept not. ‘Behold’, said Nasir, as he looked at the work which at one time seemed beyond human compassing, ‘behold the promise of thy shaikh!’ Together they looked at it. Then suddenly, with no warning, part of the first ring bund crumpled and gave way, letting in a torrent of angry pent-­up water to beat against the second bund. Speechless with anxiety the two men watched. Would it stand the strain? It held – it held – no, a thin trickle was forcing its way through, eating out a channel. It grew wider – so wide – wider. With a shout the shaikh leapt to the weak point, calling to the sleeping men to help. But they were deep in slumber, and his voice was hoarse from his ceaseless shouted encouragement of the day before. The water began to pour through. In two minutes it would be beyond control. What, then, of his oath? Nasir turned to the motionless figures beside the bund. With his giant strength he seized two sleeping men, thrust them into the widening breach, and held them down. ’Abdullah had awakened some of his tribesmen, and, stupid with sleep, they obeyed the shaikh’s command, and piled earth and still more earth on the living bodies. Thus was the breach closed, and the waters came not to the land of Khazaina, and the honour of Shaikh Nasir was saved.10 notes   1 The account of the entire embassy appears in al-­Qaddumi (trans. and ed.), Book of Gifts and Rarities: Kitāb al-­Hadāya wa al-­Tuḥaf, pp. 148–55.   2 For an introduction to this field, see Hill, Islamic Science and Engineering. For the development of clocks, see Hill, Islamic Water Clocks.   3 On these men and their writings, see Hill (ed. and trans.), The Book of Ingenious Devices (Kitāb al- Ḥiyal); The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices.

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  4 For a summary of the publications of the Darb Zubayda, see Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology, pp. 161–4. On the Darb al-­Sham, see Petersen (ed.), The Medieval and Ottoman Hajj Route in Jordan.   5 See articles reprinted in Morony (ed.), Production and the Exploitation of Resources, pp. 64–70.   6 Ibn al-­Razzaz al-­Jazari (d. 1206), Kitāb fī maʿrifat al-­ḥiyal al-­handasiyya. Hill (trans.), The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, p. 46 (the complete instructions for this clock are on pp. 42–9).   7 Wulff, ‘The Qanats of Iran’, pp. 96–7. For further descriptions, see Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 249–54; Wilber, Iran: Past and Present, second edition, pp. 122–3.   8 Banu Musa (fl. ninth century), Kitāb a-­ḥiyal. In Hill (trans.), The Book of Ingenious Devices, pp. 240–1.  9 Bazantay, Enquête sur l’artisanat à Antioche, pp. 23–4. Translated from the original French by the author. 10 Fulanain, The Marsh Arab, Haji Rikkan, pp. 109–12. A misha is a spade with a long handle.

PART 8

Economic Considerations

CHAPTER 28

RECYCLING AND REPAIR

Recycling and repair

The big cities of the Islamic world generated a great deal of rubbish. For example, in medieval Cairo organic waste and broken artefacts were deposited principally in parts of Fustat (the first Islamic capital of Egypt) and in the area known as Barqiyya, just to the east of the ­eleventh-­century walls of the Fatimid city. The Cairene chronicler al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442) describes the extent of the dumping of broken manufactured goods: . . . They said that the refuse that was thrown into the rubbish heaps and dumps of Cairo each day was worth a thousand gold dīnārs. They were referring to the utensils used by the milk merchants, cheese dealers, and food tradesmen. These are red earthen vessels into which milk and cheese are put or in which the poor eat their food in the cook shops.1 There may well be some exaggeration, but al-­Maqrizi makes a valid point in emphasising the place of ceramics (glazed and unglazed) among the refuse heaps. Pottery was certainly relatively cheap and there existed a large industry in the city geared toward the production of the different types of vessels needed by the inhabitants. While broken ceramics could be repaired, and uses were also found on occasion for potsherds,2 it was common for pottery vessels to be thrown away once they had broken. Baked clay differs crucially from materials such as metal and glass in that it cannot be melted down and fashioned into new vessels. Clay undergoes irreversible changes as a result of heating and cannot return to the water-­soluble, plastic form it possesses in its natural state. There was a greater financial incentive to recycle vessels made from metal and glass when they had reached the end of their useful lives. The creation of glass was a more labour-­ intensive process than that of making pottery and also required greater quantities of fuel (see Chapter 15). It was, however, possible to introduce economies into this activity by melting down cullet (broken sherds and glass waste) instead of starting with raw materials.3 Metal was also a readily recyclable material, although there remained a constant demand for freshly smelted ingots of pure metal.4 Other materials were also recycled. For example, old pieces of cotton or linen fabric were employed for papermaking and scraps of parchment or leather could be boiled down to make glues. The urban centres of the Islamic world contained specialists in mending broken objects. Imported Chinese ceramics (known in Arabic as ṣīnī), such as blue and white porcelain and greenware (also known as celadon), were particularly expensive and some large cities had

216  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s entire guilds devoted to their repair. According to the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta (d. 1377), there was even a charitable bequest (waqf) in Damascus that would pay for the repair of expensive imported glazed wares.5 Royal courts would pay for broken vessels to be mended.6 Sir John Chardin writes admiringly about the methods used in Iran to reattach sections of broken glass (see Chapter 15). Small holes and tears in beaten metal vessels could be patched up, and the linings could be renewed periodically by tinners. Organic items such as woven textiles, knotted carpets and leather were also doubtless patched up by specialists in these crafts. The first three readings deal with recycling. The first is taken from al-­Jahiz’s (d. 868–9) satirical masterpiece, Kitāb al-­Bukhalāʾ (the Book of Misers). While the passion for recycling shown by Abu Saʿid Madaʾini is played for comic effect; nevertheless, it communicates in a powerful way the extent to which waste materials could be sold for reuse in a variety of crafts. The second reading comes from the writings of ʿAbd al-­Latif al-­Baghdadi (d. 1231). Although the length of the individual mummy wrappings is probably an overestimation, there is no reason to doubt that these ancient textiles were sometimes used in the manufacture of paper (see Chapter 22). The third reading is of a more theoretical character and comes from the Epistles of the True Brethren, compiled in the tenth century. The text reflects on the roles played by the urban scavengers. The remaining readings (four to seven) are devoted to different types of repair that could be carried out to objects and buildings. The fourth reading is from a manual of ḥisba and deals with different aspects of the mending of ceramic vessels. Reading five also looks at the practices of mending objects (in particular, glazed ceramic and glass), but concentrates on the use of rivets and wire. A notable feature of this account is the economic dimension of the craft. The last two readings (six and seven) focus on the renovation of buildings. The first is an itemisation of the costs of the renovation of a building from one of the documents in the Cairo Geniza. This thirteenth-­century text illustrates the interaction between numerous specialist craftsmen during such an operation. The second reading is an official record of the work carried out on two commercial properties (khāns) held in the endowment of the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. The work was entrusted to a master architecture (muhandis), with his work reviewed by religious officials. * * * § 28. 1. Abu Saʿid’s maid was forbidden to throw out the rubbish. Instead, she had to collect it from all the apartments in the house and deposit it with his. Every so often, he would sit down, have her fetch basket-­loads of garbage, and, one by one, sift through them. It is obvious what happened to any odd dirhams, a purse with a few dīnārs or small change and pieces of jewellery he came across. Tufts of wool and strips of cloth were sold, once enough had been collected, to saddle-­cloth makers. Rags were bought by the porcelain and china-­ware merchants. Pomegranate peel fetched a price from the dyers and tanners and broken glass could be sold to the glass-­blowers. Date stones were hawked to gazelle breeders and peach stones to nurseries. Nails and bits of metal were peddled to the blacksmiths and papyrus scraps went to the scroll makers. The pack-­saddlers were the market for odd pieces of wood. Paper was used to seal jars, bones became kindling and broken pottery was resettled in new kilns. Lumps of brick and mortar were set aside for building. Pitch would be bought by the tar merchant. The rubbish basket was then shaken out and anything left over was burned in the stove. If there was enough clean clay and he was of a mind to make bricks for his own use or for sale then, in order to save on water,

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Abu Saʿid demanded that everyone in the building wash and shower over the clay and, when it was moist enough, had it moulded into a brick. ‘The stranger to my canny ways can lay no claim to thrift’, Abu Saʿid was fond of saying.7 § 28. 2. There are, however, circumstances which really contribute to strengthen their covetousness and support their constancy; they occasionally discover underground vast caverns of very solid construction, containing an immense number of corpses deposited there at some very distant period. The corpses are enveloped in winding sheets of hempen cloth: for some of them about 1,000 cubits have been employed. In the first place, each separate member, the hand, for example, the feet, the fingers and toes, is enveloped separately with bandages extremely fine. The whole body afterwards is swathed in a single piece, so as to resemble nothing but a great bale. The Bedouins, the Arabs established on the cultivated lands, and all those who employ themselves in the search of these sepulchral caves, carry away winding sheets and every thing that continues to possess a sufficient consistency: these they employ for making dresses, or sell to the manufacturers of paper, who use them in the making of paper for the grocers.8 § 28. 3. In most crafts there is an inequality among their users, and they differ as to their food, drink, dwellings, and other products of the craftsmen. The state of the rich differs from that of the poor, except in the case of the bath-­attendant, the barber, and their like. As for the trade scavenger, the harm resulting from their abandoning it is grievous and universal to the people of the city. Thus, if the perfumers, the material of whose craft is the opposite of that of the scavengers, were to close their shops and markets for one month, the harm which would befall the people of the city would be less that that which would result if the scavengers were to cease their work for one week, for the city would be filled with refuse and ordure and filth and carrion, and with that which would plague the life of its people.9 § 28. 4. . . . Arising from knowledge of these matters. Approach must be made to those who cheat the public by mending cracked vessels or vessels with holes and everything else and selling them with the remainder of the wares which are sold. And with fat (shaḥm), lime (jīr) and egg white (māʾ al-­bayḍ) they sell them as being flawless. When the chief (ʿarīf) finds among them a thing of this kind, it is necessary [for him] to break it, and forbid the return [to such practices]. And if they [the craftsmen] return to fraudulent activities, they will be disciplined and made notorious with the object of their knavery hung around their neck, so that they will be an example to the rest. Mending of pottery (shaʿʿbīn al-­birām): Arising from knowledge of these matters: those involved in the practice of mending [pottery vessels] commit things which are not permitted by God – glorious and ­magnificent  – because they take the blood of slaughtered animals (dam al-­dhabā’ih), then knead it with other bloods (dimā’), and stick [pots] together with it. It is necessary that they should swear that they will make a substitute for the blood which they make use of. And likewise they use cupped blood (dam al-­ḥijāma), if they are wanting for the blood of sacrificed animals. But they may make use of the spleens (ṭiḥāl) of sacrificed animals [such as] sheep, goats, camels and cows. And then they cook it, and they may grind it up

218  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s into a fine powder and with it stick together the sherds of the pot. And similarly, when they knead bloods into some of the ground up, sifted, and mixed potsherds with the white of egg and they patch up the cracks with it, making them stick together. The same can be mixed with radish oil (zayt al-­fujl) which will glue together the pot correctly and precisely. And one of them [i.e. the craftsmen] will supervise their activity, and he will find whoever is found to have transgressed (maḥẓūr). After warnings, he [the transgressor] is to be publicly disciplined.10 § 28. 5. Menders of vessels (mukharris) [. . .] It is the making good of that which is broken amongst vessels known as al-­ṣīnī, al-­māliqī and al-­ballūr. In previous times this craft was much in demand because of the rarity and high cost of vessels of these types in the country. And when they [the vessels] were broken they took them to the mukharris to repair them. And this could always be done when it was broken in two or three pieces, but if it were more then it could not be made better. And the work is thus: it was drilled by the mukharris first at the edge of it by means of a thin iron/steel (ḥadīd) drill, and then the holes were pierced with a brass rivet, and the holes were mended with a solution of gypsum. Ṣīnī is mended in the same way also and the price on each rivet is 10 para. But at this time, as affluence increases the extent of trade, so the value of vessels of al-­ballūr and al-­māliqī decreases. It is clear that the prosecution of this craft is uneconomic and few are employed in it. It is a craft which brings forth little profit. God knows best.11 § 28. 6. . . . the balance . . . on the last of Shaʿbān for repairs, 201 ½ dirhams; 6 dirhams and five dīnārs. The first of the blessed Ramaḍān: Paid for fixing the dome and the repairs on the verandas, to Marwan, 1 ¾. Water, 1 ¾. Water, and a helper, 8 ¼. 5 qinṭārs of gypsum, 4. Supply of the pipe: Iblīz clay 18 loads . . . on 5 of lime, 20 ¾. 16 loads, 4 ¼. Transportation and carrying to the site, 1 ½. 20 loads, 7. Marwān, for slaking the lime, 1 ½. 6 . . . sandy (clay?), 1 ½. Hire of Marwān and his partner, 2 ½; water for the clay, 30 ½, Marwān, 1 ½; a water carrier, 1. Hire for half a day, water, and a helper, 3 ¾. A water carrier, 1 ¾. Wage of a mason and a helper at the pipe, 7 ¼. Water, 1 ¾. The second day, water, and a helper, 7 ¼. Marwān, 2. Water . . . 1 ½. The fourth day, work at the locking bolt, 7 ¼; repair of . . . water, 1 ⅓; a meal, ¾. The fifth day . . ., 3 ½. Lime, from the slave of al-­Faqih, 3. Water, 3 ⅓ Gypsum and carrying it to the site, 16 ½. Total, 117. Accounting of the day when dūr al-­qāʿa and the water reservoirs were made: 100 bundles of reeds, 5. One quarter of a hundred palm branches, 1 ½. Nāshūsh, 1 ¾. Hire of its ceiling-­maker, ½, transportation, ½. A prop, 1 ½. The wages of al-­Riḍā, 12. 1 ½ raṭls nails, paid to al-­Faqīh, 2 ¾. Paid by me, one raṭl, 1 ¾, plus three and a half wiqiyyas, ½, and one raṭl of jarāʾidī (nails), 1 ¾ + ⅓. 2 qinṭārs of gypsum to fasten the staircase (made of) palm trees, 1 ½. Sawing and carving the props and hire of the ladder, 1 ½. Hire of the props . . . and its transportation, ¼, paid to al-­Rida . . . Hire of the props for the locking bolt and its transportation, 4. Gypsum, 12 (margin) Total . . . Work on the locking bolt, erection of the pillars and fastening of the locks; work at the cabinet and fastening of the doors, repairs on the ṭabaqa. Wages of the five days owed to al-­Rida, the carpenter. Paid for the purchase of the lumber for the door and (additional)

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lumber, 25 ¼. Half a palm tree, 8 ½. Transportation, ¼. Sawing, ¼. Transportation of a prop, ½. On the second day, lumber, 4 ½. Pieces (of wood), ropes, and a board, 10 ¾. 2 main boards, 1 ½. Another board, ¾. Another board, 1 ¾. Transportation, ½. (Nails) falāfilī, 1 ½. A plate, 1. A fastening part (?), 1 ¾. Qawā’imī (nails), 1 raṭl, 1 ¾. Total, 106. Locks, 8 ½; nails for the carving(?), 3. A water carrier, 1 ½. Transportation, ½. Marwan, 1 ½. One sixth of a board, and the locking bolt of the broken door, 3 ½. A part of a board, 1 ½. Two mats, 3 ½. Four . . . Marwan, for sifting clay, 1 ½. For digging and for two props, 5. The dealer in gypsum, 5 . . . 34 ⅓ Total . . . The accounting of the paver; The first day, 5. The second day, 7 ½. Water, 1 ¾. Gypsum, 29. Hamid and . . . Paper, ½. The third day: Al-­Rida, for ropes, 5. Gypsum, paid to him, 10 ½. Wages, 2 ½, plus . . . plus . . . The third day, 5 ¼. Friday, ʿAli, the kneader(?), 6 ¾. Floor tiles for the staircase, 26. The balance owed to al-­Faqih, 18. Gypsum, 12. Also, gypsum, one third of qinṭār, heaping, 20 ½(?). Water during the two days, 3. Wages for two days, for the staircase, 15 (i.e.) 7 ½ for one day. Water, 1. Two vertical main pillars, 4 ¼. Half a day, 7 ½. Plus, as detailed, 2 ½, 1 ½, 4 ½ . . . Total . . . Plus, 6. Total, 257 ½.12 § 28. 7. In the presence of our lord and master, the Chief Qāḍī Salih ibn Qudwa al-­Zaini, the master of Jerusalem and Hebron, there attended the master Muhammad son of the master Khalil ibn ʿAkayan, the lessee of the Khan al-­Wakala, and Hajji Ibrahim known as al-­Fashkha al-­Shuwaiki, the lessee of the Khan of Charcoal in Jerusalem, both part of the endowment of the Asqa Mosque, who complained about the two khans mentioned above because they were derelict, and that any income from them had ceased because of the ruins. At that our lord brought Muhammad Çelebi ibn al-­Dazdar, inspector of the two noble sanctuaries, and mentioned to the qāḍī referred to above what the two lessees had reported, and they agreed to go to the two places mentioned above to see what restorations were necessary . . . The master Husain the architect [Badr al-­Din Husain ibn Nammar] assessed in the presence of our masters mentioned above the cost of what the Khan al-­Wakala needed, especially the price of mortar and stones, the wages of the masters and workmen, the price of quṣurmil, panels for the storerooms, nails and food, etc. at 9,500 ʿuthmānīs. In detail: The lower supporting part of the arches in the northern arcade – 160. The construction of the north wall from the side of the derelict mosque – 500. The assessment of the vaults of the two derelict cells above the khan on the west side – 400. The construction of the wall close to the two houses of al-­ʿAmidi – 80. The repairs of the north large arcade – 300. The repairs of the latrine in the khān – 300. The transportation of the plaster for the repair of the east wall – 1,400, including the price of the stone and the restoration of the south wall above the khān. The repair of the derelict mosque and the storerooms – 500.  The price of 70 qinṭārs of mortar at the rate of repairing the side mentioned above – 1,500. The price of 500 loads of quṣurmil and the wages of the plasterer of the quṣurmil, the gap-­filler and the sealer – 1,250 ʿuthmānīs.

220  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Assessment of the doors at the rate of the storerooms for the khan with 40 doors – 1,060 ʿuthmānīs. The repair of the two cisterns in the khan and removal of the rubbish – 250 [ʿuthmānīs]. The assessment for the khan of Charcoal mentioned above totalled 3,750 ʿuthmānīs according to the specifications:

The rate of restoration of the upper and lower storerooms – 800. The assessment of the repair of the latrines – 300. The price of qusurmil – 750. The wages of the plasterer of the quṣurmil – 500. The cost of 20 qinṭārs of mortar – 500. The cost of ten doors according to the rate of the storerooms – 400. The assessment of the wall shared by the khan and Qāḍī Saʿd al-­Din al-­ʿAlam – 500.

After the completion of that, the qāḍī and our lords mentioned above went to the ablution fountain of the noble Aqsa Mosque and inspected the circular column and the repairs that it needed – the cost of the plaster of the quṣurmil and construction of rooms of the latrine – and the master Husain assessed the cost of these repairs at 7,000 ʿuthmānīs according to the specifications: For repairs to the columns and roofing of the two vaults and latrines – 3,000. The plaster of the quṣurmil, gap-­filling and sealing for all the roofs and surfaces of the reservoir. The construction of the windows for the latrines and removing the rubbish, etc. – 1,000 ʿuthmānīs. The grand total of what was assessed on the site specified above for the assessment of the master mentioned above was 20,250 ʿuthmānīs. At that the qāḍī mentioned above permitted the Inspector of the Two Harams mentioned above to authorise the expenditure of the amount specified above for the repair of the sites mentioned above from the funds of the above-­mentioned endowment. And that after that the beneficiaries of the noble endowment came before him and witnessed that the repairs were necessary and that the repair was good and to the benefit of the endowment and of the beneficiaries of the endowment. Legal permission was granted by the Inspector of the Two Harams and legal acceptance by the legal means took place in Muharram 948/27 April 1541. The witnesses at the time of its writing: Our lord, the most learned Shaikh Sharaf al-­Din al-­Dairi, Shaikh Shams al-­Din al-­Rumi, Shaikh Fakhr al-­Din al-­Ghanimi, Shaikh Ahmad ibn al-­Junaidi, Rajab, the interpreter, ʿAli the trustee, and other Muslims.13 notes   1 Al-­Maqrizi (d. 1442), Kitāb al-­mawāʿiẓ wa’l-­iʿtibār bi-­dhikr al-­khiṭaṭ wa’l-­āthār, II, p. 95.   2 Milwright, ‘Prologues and Epilogues in Islamic Ceramics’.   3 For example, see Bass et al., Serçe Limanı, II: The Glass of an Eleventh-­century Shipwreck.

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  4 On the activities of scrap metal merchants in Iran, see Wulff, The Traditional Crafts of Persia, pp. 22–3. For the trade in scrap metal in late Ottoman Syria, see Milwright, ‘Metalworking in Damascus at the End of the Ottoman Period’, p. 266.   5 Ibn Battuta, Abu ʿBat Allah Muhammad (d. 1368–9), Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah, I, pp. 238–9. Discussed in Milwright, ‘Pottery in Written Sources of the Ayyubid-­Mamluk Period’, p. 513.   6 For example, Krahl, Chinese Ceramics in the Topkapi Saray Museum, II, nos. 210, 225; III, nos. 603, 817, 854, 1032.   7 ʿAmr ibn Bahr al-­Jahiz (d. 869). Colville (trans.), Avarice and the Avaricious (Kitâb al-­bukhalâʾ), pp. 137–8.   8 ʿAbd al-­Latif al-­Baghdadi (d. 1231), Kitāb al-­Ifāda wa’l-­iʿtibār. Zand et al. (ed. and trans.), The Eastern Key, p. 162 (Arabic) p. 163 (English).   9 From the eighth epistle of the first series of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-­Ṣafā. Translated Lewis, ‘An Epistle on the Manual Crafts’, pp. 149–50. 10 Ibn Bassam (fourteenth century?), Nihāyat al-­rutba fī ṭalab al-­ḥisba, pp. 158–9. Translated by the author with corrections by Charles Burnett. 11 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, pp. 422–3 (Chapter 343). Translated by the author. 12 Account of building operations in Geniza: TS Arabic Box 30, f. 154 (c. 1240). Gil (ed. and trans.), Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza, pp. 459–60 (whole document appears on pp. 456–60) (slightly adapted). 13 Jerusalem Sijill 13: 94. In Salameh, ‘Aspects of the Sijills of the Shariʿa Court in Jerusalem’, I, p. 142 (Appendix 10.1) (slightly adapted). Quṣurmil is a mixture of ash (ramād) and hydrated lime (mutfaʿ). I have omitted a section of the account naming more officials. For further details on the architect Badr al-­Din Husain ibn Nammar, see Hillenbrand and Auld, Ottoman Jerusalem, I, p. 624.

CHAPTER 29

CRAFTS IN AN AGE OF COMPETITION AND CHANGE

Crafts in an age of competition and change

Economic historians have written extensively on the subject of the shifting balance of trade between the regions of the Middle East and the industrialised countries of Europe between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.1 The ability to manufacture high quality goods relatively cheaply allowed the factories of Western and Central Europe to pursue export markets vigorously throughout the Islamic world and elsewhere. This process was further facilitated by the advent of steam-­powered cargo ships (making their first appearance in the Mediterranean in the 1830s). By the latter part of the nineteenth century, the markets of towns and cities across the Middle East were flooded with crystal glass from Bohemia and glazed ceramics from Marseilles, the Staffordshire potteries and the Meissen factory in Dresden.2 Once a net exporter, the weaving industries of regions such as Greater Syria and Egypt began to decline in the face of competition from textiles produced in factories across Europe.3 Increasingly, the Islamic world became an importer of manufactured goods and an exporter of raw materials. Some scholars have suggested that the roots of the shifting balance between the Islamic world and Europe can be traced back to the aftermath of the Black Death (from 1348) and the failure of Islamic elites to invest in new technology.4 This was also coupled with regressive tax policies. The demise of the lucrative sugar industry of Egypt and Greater Syria in the later Mamluk sultanate (1250–1517) has been discussed in this context. Another example is the disappearance of papermaking across most of the Islamic world.5 It is important, however, to balance the evidence of written sources against the wider evidence provided by material culture and the archaeological record. Physical data often suggest a complex, multi-­ layered economy in which artisans were manufacturing goods for different markets, including local, interregional and international. Some crafts adapted to cater for new markets and even ­prospered in the ­nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This included the production of objects imitating older styles (such as the ‘Mamluk Revival’) for the emerging tourist trade (see Figure 29.1).6 A final factor that played a part in transforming traditional craft practices was the introduction of mechanised manufacturing techniques into the Middle East at the beginning of the twentieth century.7 The first five readings are concerned with the textile crafts of the Middle East, charting the different reasons for decline or adaptation. The first reading provides a brief survey of Egyptian cloth manufacture. The author notes changing tastes among consumers, but also acknowledges considerable evidence of activity in the major centres. The second reading charts the shift

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Figure 29.1  Brass platter inlaid with silver and copper in the ‘Mamluk Revival’ style, Cairo, 1914. Photograph courtesy of Mohammed Khaleeq.

from silk to cotton in the manufacture of ornamental fabrics in the Syrian capital. The third reading surveys the state of hand weaving and industrialised textile production in Palestine during the British Mandate (1920–48). The fourth reading looks at the problems of the silk crafts of Geelan province in Iran in the nineteenth century. The last reading of this group is a moving account of the demise of a flat-­weave carpet (kilim or gilīm) production in the Persian village of Mohammadiyeh. The reading concentrates on a specific type of flat-­weave known as a rufarshi (rū-­farshī). The next two readings (six and seven) deal with ceramic industries. The first is an ethnographic account of handmade pottery production in Palestine in the early twentieth century. The author traces the different factors that were making handmade water jugs increasingly irrelevant to the lives of the women who formerly produced them. The second reading records how the potters and glassworkers of Egypt maintained their livelihoods by concentrating on the production of the simple, utilitarian wares that did not compete directly with European imports. These observations correlate well with the descriptions of the thriving pottery workshops of Gaza in the same period (see Chapter 14). Reading eight describes the activities of a specialist in the Persian craft of mirror work (āʾīnih-­kārī), which flourished in the second half of the Safavid period (1501–1722). The next three readings (nine to eleven) focus on metalworking. The first describes the lost craft of making handmade needles. The second describes the ways in which the tinsmiths of Antioch made use of discarded benzine cans by fashioning a variety of functional items, ranging from lamps to water jugs. The third outlines the reasons for the decline of silversmithing in Syria in the second half of the twentieth century. The next three readings

224  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s (twelve to fourteen) do not focus on specific crafts, but rather reflect upon the general situation in a given town or region. In all cases, the evidence for decline is somewhat offset by signs of adaptation to circumstance. Problems are encountered due to old-­fashioned manufacturing practices, the prohibitive cost of necessary raw materials and the failure of craftsmen to cooperate. Readings fifteen and sixteen are taken from a dictionary of Damascene crafts and look at specialised manufacturing for equipment for the smoking of tobacco. * * * § 29. 1. The art of weaving, if it has languished in some centres where it once flourished, has not altogether died out in Egypt and Syria. A large proportion of the beautiful mixed silk and cotton stuffs that are offered for sale in the bazaars of Cairo are of native manufacture, though European dyes have not improved the colours. Kufīyas of yellow, red, and blue striped silk, shot with gold, familiar to all travellers in the East, are still made of exquisite beauty and delicacy, and the striped gubbas still worn by tradespeople, and, till the frock-­coat invaded the East, by gentlemen, in Egypt, are generally made by Oriental weavers. Damiette indeed no longer manufactures its famous dimity, but there are plenty of cotton factories in Egypt, at Demenhur, Ikhmim and Cairo, and silk is still woven at the capital. Beny Suweyf, once famous for its linen, now makes only a coarse kind of cloth for the common people, besides woollen carpets; and linen and cotton factories are still seen at Mansura.8 § 29. 2. . . . Now however, the crafts of Damascus, and especially weaving, have suffered a great calamity because of the dearness of silk and the widespread use of European goods, even if the latter are less durable. This has led the able al-­Sayyid ʿAbd al-­Majid al-­Asfar to imitate ālāja using [only] cotton yarn, making it possible for the masses to buy it. Since his means were insufficient, he joined hands with al-­Sayyid Hasan al-­Khanji, who supplied him [with funds]. After much effort he was successful, and his products were used by both the upper classes and the masses; other craftsmen followed his example and improved on it, and now dīmā [the cotton fabric] constitutes an important industry in which thousands earn their livelihood. Some twenty years ago a member of the Murtada family designed a new kind of beautiful patterned (manqūsh) cloth, which sold widely. He was followed by al-­Sayyid Darwish al-­Rumani who, with the help of Khwāja Jurji Mashta, imitated the thin-­striped European cloth (al-­qalāwūẓ al-­afranjī ’l-­muʿarraq); however, women refused to wear it because it did not have a European trademark, so he had to give it up. A short time ago, the able Khwāja Yusuf al-­Khawwam noticed how inclined people were to wear trousers, and their need for a light cloth suitable for the summer so he changed the looms used for dīmā and came up with a cloth both better and cheaper than European weaves, thus earning general praise; if only other artisans would show his concern in improving their crafts they would match his success and soon rid the country of European cloth . . . 9 § 29. 3. Before the establishment of British administration, the old textile industry of Palestine was entirely in Arab hands, and all its products, clothing, carpets, and rugs, and a few minor articles, were absorbed by the home market. It was mainly carried on in the workers’ homes, or in small workshops; machinery was almost unknown. Mejdel with 500 looms and Gaza with 50, both in the south, were the largest centres: but most of the

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industry was in the villages or the work of beduin, who made their own clothes and also carpets and small articles for sale. Coarse cotton and wool were the principal materials; but there was also some weaving in silk, and the weaving of straw mats was also widespread. All the yarns were imported, the cotton from Manchester. This home industry continues, but on a very diminished scale. It has been supplanted by a larger industry, based on factories and workshops. The produce of this too is mostly absorbed by the country, because of the many Europeans who have settled. Development was made easy by the immigration of employers and workers from Łódz´ and other Polish weaving centres. By 1927 the textile industry, though still quite small, ranked fourth in the number of persons employed, leaving agriculture and building out of consideration. In 1938 about 1,600 Jews and 2,000 Arabs were employed in the manufacture of textiles – cotton spinning, cotton and silk-­weaving, knitting and dyeing, embroidery and lace-­making. Of these 1,400 worked at Mejdel. Cotton-­spinning began near Haifa only in 1935, but markets in Turkey and Syria were soon secured.10 § 29. 4. The silk of Geelan is of inferior quality, and is therefore little adapted to the markets of France, England, or Italy. Attempts to produce an improvement have been made by English merchants, though with little success. Suspicion of the intention in offering advice, apathy, and an aversion to deviate from routine, are the chief obstacles to amendment. It is in the winding chiefly that change is required; the skein is too long, and the thread is uneven and knotty. This supineness is deeply to be regretted, for if Persia could supply good silk the profit to her and to England would be great. We could take any supply she could produce, and in return she would consume a much larger quantity of our chintzes and woollen manufactures. Thus, the unceasing drain of gold from Persia would find a remedy.11 § 29. 5. Mohammadiyeh must be called a textile village. Until recently most of its people were involved in weaving of different kinds. Now, however, there are no more than two hundred weavers left in the village, and of these only two weave rufarshis while the rest are engaged in weaving robes (abas). Of the thirty-­five textile workshops in operation until recently, half have now been shut down; in the others old men sit behind the looms. The weavers must represent the last generation of rufarshi-­weavers, for no young men are to be found among them. All are over sixty years old, and there are even eighty-­and ninety-­year-­olds manning the looms. The textile workshops are located by a hill called Gawdalu, in cavities dug into the hill. Each of these pits is the entranceway to a workshop, which is reached by climbing down a stairway 4m (13ft.) into the ground. There, in a room carved into the earth, men work behind their looms. Each workshop is about 4m (13ft.) [by] 5m to 8m (16ft.6in. to 26ft.) in length. This limited space is put to optimal use, with several looms in operation. The smallest workshops contain four draw looms, while the larger ones can hold up to sixteen. Most of the looms now sit idle, and as each weaver dies another machine is abandoned. Of the two weavers in Mohammadiyeh who wove in rufarshis in the mid-­1990s, one was eighty-­seven and the other over one hundred years old and blind and deaf. The ­rufarshis made by these two have undergone many changes over the years: now their material comprises left-­over wool and snippets from Naʿin rugs, and the pieces themselves are a combination of wool and cotton. Their weave, however, remains as delicate

226  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s and precise as ever. These rufarshis are not put to the same use as those in the past were. After they are woven, they are sewn at the centre and sold like gelims, although they retain the name rufarshi. Rufarshi-­weaving is in its last gasp in most of Iran. The last rufarshis of Zavareh were woven during the past thirty years. In Mohammadiyeh, too, there is no demand for them and with the death of the last weaver the Mohammadiyeh rufarshi will die out as well.12 § 29. 6. Described here is the decline of a domestic industry, caused by a variety of different types of circumstance. In recent times there have been created a number of cisterns in the villages so that women no longer need to bring the water from more distant sources, often in smaller jars (jarra, pl. jarār; ʿaslīya, pl. ʿasālī). [Now] they can collect the water for household use in larger containers. Furthermore, the bustling commercial petroleum industry has brought a lot of large waterproof metal boxes into the country, which are used for all sorts of things in households and [have] replaced the usual pottery in a perfect way. The plumber adapts this cheap metal for all sorts of home appliances. Further, commerce with foreign countries has brought other changes, such that glass and porcelain are cheap to buy for the home, thus displacing the pleasing and appropriate forms of the old clumsy pottery. Also, in recent decades, since many fellahin from Palestine now emigrate to America in search of work, there is significantly less farming on the hillsides. At the same time, the cattle are fewer such that the women find almost no dung for firing their pottery, . . . 13 § 29. 7. Of the once famous ceramic art of Egypt only pottery and the commonest glass work now survive. The first of these, however, forms perhaps historically the most interesting, though far from the most flourishing of the contemporary industries of the country; barring only that the processes and results of the craft as now worked are ruder than those of 3,000 years ago, both are almost identical with its pictured presentments in the tombs of Upper Egypt. In fact, what may there be seen in colours that have survived a hundred generations may now any day be witnessed in real life and tangible substance at Memphis, at Mellawee, at Manfalout, at Assiout, and especially at Ballas and Kenneh, whence jars, jugs, tiles, and porous water-­bottles, absolutely identical in form and method of manufacture with those in use before the Exodus, are still annually floated down the Nile by thousands. The total produce of the trades averages nearly 500,000 pieces a year of all descriptions. Glass-­blowing has dwindled to eight to ten small shops in Cairo, which manufacture annually some 10,000 objects of the commonest ware, and about 20,000 chimneys for the petroleum lamps now in general use. The wages of these kindred crafts range from 1s. to 1s. 6d. a day.14 § 29. 8. THE FUTURE? Rujkhani himself just opened his arms and shrugged his shoulders when I asked him about the future of his work. He said that there was not the demand nor the money now for people to commission such work. He had a young apprentice who he hoped to train to follow him but there was no doubt his was a dying craft, he felt. Craft seems to me an understatement; what this unassuming man is creating is undoubtedly works of art. It was the same story when I went to talk to genial Haji Seyed Asghar Sobhani, who has been working on the glass of the ivan which is the central room of the palace and an

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adjoining room. He is a craftsman well known outside Iran; he works on the great Shi‘ite shrines, such as Karbala, in Iraq. He rates the glasswork of the Naranjestan higher than any other in Iran, including that at Mashhad, and possibly as good as any anywhere; the work he has done on it was made much harder by the effects of recent bad winters in Shiraz, much of the glass coming away in the hand as soon as it was touched. He has worked in the Golestan and Niavaran palaces here, on the Imam Reza shrine at Mashhad, and in the Kazemain shrine, Baghdad and Imam Hussain shrine in Karbala. After he has finished in Shiraz he is coming back to Tehran and then will be going off to Baghdad again. He began at around seven years of age to learn his craft and is now 39. Again it is cost and taste which he feels has made his a dying art. He pointed to one small section, about two feet long and a few inches wide; in coloured mirrorwork; it contained four layers of mirror, coloured glass, mirror designs and a final outer covering. Its cost he estimated at about 100 dollars. As a comparison of the value of the mirrorwork at the Naranjestan he said he estimated the value of that at the Golestan Palace at around 5,000 rials a metre; the best of that at Shiraz could be worth 60,000 rials a metre. Because his work requires so much concentration he comes to Tehran and takes time off from it. ‘But I’m never idle’, he said. ‘I spend my leisure time making face creams, lipsticks, shampoos and sherbets’. I asked him if this was because of the lines around his eyes caused by his long periods of minute concentration and he laughed contentedly. This charming little man exudes the satisfaction of a man supreme in his art.15 § 29. 9. The needle maker (ībbār or ābbār) It is the making of diverse [types] of needles, including packing needles (misalla) and crochet needles (sinnāra) and other than them like ones for sewing and other diverse occupations. And this craft was in previous times – before the advent of manufacturing and the large-­scale importation of foreign crafts to Damascus – very widespread. It had a special market (sūq) in Damascus known as the ‘Ābbārīn’, not to be mistaken with the one now having that name, but located where there are now storehouses for wood and other than that. It is outside of Bab al-­Faraj, one of the gates of Damascus. Aside from needles and crochet needles which can be found in the countryside, it is not a flourishing craft, and with the decreasing prices [for needles] the craft is now non-­existent. And for those people who care about the making of them, they range in length from a handspan (shibr) to half a cubit (dhirāʿ). Beltmakers and large numbers of peasant farmers use them for sewing belts and bulky sacks. And the value of a single one which is a handspan in length is 2.5 pāra, and a longer one more [than that].16 § 29. 10. The tinsmith. – He has been mocked in a thousand ways for this use of [old] benzine cans; yet, it is an ingenious form of the craft because it is difficult to use the waste from a foreign industry more intelligently. Artefacts vary with time and according to need; in Antioch, they make containers for milk or oil, samovars, coffee pots, cans, cups, lamps, lanterns, chamber pots, sprinklers, appliances for showers, and pipes of all kinds. No doubt the development of this small industry is detrimental to the local pottery industry, and to the aesthetic properties of household utensils, but the worker who earns

228  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s 4.5 francs per day has little opportunity to preoccupy himself with aesthetics and his first concern is to make things more cheaply. The need to make use of waste, the need to buy goods cheaply, [and] the flexibility of the Syrian craftsman are, in our opinion, the causes of development of this tinsmithing.17 § 29. 11. Today almost everywhere in Syria silver jewellery has been supplanted by gold jewellery made in a style no different from that found in other parts of the Islamic world. This may be explained by the fact that jewellery has largely lost its other function as a sign of being a member of a particular regional or ethnic group. Because of the change from a subsistence to a market economy, which has taken place almost everywhere in Syria, silver has lost its importance as a reserve currency; its value on the world market fluctuates much more, whereas gold is thought to keep its value . . . in Deir ez-­Zor goldsmiths buy their raw material in Aleppo at the world market price. The jewellery is sold to the purchaser plus 20 per cent for labour and a further 10 per cent depending on the relationship between the seller and the purchaser, and the bargaining abilities of the purchaser. A large number of silversmiths have therefore become car mechanics, while a few have made the change to become goldsmiths.18 § 29. 12. Present Condition of Industry in Egypt . . . While other countries advanced economically, here each new progress made by European industry corresponded to a step backward by local industry. The most insignificant goods soon ceased to be made in Egypt and, in the humblest of households, foreign junk replaced Egyptian goods, which seemed to be condemned to extinction. And while Egyptian tastes have become more and more Europeanized – without, however, succeeding in being penetrated by the western spirit – traditions and old habits were lost, and with them the goods which were no longer suited to modern life. So much so that, not long ago speaking of Egyptian industry in one of his annual reports Lord Cromer stated: ‘The difference must be apparent to anyone whose recollection of Egypt goes back for some ten to fifteen years. Quarters that were formerly hives of busy workmen – spinning, weaving, braiding, tassle-­making, dyeing, tent-­making, embroidering, slipper-­ making, gold and silver-­working, spice crushing, copper-­beating, water-­skin making, saddle making, sieve making, wooden-­bolt making, lock making etc., – have shrunk to attenuated proportions, or have been entirely obliterated. Cafés and small stores retailing European wares are now to be found where productive workshops formerly existed’. For lack of encouragement and control Egyptian industry soon lost the rank it had previously occupied, thanks to the talent and well-­known taste of its workers. The qualities which, in the past, have distinguished Egyptian products gave way to the most serious defects. The Egyptian worker, although endowed with qualities of dexterity, temperateness, and capacity for assimilation which can render him the most useful element in industrial progress, acquired, over time, such defects that a new education has become indispensable if he is to enter a better path. . . . The picture sketched above is well exemplified by an industrial centre like Akhmim and Qina. The former town used to be able to market a large part of its textile products, thanks to the annual visit of tourists. The cutting-­off of this traffic since the war has caused a depression; yet no serious effort has been made to find new outlets, and the town of Akhmim, whose reputation is as justified as it is ancient, is now undergoing a real crisis.

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In Qina, the main centre of pottery, one is struck by the condition, bordering on poverty, of those pursuing this industry. To the makers of qulla (water jugs), whose use is so widespread, the idea of co-­operation is alien; they therefore waste their time and money in costly manipulations and transport, whereas if they associated in common work and used more modern and expeditious forms of transport they would receive a higher price for their labour. Far from being masters of a market which they in reality monopolize, they ruin each other by competition in which profits accrue only to the intermediaries.19 § 29. 13. Under the impact of imports of cheap manufactured goods, local handicraft production decayed. Whereas in the first half of the nineteenth century in Baghdad alone there were 12,000 looms, by the beginning of the twentieth century their number had shrunk to a few hundred. In Basra, where at the beginning of the nineteenth century there were flourishing handicrafts producing calicos and muslins, in the course of the century weaving practically disappeared. The once famous Mosul weaving industry was in complete decline. In Adamov’s words: ‘Cheap European manufactures gradually destroyed local weaving production; even the dyeing of imported bleached goods, which was carried out until recently, is now a legendary memory, for it became less profitable than bringing printed goods into the market’. Under the impact of rising imports of enameled Austrian goods, local handicraft production of copper vessels folded up; European goods replaced the products of local shoemakers, and so on. . . Only a few branches of Iraq’s handicrafts maintained their positions, and in the first place those that met the specific needs of the local market – producing national clothing, earthenware, arms, etc. – and only by extraordinary intensification of the craftsmen’s labor. ‘The town worker, even if highly skilled, usually works ten to eleven hours a day and sometimes more. One bookbinder, for example, starts work in the winter at 7 a.m. and, having had dinner, does not leave his house until 7 or 8 p.m.’ However, even with such intensive work, many craftsmen were not in a position to buy the usual raw materials and were obliged to use substitutes; for example, coppersmiths made lamps out of the discarded tin cans in which kerosene was brought to Iraq.20 § 29. 14. Traditional Industries. – Turning to the traditional and long-­established industries of the country, the effect of the War is particularly noticeable. Raw material is difficult to obtain, markets have disappeared or have become very restricted, and many industries that would have carried on through the centuries are now languishing. The traditional industries may be divided into the following six groups: – I.  Textiles. – Weaving (carpets, mats, rugs, clothes, abayas, braid); manufacture of agals, purses, tassels, plaiting of belts; dyeing, needlework, embroidery, lacemaking. II.  Building and Allied Trades. – Masonry, carpentry, joinery, cabinet-­making, mud brick-­making, lime and cement-­making. III.  Metal Industries. – Blacksmiths, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, gold and silver-­smiths, makers of peasant jewellery, cutlers, makers of camel bells. IV.  Leather and Tanning. – Handling and tanning of local skins, manufacture of boots, shoes, and of water skins. V.  Manufacture of Agricultural Implements. – Forging of ploughshares, sickles, etc., shaping of plough handles, manufacture of saddles, whips, fishing nets, manufacture of soap from local olive oil.

230  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s VI.  Domestic Utensils. – Basket making, manufacture of brooms, sieves, wooden spoons, bellows, pipes, and pipe tubes, glassmaking, manufacture of musical instruments (lutes, auodes and drums) Several local exhibitions were held at various centres in Palestine during the year, with the object of stimulating interest in these traditional crafts, and met with a certain amount of success. The state of these industries, however, has passed beyond the stage in which they can be revived by such methods alone.21 § 29. 15. Maker of pipe stems (qaṣībātī) It is the making of pipe stems. And these are branches from almond trees acquired from a village of Shabaʿā. And the long branches [are chosen] for the pipe stem, and pierced lengthwise and painted, embellished, and attached to the head of the tutun pipe. And, for the smoking of tabagh, it was made of hard horn (qurūn) – see also the activity of the Ghalāyīnī (the maker of clay pipe heads). And there was a population [engaged in] the activity, and because of this it was widespread and concerned with the painstaking process of making of the stem, and varied [forms] of embellishment. And [those making them] were rich due to the excessive price of them. And in these times there has been a reduction in the number of those practising [the craft]. And now it is changing and they make as a substitute a smaller pipe known as ‘bazz al-­sīkāra’ (lit. teat of the cigarette). And they make as well little pipes with attached cords (?) from bamboo (khayzurān) and holm oak (sindiyān), and other than them, and they shape them on a lathe and decorate them with beautiful painting. They are known as ‘al-­Bastān’. And it is a craft that in these times few practise professionally. And God is the originator of all events.22 § 29. 16. Maker of tobacco pipes (ghalāyīnī) It is the making of the tobacco pipe (ghalyūn). The pipe is made from ground and sieved earth/clay (turāb), that has been soaked [literally: fermented] overnight, and kneaded to a stiff consistency. At that time he makes the pipes with it [i.e. the clay] by means of a mold specially made for that purpose. Then those that are prepared are roasted in an oven (furn) designed for the purpose. After the removal from the oven, they are coated with paint (dihān). The most in demand are the ones painted black, red, those with gilding, and other than that. And it is a craft which, in former times, was much in demand, because the people of Syria would suck upon the ghalyūn when smoking ‘tabagh’ and the type known as ‘tutun’. And the description of the ghalyūn is [as follows]: it looks like an upright right-­angle (zāwiya) with the hollowed-­out part no larger than three fingers [i.e. 5–­6 cm] in width at its greatest extent. And the highest extremity – where the tobacco is placed – must be spacious, and the other end narrow. And they [the buyers] were much concerned that it should have a luxurious ‘[reed] pipe’ (qaṣāt) which could measure up to three cubits [i.e. c.1.95m] in length, and be ornamented with mother-­of-­pearl (ṣadaf) and fine painting. And it was pierced (mathqūba) at the first [i.e. lower] end of it for attachment to the ghalyūn, with the second [upper] end [of the reed pipe] having a mouthpiece made of a piece of costly ‘amber’ (kahrabāʾ). Or it [the mouthpiece] could be crafted of gold or silver, and, thus, become a source of pride [for the owner]. However, now – in general – the people of Damascus do not concern themselves with

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it [the ghalyūn]. Only the bedouin still use them, and this [only] because they do not know how to roll cigarettes, and so continue with the ghalyūn. . . 23 notes   1 For example, Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy; Quataert (ed.), Manufacturing in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.   2 For example, the descriptions of European goods in the markets of Cairo and Nablus provided by Edward Lane and Mary Rogers, respectively. See Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians, p. 313; Rogers, Domestic Life in Palestine, p. 260.   3 On the transfer of dyeing technology to Europe in the eighteenth century, see Hanna, Ottoman Egypt, pp. 95–125.   4 See essays collected in Ashtor, Technology, Industry, and Trade: The Levant versus Europe, 1250-­1500.   5 For the discussion of the later history of the Middle Eastern sugar industry, see Ashtor, ‘Levantine Sugar Industry in the Later Middle Ages’; Milwright, An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology, pp. 72–3. The last phase of paper production is discussed in Bloom, Paper before Print, pp. 203–26.   6 See examples of revivalist art discussed in Vernoit, Occidentalism: Islamic Art in the 19th Century; Behrens-­Abouseif and Vernoit (eds), Islamic Art in the 19th Century.   7 For example, see Floor, Industrialization in Iran, 1900–­1914.   8 Lane-­Poole, The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, p. 252 (slightly adapted).   9 Nuʿman al-­Qasatili, al-­Rawḍat al-­ghannāʾ Dimashq al-­fayḥāʾ (Beirut, 1876/1299; Reprinted, Beirut: Dar al-­Raʾid al-­ʿArabi, 1982), p. 123. Translated in Issawi (ed.), The Fertile Crescent, 1800–1914, pp. 387–8 (slightly adapted). According to Issawi (p. 384), al-­sayyid is used to refer to a Muslim and khwāja to a Christian. Ālāja is cloth with the warp made of silk and the weft of cotton. 10 British Admiralty. Naval Intelligence Division, Palestine and Jordan, p. 269. 11 Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, pp. 376–7. 12 Tanavoli, Persian Flatweaves, pp. 305–7 (slightly adapted from the original). The term for robe is ʿabā. 13 Einsler, ‘Das Töpferhandwerk bei den Bauernfrauen von Ramallah’, p. 258. 14 McCoan, Egypt, p. 321. 15 James Underwood, ‘Naranjestan’, Kayhan International (19 March 1969), p. 4. Reproduced in Gluck and Siver (eds), Surveyors of Persian Art, pp. 486–7. 16 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 215 (Chapter 142). Translated by the author. 17 Bazantay, Enquête sur l’artisanat à Antioche, pp. 37–8. 18 Kalter et al. (eds), The Arts and Crafts of Syria, p. 76. Cf. comments on changes in the traditional sūq in Tripoli, Lebanon, in Gulick, ‘Work and Commerce in Tripoli’, p. 454. 19 Extracts from Rapport de la Commission du Commerce et de l’Industrie (Cairo, 1922), pp. 43–52. Translated in Issawi (ed.), The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800-­1914, pp. 454–7 (slightly adapted from original). 20 Excerpt from L. N. Kotlov, Natsionalno-­osvoboditelnoe Vosstanie 1920 goda v Irake (Moscow, 1958), pp. 49–56. Translated in Issawi (ed.), The Fertile Crescent, pp. 397–8. The two quotes in Kotlov’s text come from A. Adamov, Irak Arabskii (St Petersburg, 1912), p. 513; and R. Coke, Baghdad, the City of Peace (London, 1927), p. 286. 21 Anon., Report on Palestine Administration. July, 1920–­December, 1921, Government of Palestine Report (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1922), pp. 41–2. Reproduced in Jarman (ed.), Palestine and Transjordan Administration Reports, 1918–­1948. Volume 1: 1918–­1924, pp. 239–40. 22 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 356 (Chapter 280). Translated by the author. 23 Al-­Qasimi et al., Dictionnaire des métiers damascains, p. 330 (Chapter 252). Translated by the author with corrections by Mahmoud Hawari.

Glossary

ʿAbd (Arabic): Slave. Adab (Arabic): The genre of belles-­lettres, or elegant and entertaining literature. Akhī bābā (Persian): Head of a guild (q.v.) (see also shaykh). ʿAlam (Arabic): A banner, which in Iran can be made from steel. ʿAlams of this type are employed for ceremonial purposes, including ʿAshūra (q.v.). Alloy: A mixture of one or more metals, or of a metal and a non-­metallic element such as carbon. Alum: A group of mineral compounds that are employed in craft activities, including the preparation of glazes and dye fixers in textile manufacture. Amīr al-­muʾminīn (Arabic): ‘Commander of the faithful’. The title employed by the caliph. Anna (ānā): Indian coin, equal to one-­sixteenth of a rupee. The anna was also employed in commerce in Arabia. ʿArīf (Arabic): An official designated by the muḥtasib (q.v.) to oversee the activities of artisans within a guild. ʿAshūra (Arabic): The commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn b. ʿAli, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, at the battle of Karbalaʾ in 680. Bayt shaʿr (Arabic): Literally, ‘house of hair’, referring to the tent dwellings used by Bedouin in the Middle East. Bazaar (Persian: bāzār): The market area of a town or city. Bedouin (Arabic: badū): Nomadic peoples living in arid and semi-­arid regions of the Islamic world. Billawr or ballūr (Arabic): Rock crystal, but can also be used to refer to high quality crystal glass. Borax (Arabic: tinkār): Sodium borate. This water soluble mineral has numerous applications, including the extraction of gold from gold-­bearing ores. Brass: An alloy made principally of copper and zinc. Bronze: An alloy made principally of copper and tin. Calamus (Latin; Greek: kálamos; Arabic: qalam): Pen. Clamp: A fire covered in turf sometimes employed in firing handmade pottery. Corvée: Labour undertaken in lieu of tax. Cullet: Broken glass, often melted down to make new glass. Damascening: Steel containing wavy lines of lighter and darker metal. Caused by mixing varying amounts of carbon through the materials heated in a crucible to produce an ingot of steel. The name suggests an association with Damascus, although there is little evidence to support the production of patterned steel in the city. Damask: Patterned fabrics, particularly made in silk, that are reversible (with patterns on either side). The name derives from the city of Damascus. Dervish (Arabic: darwīsh): Adherent to a Sufi (q.v.) group. Dhirāʿ (in English, sometimes as dhirra): Unit of length equivalent to a cubit. Varies across the Middle East from 0.56 to 0.8m.

glossary 

233

Dīnār (Arabic; English: dinar): Most common form of gold coin issued in the Islamic world. Dirham (Arabic; English: sometimes as dirhem): Silver coin (weight = 3.12 g). Distaff: Tool used for holding the unspun fibres during the process of spinning. Dīwān (Arabic): (1) Office of state; (2) account book used by a state treasury; and (3) collection of poetry by a single writer. Fatwā (Arabic): A religious pronouncement made by a jurist or other religious authority. Firmān or faramān (Arabic; Persian: farmān): Decree or edict. Commonly employed during the Ottoman Empire. Flux: A chemical compound that reduces the temperature at which silica, the chief ingredient in glass and ceramic glazes, vitrifies. Alkalis and lead compounds are common fluxes in traditional Islamic manufacturing practices. Forging: The process of heating metal (particularly iron and steel) and shaping using hammer blows. Fulling: Cleaning woollen textiles of their dirt and natural oils. Fulling also expands the volume of the finished cloth. Futuwwa (Arabic): An association of young Muslim men. These are sometimes connected with groups of artisans. Geniza (Hebrew): The practice of storing discarded documents within a synagogue. Gimblet or gimlet: Small drill used in woodworking. Girih or gereh (Persian): Literally, ‘knot’, referring to complex geometric interlace patterns found in Islamic art and architecture. Greater Syria (Arabic: Bilād al-­Shām): A region encompassing the modern polities of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and parts of southeastern Turkey. Through much of the Islamic period, Damascus functioned as the capital of this region. Grog: Potsherds ground up and added to a ceramic paste as a form of temper. Guild (Arabic: ṭarīqa and ṭāʾifa): A professional association for artisans. Gypsum: Calcium sulphate dihydrate. A soft rock that is commonly fired in order to make a component part of stucco (q.v.). Ḥadīth (Arabic): Written records of sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. The ḥadīth (plural: aḥādīth) form the basis of Islamic law (see Sharīʿa). Ḥājib (Arabic): Doorkeeper. Hajj (Arabic: ḥajj): The annual pilgrimage to Mecca, and one of the five ‘pillars’ of Islam. Hajji (Arabic: ḥajjī): A person who has performed the hajj (q.v.). Handasa (Arabic): The practice of engineering or architecture (see also muhandis). Handmade pottery: Ceramic vessels made without a kickwheel. These vessels are usually assembled from coils of clay that are smoothed into shape by hand. Hijaz (Arabic: Ḥijāz): The western side of the Arabian peninsula, containing the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina. Ḥirfa (Arabic): Craft (see also ṣināʿa). Ḥisba (Arabic): Accountability, and referring to the responsibility of Muslim governments to ‘command right and forbid wrong’. In the present context, ḥisba can be defined broadly as market law. A branch of Sharīʿa law (q.v.), overseen in Islamic urban centres by the muḥtasib (q.v.). Ikat: A decorative technique involving the resist dyeing of thread prior to weaving. Inlay: The hammering of wire or sheet metal onto the surface of a metal object. Most commonly, this takes the form of silver inlaid into copper alloy vessels. Kaʿba (Arabic; English: Kaaba): The cuboid ritual sanctuary located in Mecca. The Kaʿba provides the orientation (qibla) for prayer and is the focus for the Muslim pilgrimage (ḥajj). Khān (Arabic): Caravanserai, a building in which merchants could stay when travelling. Kilim or gilīm (Persian): Flat-­weave rugs produced in Iran and neighbouring regions. Kufic: A form of Arabic characterised by its rectilinear character and sparing use of diacritical marks. Kufic is one of the earliest formal Arabic scripts and was most commonly used for the writing of the Qurʾan and for inscriptions from the late seventh to the eleventh century. Lime: Calcium oxide, made by burning limestone (calcium carbonate) at intense heat. This material has numerous applications, including the creation of mortar.

234  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Lustre-­painting: A specialised decorative practice employed on glass and, more commonly, glazed pottery. Lustre comprises a very thin layer of silver and copper on the top of the glazed surface and possesses a natural iridescence. Madīna (Arabic): Town or city. A madīna must contain a congregational mosque (Arabic: masjid al-­jamīʿ). Marble: A crystalline form of limestone. Also refers to any form of hard, decorative stone that can be polished to a shine. Mashrabiyya: A projecting window made from wooden lattice panels. Miḥrāb (Arabic): A recess located in the wall of the prayer hall of a mosque oriented toward Mecca (i.e. the qibla). The miḥrāb is often the focus for the most lavish decoration within the interior space of a mosque. Minbar (Arabic): The pulpit of a mosque from which the sermon is given after the congregation prayer on Friday. Usually located next to the miḥrāb (q.v.). Miṣr (Arabic): Originally referring to the garrison settlements (pl. amṣār) established after the conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Many of the amṣār later grew into major cities. Mithqāl: A weight equal to 24 qirāṭ (q.v.), usually slightly less than 5 grams. Muʿallim (Arabic): Master of a given craft. Mud brick: The practice of making bricks from a mixture of clay-­rich mud, sand and chopped straw or reeds. Bricks of this type are dried in the sun, rather than being baked in a kiln. Muhandis (Arabic): Engineer, but also refers to an architect. Muḥtasib (Arabic): Market inspector. Responsible for enforcing ḥisba (q.v.) in a town or city. Muftī (Arabic): A senior religious official who gives opinions on religious and legal matters. Muqarnas (Arabic): Complex stalactite vaulting. This decorative mode first appears in the Middle East in the late eleventh century. Naphtha (Arabic: nafṭ): Flammable petroleum distillate. Nisba (Arabic): An epithet added to a name, usually indicating where the person was born. Naskh (Arabic): A cursive script of Arabic that is commonly employed in Qurʾans and inscriptions from the eleventh century onward. Natron: Mineral rich in sodium and calcium. Used as a flux (q.v.) in glass making and glaze making. Noria (Arabic: naʿūra): Waterwheel, commonly made from wood. These wheels are often employed to extract water from a river and deposit it into irrigation canals. Ore: Rock that is rich in one or more metallic elements. Ore has to be smelted (q.v.) in order to extract the metals contained within (see also slag). Orpiment: Arsenic sulphide. This yellow mineral is employed in the preparation of pigments. Ostad (also oostad): See ustādh. Pattern book: Book providing guidelines for the range of different decorative motifs or structural forms that can be created within a given workshop. Such volumes might also be consulted by patrons when commissioning an object or building. Pewter: Soft alloy composed of tin and lead. The lead may be substituted for mixtures of other metals, such as copper, antimony and bismuth. Piastre: Silver coin used during the Ottoman period (see also qarsh). Pisé (also, rammed earth): A construction method that involves piling layers of clay-­rich mud in successive layers. Often used in the construction of walls in agricultural areas. Plying: Connecting together spun threads. Plying is typically done in the opposite direction to spinning (see s-­spun and z-­spun). Porcelain: Highly fired kaolin-­rich ceramics that have a pale, stone-­like consistency. Porcelain was invented in China, though forms of porcelain were also produced in Europe from the eighteenth century onward. Potash: Potassium-­rich substances, either derived from mineral sources or the burning of plants. Employed extensively in glass and ceramic glazes. Pseudo-­epigraphy: Decorative elements on objects and buildings that imitate the visual characteristics of formal script. Qāḍī (Arabic): A Muslim judge. Qanāt (Arabic/Persian): Underground canals used to transport water from aquifers to settlements or cultivated areas. Qarsh or gharsh (Arabic/Ottoman Turkish): Silver coin, also called a piastre.

glossary 

235

Qaysāriyya (Arabic): A large building containing stores and workshops. These buildings were often under government control. Qinṭār (Arabic): Unit of measurement, comprising 100 raṭls (q.v.). Qirāṭ or qīrāṭ (Arabic): Unit of measurement, equating to one-­sixteenth of a dirham (i.e. 0.195 gram). Qiṭʿa (Arabic): Piece or section of something. Also refers to a small silver coin. Quarter (Arabic: rabʿ): An area of a town or city dominated by a specific confessional or ethnic group. Traditional Islamic urban settlements were divided into quarters. Quenching: Rapid cooling (in water) in order to affect the properties of a metal object. Quicksilver: Mercury. Qurʾan (English: Koran): The holy book of Islam. Believed by Muslims to be the final revelation of God (Allah) transmitted to the Prophet Muhammad. Raṭl (Arabic): A measurement of weight. In most of Syria the raṭl is 3.2kg, while in Egypt it is 0.45kg. Reduction firing: The practice of baking ceramic vessels using fuels that create smoke. This results in an atmosphere rich in carbon monoxide. Reduction-­fired ceramics are often grey in colour. Rock crystal: The purest form of quartz, highly valued for the carving of small containers and ornaments. S-­spun: Thread that has been spun in an anticlockwise direction (see also z-­spun). Ṣanīʿ (Arabic): Journeyman artisan. Shādūf (Arabic): A simple water-­lifting device comprising a counterweight lever and a bucket or bag. The noria (q.v.) is another common water-­lifting mechanism. Shāhnāma (Persian): Epic poem composed by Firdawsi (d. 1025). Sharīʿa (Arabic): Islamic law. The branch of Islamic law most concerned with craft activities is ḥisba (q.v.). Shaykh (English: sheykh or sheikh): Old man or chief. Can also refer to the head of a guild. Shīʿa (Arabic): From the term shīʿat ʿAlī (‘the party of ʿAli’), referring to those Muslims who recognise ʿAli and his family line as the true successors to the Prophet as leaders of the Muslim community. These Muslims are also known in English as the Shiah or Shiites. Sijill (Arabic): Scroll or register. Ṣināʿa (Arabic): Can be translated simply as craft, but refers to all activities from which it is possible to derive all, or part, of a person’s living. Ṣīnī (Arabic): Literally, ‘of China’, but can refer to fine ceramics (such as porcelain and celadon (or greenware)) and other items imported from Southeast Asia. Slag: The waste left over after the smelting of ore (q.v.) for its metal content. Slag could sometimes be resmelted in order to extract additional metal. Soap ashes: Alkaline ashes made by burning plants, such as those of the genus salicornia. Rich in potassium and sodium, these ashes can be employed as a flux (q.v.) for glass and glazes. Squinch: A concave structural form deriving from ancient Iranian architecture. Steatite: A soft, greyish stone used in making vessels and other objects. Steel: An alloy principally made up of iron and carbon. Stonepaste (also fritware or, less correctly, faïence): An artificial ceramic paste typically composed of white clay, ground glass and ground quartz. Stucco: A form of plaster made using fired and powdered gypsum (q.v.). Sufi (Arabic: Ṣūfī): Muslim mystic (see also dervish). Sunni (Arabic: Sunnī): Those Muslims who follow the sunna (exemplary practice) of the Prophet Muhammad. Often called Orthodox Muslims. Sūq (Arabic; English: souk): The market of a town or city. Includes both the selling and the manufacturing of goods (see also bazaar). Sūra (Arabic): Chapter in the Qurʾan (q.v.). Ṭabaqa (Arabic): A form of short biography. These were usually assembled into longer encyclopaedic texts. Ṭāʾifa (Arabic): Guild (q.v., see also ṭarīqa). Tanning: Processes involved in producing leather from animal hides. A variety of chemical agents are employed during the stages of tanning, including lime (q.v.) and types of tree bark. Tannūr (Arabic): Oven or kiln. Ṭarīqa (Arabic): Guild (see also ṭāʾifa).

236  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Thuluth or thulth (Arabic): A curvilinear form of Arabic script that came into common use during the eleventh century. Tinker: An itinerant artisan who makes a living from mending tools and utensils. Ṭirāz (Arabic): The practice of adding embroidered inscriptions onto textiles. Tūmān (Persian; English: toman): Gold coin. Ulema (Arabic: ʿulamāʾ): Learned scholar, referring to a member of the religious intellectual elite. Ustādh (Arabic): Master of a workshop. ʿUthmānī (Arabic): Silver coin used during the Ottoman period. Waqf or waqfiyya (Arabic): Charitable bequest, usually established to support the running of a Muslim religious institution. Wimble: A brace used when drilling materials such as wood and stone. Yurt (Turkic languages: yūrt; Mongolian: ger): Round tent with a wooden frame covered with felt or skins. Used by nomadic peoples in Central Asia. Z-­spun: Thread that has been spun in a clockwise direction (see also s-­spun). Zilu (Persian: zīlū): Flat-­weave rug, often made with blue and white threads, comprising complex designs, including inscriptions.

Names of craft activities in Arabic and Persian

Compiled by Marcus Milwright and Seyedhamad Yeganehfarzand Note: The Arabic and Persian terms given below do not represent an exhaustive list, but are meant as a starting point for a deeper examination of the primary sources on this topic. Numerous homonyms can be located, and translation is also complicated by the existence of regional variations for specific terms.1 English

Arabic Persian

Architect Basket maker Blacksmith Brick maker Cabinet maker Carpenter Charcoal burner Clog maker Cobbler Comb maker Copper worker Decorator of metal vessels Dyer Engineer Founder Furrier Glassworker/glazier Goldsmith Jeweller Mason Potter Painter/house decorator Papermaker Saddler

miʿmār sallāl ḥaddād ṭawwāb ṣanādīqī najjār faḥḥām qabāqībī ḥadhdhāʾ mashīṭātī naḥḥās naqqāsh ṣabbāgh muhandis sakkāb farrāʾ zajjāj dhahabī ṣāʾigh bannāʾ fakhkhār naqqāsh warrāq sarrāj or surūjī

miʿmār sabad-­bāf āhangar/naʿlband khisht-­paz/ājur-­paz jaʿbih-­sāz/ṣandūq-­sāz durūdgar/najjār zughāl-­sāz * * * pīnih-­dūz shānih-­tarāsh misgar qalam-­zan rangraz muhandis rīkhtih-­gar pūstīn-­duz shīshih-­gar/ābgīnih-­sāz zargar jawāhir-­sāz bannā sufālgar naqqāsh kāghazgar/kāghaz-­sāz ̄ ̄ zīngar/zīn-­ sāz

238  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Sawyer Sieve maker Skinner Swordsmith/armourer Tailor Tanner Tinner Weaver Woodturner

nashshār gharābīlī jallād suyūfī khayyāṭ dabbāgh samkarī ḥayyāk kharrāṭ

arrih-­kish alak-­sāz pustkan shamshīr-­sāz/shamshīr-­gīr khayyāṭ/darzī dabbāgh/charmgar sīmkār/ṣaffār bāfandih kharrāṭ/chūb-­tarāsh

note 1 The list of Persian terms offers some alternative words, with the first being the one in most common use in modern speech and writing.

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Index

people, dynasties and groups Abbasid caliphate, 167, 178 ʿAbd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, 216 Abduh, Muhammad, 179 Abu al-Fadl ibn ʿAbd al-Karim, 51, 52 Abu al-Qasim, 2, 95, 114 Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi, 170–1 Abu Mayitain, 206 Abu Saʿid Madaʾini, 216–7 Adam, 20, 23, 46, 167, 171 Aeneze, 37–8, 79–80, 155 ʿAli Bey ʿAbbasi (Domingo Badía y Leblich), 86 ʿAli ibn Abi Talib, 152, 157, 161, 195 Allah, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 41–2, 46, 47, 51, 102, 103, 124, 149, 153, 171, 174, 175, 178, 182, 210, 216, 218, 230 Aqa ʿAli Naqqash, 183 Artuqid dynasty, 205 ʿAwn bin Abu Junayfa, 180 Ayyubid sultanate, 102 ʿAzm, Khalil al-, 11

British Mandate of Palestine, 223 Bryson, 20 Bukhari, Muhammad al-, 179 Burckhardt, John Lewis (Johann Ludwig), 141, 153 Buwayhids (Buyids), 154

Bakhtiari tribe, 76 Banu Musa, 205, 206 Baqum (Enbaqom), 129 Barfati, Ahmad al-, 175 Bar Hebraeus, Gregorius, 167 Bedouin, 37, 72, 75, 76, 79–80, 141, 153, 155, 216, 225, 231 Bell, Gertrude, 171 Bertrandon de la Brocquière, 102 Bihzad, Kemal al-Din, 179, 184 Biruni, Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad b. Ahmad al-, 14, 65, 81, 102

Fabri, Felix, 72, 136 Fathy, Hassan, 190 Fatimid caliphate, 4, 114, 179 Fellahin, 110, 226 Fraser, James, 81

Chardin, Sir John, 31, 108, 122, 130, 190, 216 Christians, 6, 34, 57, 89, 107 Commission des Sciences et Arts d’Égypte, 3 Copts, 154, 178 Crowfoot, Grace, 113 Curzon, George, 87 David, king (Daʾud), 101, 102 De Clavijo, Ruy González, 30 Denon, Dominique Vivant, 3 Doughty, Charles, 58, 87, 108 Euclid, 51

Galen see Jalinus Geber see Jabir ibn Hayyan Ghaybi, 50 God see Allah Goldsmid, Sir Frederic, 91, 92n13 gypsies, 6, 9

index  Hamde al-Dalʿab al-Fathi, 113 Heron of Alexandria, 205 Hisham ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (caliph Hisham I), 32 Holbein, Hans, 157 Husayn b. ʿAli, 101 Husaynid Bahadur Khan, 184 Ibn ʿAbbas, 180 Ibn al-Basis, 173 Ibn al-Bawwab, Abu al-Hasan ʿAli b. Hilal, 165, 170, 171, 174, 175, 181 Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani, 81 Ibn al-Nadim, Abu al-Faraj Muhammad b. Ishaq, 166 Ibn al-Qasim, 20–1 Ibn al-Wahid, 173 Ibn ʿArabi, Abu ʿAbdallah b. ʿAli b. Muhammad, 40 Ibn ʿAziz, 181 Ibn Bassam, Muhammad b. Ahmad, 122 Ibn Battuta, Abu ʿAbdallah Muhammad b. ʿAbdallah, 216 Ibn Ghaybi, 50 Ibn Khaldun, ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad, 8, 20 Ibn Khurdadhbih, Abu al-Qasim ʿUbaydallah b. ʿAbdallah, 169n10 Ibn Muqla, Abu ʿAli Muhammad b. ʿAli, 170, 171, 175 Idrisi, Abu ʿAbdallah Muhammad al-, 136 ʿIsa ibn Maryam see Jesus Christ Jabarti, ʿAbd al-Rahman b. Hasan b. Burhan alDin al-, 40, 42 Jabir ibn Hayyan, 81–2 Jahiz, Abu ʿUthman ʿAmr b. al-Bahr al-, 4, 20, 171, 177n7, 216 Jalinus, 52 Jawbari, ʿAbd al-Rahman b. ʿUmar al-, 81 Jazari, Abu al-ʿIzz Ismaʿil b. al-Razzaz al-, 95, 205 Jesus Christ, 20, 132 Jews, 6, 99, 107, 139, 149 Jibraʾil (Gabriel), 47 Judas Iscariot, 44 Karaki, al-, governor of Alexandria, 57, 59 Khwandamir, Muhammad, 51 Kindi, Abu Yusuf ibn Ishaq al-Sabbah al-, 102, 103 Kirghiz, 79 Lane-Poole, Stanley, 40 Lawrence, Thomas Edward, 102

255

Leo Africanus (Hasan b. Muhammad al-Wazzan al-Fasi), 40 Lotto, Lorenzo, 157 Majnun, 45 Malik ibn Anas, 23, 108, 109 Mamluk sultanate, 95, 153, 222 Maʾmun, caliph al-, 205 Mansur, caliph al-, 30, 32 Maqrizi, Taqi al-Din Ahmad b. ʿAli al-, 20, 166, 179, 215 Marsh Arabs, 73, 146, 189, 206 Mawlana Sultan ʿAli, 166 Mazyad ibn ʿAli, 103 Mirak Naqqash (Amir Ruhallah), 179, 184 Muʿawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, caliph, 195 Muhammad, Prophet, 6, 11, 19, 22, 41–2, 44, 46, 49, 52, 53, 117, 171, 180, 189, 190 Muqtadir, caliph al-, 205 Musa ibn Shakir, 205 Mushqin Kalam, 176, 177n19 Muslims, 11, 14, 19, 44, 107, 153, 181 Mustafa al-Asbaʿi, 176 Mustansir, caliph al-, 181 Muʿtasim, caliph al-, 30, 33 Napoleon Bonaparte, 3 Nasir-i Khusraw, Abu Muʿin Hamid al-Din, 14, 65, 114 Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun, sultan al-, 50, 152 Nestorians, 178 Nseiri, Maurice, 37 Nseiri, Musa, 37 Nuh (Noah), 47 Oliphant, Laurence, 190 Ottoman sultanate, 15, 76, 95 Parrhasios, 179 Paul, saint, 155 Phidias, 9 Philo of Byzantium, 205 Pliny the Elder, 179 Plutarch, 9 Pope, Arthur, 200, 201 Qadi Ahmad, 166 Qajar dynasty, 179 Qasem Khel, 144 Qasimi, Jamal al-Din, 11 Qasimi, Muhammad Saʿid al-, 11 Qasir, al-, 181 Qayt Bay, sultan, 202 Qudsi, Elias, 40

256  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Rashid al-Din al-Hamadhani, 166 Ruggles, Dede Fairchild, 2 Rujkhani, 226–7 Rustam Aqqoyunlu, 57 Ruzbih b. Buzurgumihr, 194 Saʿd b. Abi Waqqas, 74, 194–5 Safavid dynasty, 223 Sahnun b. Saʿid b. Habib al-Tanukhi, 20 Saʿid b. Humayd, 174 Salah al-Din (Saladin), 102 Salih ibn Qudwa al-Zaini, chief qāḍī of Jerusalem, 219–20 Sarakhsi, Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Abi Sahl Abu Bakr al-, 21, 86 Senosy, Ahmad Mahmoud el, 180, 184 Seth, 41, 171 Shah ʿAbbas I, 51, 52, 195 Shah Tahmasp, Abu al-Muzaffar, 184 Shaikh Nasir, 206, 209–210 Shaybani, Muhammad b. al-Hassan al-, 20, 22, 24 Shaykh Muhammad al-Imami al-Harawi, 57, 59 Sigoli, Simone, 1, 87 Solomon, king (Sulayman), 101 Stark, Freya, 87 Sultan Husayn Mirza, 184 Sultan Yaʿqub, 57 Sykes, Percy, 88 Tahvildar, Mirza Husayn Khan, 11, 122 Thaʿalibi, Abu Mansur ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muhammad al-, 166

Tifashi, Ahmad al-, 75 Timur Lenk (Tamerlane), 33, 90 ʿUmar ibn al-Farid, 40 ʿUmar b. al-Khattab (caliph ʿUmar I), 41, 44, 73–4, 194–5 ʿUmar Khayyam, 41 Umayyad caliphate, 167, 178 Umayyad caliphate (Spain), 4 Usama ibn Munqidh, 171 Ustad ʿAli Muhammad, 114 Ustad Ghaffur, 203 Ustad Nasrallah, 203 ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan, caliph, 153 Volney, Constantin François Chasseboeuf, comte de, 72 Walid ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (caliph al-Walid I), 20 Walid ibn Yazid (caliph al-Walid II), 30, 32 Wulff, Hans, 12, 141, 200 Yaqut al-Hamawi, 152 Yaqut al-Mustaʿsimi, 170 Yazuri, al-, Egyptian governor, 181 Yusuf (Joseph), prophet, 167 Zeus, 9 Zeuxis, 179 Ziyad ibn Salih, 166

locations, events and objects Aden, 67–8, 130, 133–4, 136, 139, 203 Afghanistan, 4, 50, 79, 81, 141, 190 Africa, 1, 134 Agga, 136 Ahmedabad, 91 Akhmim, 149, 224, 228 ʿAkka (Acre, ʿAkko), 117 Aleppo, 29, 86, 228 Alexandria, 35, 57, 59, 130, 149, 150, 152 Dār al-Ṭirāẓ, 152, 154 Aliabad, 158 ʿAnaiza, 55 Anatolia, 129 Antioch, 4, 33, 58, 206, 223 Arabia see Arabian peninsula Arabian peninsula, 4, 55, 66, 70, 76, 77, 86, 108, 122, 130, 141, 153 Ardestan, 118

Babylon, 67 Badavar river, 73 Baghdad, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 67, 73, 86, 88, 117, 120, 129, 143, 165, 175, 227, 229 Bayt al-Hikma, 205 Kazemain shrine, 227 Bahnasa, 149 Balqaʾ, 79, 155 Baluchistan, 114 Basra, 20, 32, 33, 50, 66, 69, 73, 229 Beirut, 75, 78 Beni Suweyf, 224 Bethlehem, 76 Black Death, 222 Bobrinsky Bucket, 50 Bohemia, 222 Bombay (Mumbai), 68, 88 British Mandate in Palestine, 4 Bukhara, 70, 90

index  Bursa, 103 Bushire, 91 Byzantium see Istanbul Cairo, 31, 35, 42, 50, 65, 67, 69, 86, 95, 107, 114, 118, 146, 166, 190, 202, 215, 216, 224, 226 Barqiyya, 215 Central Asia, 1, 4, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 86, 157, 189, 205 Chal Sotor, 53–4 China, 1, 2, 53, 75, 123, 165, 166, 182 Constantinople see Istanbul Cyprus, 173, 174 Damascus, 1, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 40, 49, 52, 53, 73, 74, 75, 76, 86, 87, 89, 90, 98, 99, 101, 103, 107, 122, 123, 133, 136, 143, 171, 179, 182, 202, 216, 224, 227, 230 Bab al-Faraj, 227 Bab Saraya al-ʿAskariyya, 174 Darwishiyya district, 133 Great Mosque, 52 Maliyya, al-, 175 Shaghur district, 123 Damietta, 67, 150, 152, 154, 224 Dankali coast, 138 Darb Zubayda, 205 Dartmoor, 73 Deir ez-Zor (Dayr al-Zur), 228 Demenhur, 224 Diogenes, 180 Diyarbakır (ʿAmid), 95 Djof, 37 East Africa, 1, 129 Egypt, 4, 14, 33, 35, 50, 65, 66, 72, 73, 88, 95, 117, 122, 132, 137, 139, 149, 152, 172, 179, 180, 181, 189, 190, 192, 196, 215, 222, 223, 224, 226, 228 England, 124, 182, 225 Euphrates river, 189 Europe, 1, 72, 75, 90, 91, 101, 110, 122, 132, 222 Fadleya canal, 196 Faqusiyya, 66 Fayyum, 87 Fez, Bu ʿInaniyya Madrasa, 205 Flood, the, 167 France, 225 Gaza, 114, 117, 223 Geelan province, 223, 225 Genoa, 152, 173 Gourna, 190 Greater Syria, 4, 75, 76, 87, 95, 114, 189, 222 Gulf States, 4

257

Haifa, 225 Haʾil, 58, 60, 61, 87, 88, 104 Hamadhan, 194 Hawran, 79 Hedjaz see Hijaz Heliub, 73 Herat, 50, 53, 70, 190, 195 Hermitage Museum, 50 Hijaz, 86, 117, 142 Hillah, 67 Hira, 50, 51, 190, 194 Hit, 65, 67 Homs (Hims), 153, 154–5 Hyderabad, 91 Iberian peninsula, 1 Ikhmim see Akhmim India, 70, 77, 101 Indian subcontinent, 1 Indonesia, 1 Iran, 4, 43, 52, 54, 70, 75, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 87, 90, 104, 110, 113, 122, 123, 124, 150, 157, 159, 179, 182, 190, 200, 202, 206, 216, 225–6 Iraq, 4, 50, 73, 137, 146, 189, 190, 195, 199, 227, 229 Isfahan, 86, 118, 122, 123, 124, 130, 133, 200 Shaykh Lutfallah Mosque, 200 İskenderun (formerly Alexandretta), 129 Israel, 4, 136 Istanbul, 57, 88, 91, 149, 152 Topkapı Library, 57 Italy, 225 Iznik, 30, 113 Jabal ʿAdhra Jaffa, 117 Jauf, 88 Jebel Shammar, 88 Jerusalem, 34, 49, 57, 76, 86, 114, 117, 120, 147, 149, 216, 219–20 Aqsa Mosque, 216, 220 Jaffa Gate, 117 Khan al-Wakala, 219–20 Jidda, 66, 69–70 Jordan, 4, 10, 81 Jupar, 159 Kandahar, 70, 81 Karbalaʾ, 86, 227 Imam Hussain shrine, 227 Kashan, 113, 147 Kashmir, 69 Kerman see Kirman Khalil (Hebron), 86, 147, 149, 219

258  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Khurasan, 167 Kirman, 51, 54, 88, 91 Koom see Qum Kufa, 32, 33, 73, 170, 190, 194–5 Kufr Lebbad, 113 Latakia, 33 Lebanon, 4, 77 Levant, 52, 89 Maʿala, 130, 133–4 Madaʾin, 60 Maʾdan, 137 Madinat al-Salam see Baghdad Malabar, 134 Manchester, 225 Mansura, 224 Marseilles, 222 Mashhad, 70, 86, 87, 90, 227 Imam Reza shrine, 227 Mecca, 51, 53, 55, 86, 88, 114, 129, 178 Kaʿba, 54, 129, 184, 233 Mina, 88 Muʿamala, 117 Well of Zamzam, 87, 88, 114, 117 Medain see Madaʾin Medina, 86, 178 Mediterranean, 1, 72, 76, 222 Meissen factory, Dresden, 222 Mejdel, 224, 225 Merv, 101 Meshed see Mashhad Mesopotamia, 205 Miʾdan, 137 Middle East, 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 29, 72, 86, 101, 102, 108, 114, 129, 157, 165, 166, 178, 179, 189, 222 Mohammediyeh, 223, 225–6 Morocco, 205 Mosul, 49, 229 Najaf, 138 Nakhlak, 82–3 Naranjestan, 227 Natanz, 200 Nayin (Naʿin), 118, 225 Nazareth, 132 Nile delta, 87 Nile river, 65, 69, 189, 196, 226 Nishapur, 81, 90 North Africa, 1, 10, 129 Old Cairo see Cairo Olympia, 9 Oman, 4 Orontes river, 209

Palermo, Cappella Palatina, 199 Palestine, 65, 68, 129, 132, 153, 223, 224–5, 226, 230 Palestine Authority, 4 Palm Sunday, 136 Palmyra (Tadmur), 80, 155 Persia see Iran Persian Gulf, 70, 75, 129 Pisa, 1 Qahira see Cairo Qina, 228–9 Qus, 149 Ramla, 65 Ramsar, 161 Raqqa, 50, 113 Russia, 168 Saʿid, desert of, 149 Samarqand, 46, 165, 166 Samarra, 30, 129, 199 Dar al-Khilafa, 199 Saudi Arabia, 4, 51, 58 Sawad, 33 Serçe Limanı wreck, 122 Sfina, 114 Shabaʿa, 230 Shibam, 40, 44, 130, 134, 190 Shiraz, 87, 90–1, 122, 227 Sicily, 166 Sidon, 87, 90 Singapore, 203 Siraf, 129 Socotra, 173 South Kensington Museum, London, 125, 202 Spain, 1, 205 Sri Lanka, 1 Staffordshire Potteries, 222 Suyut, 149 Syria, 4, 50, 72, 76, 87, 103, 113, 122, 153, 171, 179, 223, 224, 225, 228 Tabariyya (Tiberias), 136 Tabriz, 120, 157, 159–60, 184 Talas, battle of, 166 Tarrana, 66 Taymaʾ, 60, 61, 88, 111 Tehran, 43, 90, 118, 227 Golestan Palace, 227 Niavaran Palace, Shemiran, 227 Teyma see Taymaʾ Tigris river, 129, 189 Tinnis, 150, 152, 153, 154

index  Turkestan, 46 Turkey, 4, 15, 30, 35, 70, 95, 113, 122, 225 Turkmenistan, 101 Ulm, 136 Upper Egypt see Egypt Venice, 123, 152

Wadi ʿAraba, 81 Wadi Faynan, 81 Wadi Natrun, 67 Yemen, 4, 31, 58, 77, 143, 190, 200 Zabol, 116 Zanj, 69 Zavareh, 226

terms adab, 11, 40, 41, 232 akhī bābā, 34, 232 ʿalam, 101, 232 ʿarīf, 19, 30, 34, 124, 153, 232 ʿAshūra, 101, 232 automata, 205 bazaar see bazār bazār, 29, 232 corvée, 7, 30, 232 Day of Resurrection see qawm al-qiyāma dervish see Sufi dhirāʿ, 131, 192–3, 232 dīnār, 107, 109, 149, 150, 154, 175, 176, 216, 233 dirham, 23, 60, 66, 103, 107, 109, 110, 120, 216, 233 dīwān, 36, 66, 149, 233 fann (pl. funūn), 8 fātiḥa (sūra), 41, 42 fatwā, 179, 233 firmān, 120, 233 futuwwa, 29, 233 Geniza, 146, 216, 233 girih (gereh), 129, 199, 233 Gospels, 21 guild, 6–7, 12, 29, 30, 31, 35, 41, 59, 60, 114, 120, 146, 149, 233 ḥadīth, 6, 11, 14, 19, 20, 95, 108, 170, 178, 181, 233 hajj (ḥajj), 51, 53, 178, 184, 233 Hijazi, 170 ḥirfa, 8, 233 ḥisba, 6, 11, 19, 30, 86, 102, 108, 130, 141, 146, 152, 189, 216, 233 Islam, 12, 101, 178, 181 Islamic law, 6, 181

Jāhiliyya, 195 khān, 216, 233 kilim (gilim), 157, 223, 233 Kufic, 170, 176, 233 Mamluk Revival, 222 marsūm, 166 mashrabiyya, 129, 189, 234 mawlānā, 51 miḥrāb, 194, 234 minbar, 129, 234 mithqāl, 120, 234 muʿallim, 30, 153, 234 muftī, 181, 234 muhandis, 51, 52, 216, 234 muḥtasib, 6, 7, 19, 30, 34, 104, 141, 143, 149, 153, 234 muqarnas, 199, 200, 234 muṣawwir, 21 mushārif, 36 mutawallī, 36 namad, 157, 160 naskh, 170, 234 naʿūra (noria), 206, 209, 234 nāẓir, 36 nisba, 49, 234 Orientalism, 10 Passover, 149 pendentive, 199 pisé, 189, 191–2, 234 qāḍī, 7, 57, 60, 149, 234 qanāt, 205, 206, 207–8, 234 qānūn, 36 qarsh, 143, 234 qaysariyya, 57, 59, 235 qinṭār, 66, 67, 149, 150, 235 qirāṭ, 110, 149, 150, 235

259

260  i s l a m i c a r t s a n d c r a f t s Qurʾan, 9, 11, 19, 41, 47, 49, 51, 101, 129, 165, 170, 171, 175, 176, 178, 235

Sufi, 7, 29, 40, 235 sūq (also bazār), 29, 168, 235

raṭl, 103, 144, 235 risāla, 20 rūḥ, 19 Rūm, 149

ṭabaqa, 49, 235 ṭāʾifa see guild ṭarīqa see guild thuluth, 170, 236 ṭirāz, 31, 36, 152, 236 Torah, 21 Translation Movement, 12

salam contract, 21, 24 ṣanīʿ, 29 Second Commandment, 178 shādūf, 206, 235 shawīsh, 41 shaykh, 29, 31, 35, 36, 57, 59, 60, 120, 235 shaykh al-mashāʾikh, 29 sheikh see shaykh shirk, 19 sijill, 120, 235 ṣināʿa, 8, 20, 235 ṣīnī, 215, 235 souk see sūq squinch, 199, 200, 235 s-spun (thread), 4, 146, 148, 235

ʿulamāʾ, 178, 236 ʿurf, 34 ustādh, 22, 43, 50, 51, 203, 235 waqf (waqfiyya), 7, 216, 235 yawm al-qiyāma, 20, 173, 180 yurt, 157, 236 zīlū, 152, 157, 158, 236 ziyāra, 86 z-spun (thread), 4, 146, 148, 236

qurʾanic ayās and sūras 2:29, 171 34:10–13, 101 37:11, 41 38:71–2, 41

43:32, 22 68:1, 171 96:3–5, 171

biblical citations Acts 18:1–3, 155 Exodus 20:4–6, 178 Genesis 19:28, 68

Isaiah 33:12, 68 Leviticus 19:4–6, 178