Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam

249 Pages·2014·1.594 MB·English

by  Tsugitaka Sato

i
Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2015 | doi 10.1163/9789004281561_001
ii
Islamic Area Studies
Series Editor
Toru Miura (Ochanomizu University)
Advisory board
Abdul-Karim Rafeq (College of William and Mary)
Nelly Hanna (American University in Cairo)
Stephen R. Humphreys (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Dale F. Eickelman (Dartmouth College)
Fariba Adelkhah (Sciences Po-CERI)
Keiko Sakurai (Waseda University)
VOLUME 1
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/isas
iii
Sugar in the Social Life
of Medieval Islam
By
Tsugitaka Sato
LEIDEN | BOSTON
iv
Cover illustration: The ublūj at the ʿAjlūn Castle Museum, Jordan (photo taken by the author).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sato, Tsugitaka, 1942-2011
Sugar in the social life of medieval islam / by Tsugitaka Sato.
pages cm. -- (Islamic area studies ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-27752-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-90-04-28156-1 (e-book) 1. Sugar--Social
aspects--Islamic empire. 2. Islamic empire--Social life and customs. I. Title.
GT2869.S28 2015
641.3’36--dc23
2014032287
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2214-6555
isbn 978-90-04-27752-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-28156-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
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Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
ContentsContents v
Contents
Series Editor’s Acknowledgements IX
Preface xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
Transliteration of Arabic and Persian xiv
List of Figures and Map xv
Prologue 1
 Islamic Social History through Sugar 1
 Sugar in Arabic Literature: Favorite Sweets 2
 Historical Overview and Perspectives 4
 Primary Sources in Arabic and Persian 8
1 The Origin and Expansion of Sugar Production in the Islamic World 15
 The Origin of Sugar Production and its Expansion to West Asia 15
The Origin of Sugarcane Cultivation 15
The Origin of Sugar Production 16
The Eastward Route: Expansion from India to China and Okinawa  17
The Westward Route: Expansion from India to Iran 18
 The Expansion of Sugarcane Cultivation from Iran to Egypt 19
The Expansion from Iran to Iraq 19
Expansion to Syria (Bilād al-Shām) 23
Expansion to Lower Egypt 25
 The Expansion of Sugar Production to Upper Egypt, Maghrib, and
Andalusia 26
Expansion from Lower Egypt to Upper Egypt 26
Expansion to the Mediterranean Islands, Maghrib, and Andalusia 30
2 From Red Sugar to White Sugar: Sugar Production Technology 33
 Sugarcane Cultivation as Described by al-Nuwayrī 33
Al-Nuwayrī, an Encyclopedist from Upper Egypt 33
Sugarcane Cultivation as Seen in Nihāyat al-Arab 34
Sugarcane Growers and Sugar Factory Workers 37
 Sugar Production as Described by al-Nuwayrī 40
 The Spread of Sugar Production Technology from Egypt to China 48
The Travels of Marco Polo 48
Technology Transfer between East and West 49
vi Contents
3 On Camels and Ships: Sugar as Commodity 51
 The Prosperity of al-Karkh in Baghdad 51
The Establishment of Baghdad 51
Al-Karkh as Commerce and Industry Center 52
From Dibs to Sugar: A Change in the Production of Sweeteners 53
Sugar Distribution in the Eastern Islamic World 55
 The Growth of Sugar Production in Egypt 56
From Baghdad to Cairo: A Historical Change 56
The Beginning of Prosperous Sugar Production in Fatimid Egypt 58
Sugar in the Age of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn 60
The Managers of Sugar Production in al-Fusṭāṭ 62
Trade with Italian Merchants in Alexandria 65
 The Tricks of the Sugar Merchants in Mamluk Cairo 66
A Guidebook (al-Madkhal) by Ibn al-Ḥājj 66
Unsanitary Conditions in Sugar Refineries 67
The Tricks of the Sugar Merchants 68
 Reading the Books on Ḥisba 70
What is “Ḥisba”? 70
The Inspection of Sugar Trade 72
4 The Ups and Downs of the Sugar Merchants 74
 The Jewish Sugar Merchants as Described in the Geniza Documents 74
The Discovery of the Cairo Geniza 74
The Jewish Sugar Merchants 75
 The Kārimī Merchants Versed in Sugar 77
The Appearance of the Kārimī Merchants 77
The Organization and Activities of the Kārimī Merchants 79
“Merchants of Spices and Perfumes” or “Merchants of Spices and
Sugar” 81
 The Vicissitudes of the Kharrūbī Family in Mamluk Egypt 82
From Retailers to Kārimī Merchants 82
The Sugar Refinery Merchant 83
The Position of Chief Merchant (Ra⁠ʾīs al-Tujjār) 85
Religious and Cultural Activities 87
The Beginning of the Downfall 88
5 Sugar as Medicine 91
 A Comprehensive Book of Simple Drugs by Ibn al-Bayṭār 91
Ibn al-Bayṭār, Pharmacologist 91
Sugar in the Comprehensive Book of Simple Drugs 92
Contents vii
 Ibn al-Nafīs, the Personal Physician of Sultan Baybars I 97
The Second Ibn Sīnā 97
The Principles of Sugar as Described by Ibn al-Nafīs 98
Sugar as Medicine 100
 ʿAṭṭārs: Merchants who Profited from Sugar 104
Who were the ʿAṭṭārs?  104
Al-Maqrīzī’s View of the Troubles in Egypt 106
The Prosperous ʿAṭṭārs 109
6 Sugar and Power: Festivals and Gifts from Royalty 114
 The Storehouse for Raw Sugar (Dār al-Qand) 114
The Repeal of Miscellaneous Taxes by Sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn 114
Al-Nashw Enacts Attachment on Raw Sugar 116
 Sugar in the Month of Ramaḍān 121
Fasting and Sweets 121
The Royal Custom of Giving Sugar 123
 Sweets for Banquets and Charities 125
Sugar Candies for Banquets (Simāṭ) 125
Sweets for Charities 131
 Sugar Candies in Sultans’ Pilgrimages to Mecca 133
Amīr al-Ḥājj – The Official Guard of Pilgrims to Mecca 133
The Maḥmil and Kiswa 135
The Mamluk Sultans’ Pilgrimages to Mecca 137
7 Cooking Innovations in Medieval Islam 140
 Cooking in the ʿAbbasid Caliph Courts 140
The ʿAbbasid Caliph Courts 140
Ibn Sayyār’s Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh 142
Al-Baghdādī’s Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh 147
 Sugar in The Thousand and One Nights 151
The World of The Thousand and One Nights 152
Foods Palatable and Nutritious 153
 Sugar in Arabic Pharmacology 157
Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa by Ibn Buṭlān 158
Kitāb Dafʿ Maḍār al-Abdān by Ibn Riḍwān 160
Jāmiʿ al-Gharaḍ fī Ḥifẓ al-Ṣiḥḥa wa-Dafʿ al-Maraḍ by Ibn al-Quff 163
 Hanging Candies for Children 166
Hanging Candies in the Month of Rajab 166
The Generalities of Sugar Consumption 168
viii Contents
Epilogue 170
 The Revival of Sugar Production in Egypt 170
 The Expansion of Sugar Production to the Caribbean Islands and South
  America 173
   Sugar Meets Coffee and Tea 174
 Coffee, Tea, and Sugar in Contemporary Muslim Societies 177
Glossary 179
Bibliography 190
Index 226
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Series EditSoerr’ise Asc Ekdniotwolre’sd gAecmknenotwsledgements ix
Series Editor’s Acknowledgements
This is the second Brill publication written by Professor Tsugitaka Sato, follow-
ing his previous work, State and Rural Society in Medieval Islam: Sultans, Muq-
taʿs and Fallahun in 1997. Professor Sato was a prominent scholar of Islamic
history, having published a great many articles and books in both Japanese and
English since 1967. He was a luminary of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies in
Japan, serving as head of the research department at the Toyo Bunko (The Ori-
ental Library) for twenty years, and marshaling two joint-research programs
for Islamic Area Studies, one based at the University of Tokyo (1997–2002) and
another based at Waseda University (2006–). He planned for the publication of
a series of books that explore the dynamics in Islamic areas and beyond. He
completed the manuscript for this, the inaugural volume of the series, shortly
before his sudden death in April 2011.
Professor Sato was born in Yokohama on August 27, 1942. His parents were
farmers, and he himself said that helping out on the family farm naturally fos-
tered his interest in rural society. The first topic that captured his interest was
the iqṭāʿ system of land management. His research showed that, from the tenth
century on, this system moreover served as the core of relations between state
and rural societies. His second research interest was the Mamluks, who were
given iqṭāʿ lands to manage as a source of tax revenue. In 1991, he published a
Japanese book titled Mamlūks: Muslim Rulers from the non-Islamic World. As
the subtitle hints, he was captivated by how the mamlūks, purchased as slaves,
rose to become an elite group with political power, which shows intriguing
aspects of how Islamic societies accepted and employed “the other”. His third
interest was local societies, as the intersection of rural, agricultural, and urban
networks. He published a history of The Syrian Coastal Town of Jabala (1988) in
English, and a monograph in Japanese on the legend of wandering saint Sultan
Ibrahim, who was buried in Jabala. In 1995, he edited a unique Japanese book
focusing on the outlaws of the Islamic world, including a paper of his own
about the ʿayyārūn in medieval Baghdad.
His fourth interest was the connections between lifestyles and material ob-
jects. This culminated in his final publication, Sugar in the Social Life of Medi-
eval Islam in Japanese in 2008 (Iwanami Shoten, Tokyo). The book you are
reading is the English revised edition. Bringing together a wide variety of his-
torical sources, this work shed light on the production and use of sugar in the
Middle East, previously a lacuna in the world history of sugar. His interest in
sugar originated with research he did on sugar production and taxation in the