Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234 brill.
nl/jim
Early Arabic Bookmaking Techniques as Described
by al-Rāzī in His Recently Rediscovered
Zīnat al-Katabah
Mahmoud Zaki
Researcher, The Institute of Arabic Manuscripts (ALECSO), Cairo, Egypt
[email protected]
Abstract
This paper provides an introduction to one of the oldest, and until recently, unknown treatises
on the topic of Islamic bookmaking: the Zīnat al-Katabah by the physician and chemist Abū
Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī (d. 313/925). It demonstrates this text’s relevance to
bookmaking literature, contextualizes its title and author, and supplies a detailed description of
its contents. The main subjects discussed within al-Rāzī’s work include ink-making techniques,
invisible inks, paper soaking, and erasures on parchment, papyrus and paper. This paper also
contains an initial comparison between al-Rāzī’s text and other texts, both earlier as well as sub-
sequent, on the same subject. Lastly, an analysis reveals the fact that this text has been cited by
authors who failed to provide a reference, then corrects some distorted passages, and disputes
various falsely established ideas.
Keywords
Islamic manuscripts, Arabic manuscripts, Islamic codicology, Arabic codicology, Islamic book-
making, Arabic bookmaking, al-Rāzī, Zīnat al-Katabah, Dār al-Kutub, Zīnat al-Kuttāb, Cairo,
National Library and Archives of Egypt
Introduction
When I participated in a manuscript cataloguing project of composite vol-
umes (majāmīʿ) at The National Library and Archives of Egypt (Dār al-Kutub)
a colleague consulted me regarding the suitable subject heading of a manu-
script entitled Zīnat al-katabah by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī.
It did not take long to realize that this was one of the oldest known treatises
on Arabic bookmaking, a real discovery.1 This article constitutes a short notice
1
An earlier version of this article was presented at the conference Codicology and History of the
Book in Arabic Script (Madrid, 27-29 May 2010). I hope to complete a critical edition of the text
in the near future.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/187846411X597243
224 M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234
concerning this recently rediscovered manuscript; the title and the author are
contextualized, and a detailed description is provided. This paper also provides
a comparison involving certain preceding and subsequent texts on the same
subject.
Origins and Significance
A substantial amount of difficulties related to the identification of authors and
titles as well as the establishment of a link between these authors and book
titles may be encountered during a survey of traditional literature treating
treatises on Arabic bookmaking. Take, for example, the work entitled al-Abrār
fī bary al-qalam wa-ṣunʿ al-aḥ bār, copies of which are preserved in Tetuan
(Tiṭwān),2 Berlin and possibly elsewhere. The author of this work remains
anonymous to this date. Another potential difficulty is a lack of biographical
details to compliment an author’s name that has been provided, as is the case
with Ibn Abī Ḥ amīdah (or Ḥ umaydah) recognized as the author of Tadbīr
al-safīr fī ṣināʿat al-tasfīr,3 a treatise on book binding. Yet other bibliographical
obstacles are met when studying the ʿUmdat al-kuttāb. There exist numerous
copies of this book and researchers have varying opinions concerning its
author. Is it al-Muʿizz Ibn Bādīs (d. 454/1062), as it is widely assumed, or is it
his son Tamīm (d. 501/1108)? Or, was the book written by someone else;
neither the father nor the son?4
In addition, certain authors of texts on bookmaking are not particularly
known specifically for this craft, whereas we may know them as Islamic
Acknowledgment: I am grateful to Dār al-Kutub (Cairo) and al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foun-
dation (London), for their interesting project, and in particular to Prof. Dr. ʿAbd al-Sattār
al-Ḥ alwajī, the supervisor of the project, for his thoughtful comments concerning this paper. My
thanks also go to my helpful colleagues, especially to Manār al-Khayyāl, the conservator at the
National Library.
2
̣ ān, Public Library, MS 140, as seen in the copy preserved in the Institute of Arabic
Titw
Manuscripts in Cairo (al-Maʿārif al-ʿĀmmah No. 222).
3
Adam Gacek, ‘Ibn Abī Ḥ amīdah’s didactic poem for bookbinders’, in: Manuscripts of the
Middle East, 6 (1991), pp. 41-58, here p. 41; Maḥmūd Zakī, ‘Naḥwa ʿīlm makhṭūṭāt ʿarabī: ʿarḍ’,
in: al-Fihrist, 16 (October 2006), p. 123-146, here p. 141.
4
al-Muʿizz Ibn Bādīs, ‘ʿUmdat al-kuttāb wa-ʿuddat dhawī al-albāb’, edd. ʿAbd al-Sattār
al-Ḥ alwajī and ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Muḥsin Zakī, in: Majallat Maʿhad al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabīyah, 17
(1971), pp. 44-172, here pp. 52-55; al-Muʿizz Ibn Bādīs, ʿUmdat al-kuttāb wa-ʿuddat dhawī
al-albāb, ed. Iyād Khālid al-Ṭabbāʿ, Damascus: Wizārat al-Thaqāfah, 2009, pp. 9-13; Muḥammad
ibn Maymūn al-Marrākushī, ‘Kitāb al-azhār fī ʿamal al-aḥbār li-Muḥammad ibn Maymūn ibn
ʿImrān al-Marrākushī (al-qarn al-sābiʿ al-hijrī)’, introduced by Ibrāhīm Shabbūḥ, in: Zeitschrift
für Geschichte der arabisch-islamischen Wissenschaften, 14 (2001), pp. 41-133, here p. 41.
M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234 225
jurisprudents ( fuqahāʾ) and judges (quḍāh), as is the case with al-Ishbīlī and
al-Rasmūkī.5
While the above-mentioned works are all recognized to a certain extent,
I have found the text presented in this paper to have been entirely unknown.
Recent studies on Arabic bookmaking published in both the East and the
West do not mention this treatise, not even as a lost work. It is in fact one of
the oldest recorded treatises on the topic. It is certainly older than the ʿUmdat
al-kuttāb, which is considered to be the oldest treatise of its kind.6 Al-Risālah
al-ʿadhrāʾ by Abū al-Yusr Ibrāhīm al-Shaybānī (d. 298/911)7 is contemporary
to al-Rāzī, yet it treats technical matters pertaining to bookmaking and liter-
ary subjects at the same time. Some passages, that date even earlier, can be
found in more general works of literature8 and chemistry.9
The importance of this recently rediscovered text is—apart from its his-
torical value—that it is genuine. What’s more, it was written by a famous
physician and chemist, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī (251-
313/865-925).10 This author was recognized for his interest in and work with
texts and reproduction. Al-Nadīm (d. 380/990) mentions in his Fihrist that
al-Rāzī had the tendancy to be constantly at work transcribing; whenever some-
one visited him, he was seen either working on a draft or on a neat copy.11
5
Bakr ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ishbīlī, (d. 628/1231 or 629/1232), ‘al-Taysīr fī ṣināʿat al-tasfīr’, ed.
ʿAbd Allāh Kannūn in: Majallat Maʿhad al-Dirāsāt al-Islāmīyah fī Madrīd (= Revista del Instituto
de Estudios Islámicos en Madrid), 7-8 (1959-1960), pp. 1-42, here pp. 5-6; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz
al-Rasmūkī (d. 1065/1654), Kayfīyat tasfīr al-kutub, ed. al-Saʿīd Binmūsa. Rabat: Frits, 2008,
pp. 8-10.
6
al-Marrākushī, al-Azhār, pp. 41-42.
7
Abū al-Yusr Ibrāhīm al-Shaybānī, al-Risālah al-ʿadhrāʾ, ed. Zakī Mubārak, Cairo: Dār al-
Kutub al-Miṣrīyah, 1931. Regarding the exact name of the author see: Maḥmūd ʿAlī Makkī,
‘Ḥ awl taḥ qīq muʾallif al-Risālah al-ʿadhrā al-mansūba li-Ibrāhīm Ibn al-Mudabbir’, in: Majalla
Majmaʿ al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya bī- al-Qāhirah, 62 (May 1988), pp. 190-201.
8
E.g. in Abū ʿUthmān al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/869) in his ‘Risālah fī al-jadd wa-al-hazl’, in: ʿAbd
al-Salām Hārūn (ed.), Rasāʾil al-Jāḥ iẓ, Cairo: al-Khānjī, 1964, pp. 227-278, here pp. 252-254.
9
E.g. in the Kitāb al-Khawāṣṣ al-Kabīr’ (‘The great book of properties’) of Jābir ibn Ḥ ayyān
(d. 198/813), in: Aḥmad Yūsuf Ḥ assan, ‘Industrial Chemistry in Kitāb al-Khawaṣṣ al-Kabīr of
Jābir ibn Ḥ ayyān’, in: Journal of history of Arabic Science, 14 (2008), available at: http://www.
history-science-technology.com, accessed on 5/5/2010, essays 29, 31, 60.
10
See Julius Ruska, Al-Rāzī’s Buch Geheimnis der Geheimnisse. Mit Einleitung und Erläuterun-
gen in deutscher Übersetzung von—. Berlin (Springer) 1937 (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte
der Naturwissenschaften und der Medizin, Band 6).
11
Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm, al-Fihrist, ed. Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid. London: al-Furqān
Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2009, vol. 2, p. 306; translation B. Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadīm:
A tenth-century survey of Muslim culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1972, vol. 2,
p. 702.
226 M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234
The found manuscript makes mention of its own title: Zīnat al-Katabah
‘The ornament of the scribes’), which almost matches the title Zīnat
(
al-Kuttāb that is referred to in ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ12 and Hadīyat al-ʿĀrifīn
13
as a
work attributed to al-Rāzī. It may be identical to Ḥ iyal al-Kuttāb ( =
‘The tricks of the scribes’), which is mentioned by al-Bīrūnī (d. 440/1048) in
al-Rāzī’s bio-bibliography.14 The British Library’s manuscript of a separate
al-Rāzī bio-bibliography, Fihrist Kutub Muḥ ammad b. Zakariyāʾ al-Rāzī
al-Mutaṭ abbib wa-Aghrāḍihā (
) only cites the title Kitāb fī ʿamal al-ḥ adīd wa-al-ḥ ibr (‘A book on the
work with iron and ink’), which may be a different text altogether.15
Description of the Manuscript
Al-Rāzī’s treatise on bookmaking appears to have been preserved in just one
manuscript, which is kept in the Dār al-Kutub in Cairo. It is part of a compos-
ite volume (majmūʿ) with the class-mark Majāmīʿ Ṭalʿat 331. It is the fifth text
of the volume, and consists of eleven pages (ff. 79a-84a). The book measures
18.1cm × 11.5cm (text area 13.3cm × 6.8cm), and there are 20 lines to the
page. The title Zīnat al-Katabah is given along with the author in the heading
at the beginning of the text, in the introduction (f. 79a), and at the colophon
(f. 84a). The front-page of the volume includes a table of contents (
) in which the title of the text is given as (Risālah fī
ṣanʿat al- midād) = ‘A treatise on the making of ink’.
The colophon states that it was copied on Monday 6 Shaʿbān 907 (1502),
and it may be noted that the preceeding and subsequent texts within the same
volume were written on different dates.
12
Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim (d. 668/1270). ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ
(d. 668/1270), ed. August Müller: p. 321. Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa also mentions: ‘Ṣifat midād maʿjūn
lā naẓīr lahu’: p. 320.
13
Al-Baghdādī, Ismāʿīl (d. 1399 h/1920). Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn: vol. 2, p. 28.
14
Abū al-Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī, Risālah li-l-Biruni fī fihrist kutub Muḥ ammad ibn Zakariyāʾ al-
Razi (= Epitre de Beruni contenant le repertoire des ouvrages de Muḥ ammad b. Zakariyā ar-Razi),
ed. P. Kraus. Paris: G.P. Maisonneuve, 1936, p. 21, No. 184. See also Julius Ruska, ‘Al-Biruni als
Quelle für das Leben und die Schriften al-Razi’s, in: Isis 5 (1923), pp. 26-50, p. 48. Al-Bīrūnī’s
catalogue has as its sole base MS Leiden Or. 133 (2), see P. Voorhoeve, Handlist of Arabic Manu-
scripts, p. 83. The word ḥ iyal (‘tricks’) is used in al-Razi’s text on bookmaking.
15
The colophon of MS London, British Library, Or. 5479, shows the name of the scribe, who
might also be the author: Alī ibn Yūsuf ibn Marwān.
M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234 227
The copyist of al-Rāzī’s text, although not mentioned, is likely Ṣaḍr al-Dīn
al-Shirwānī, the same person who copied other texts in the volume and
inscribed an owner’s note on the front-page of the volume.
The text is written in a small nastaʿlīq script, in black ink. Red ink is used
for the heading, the folio numbering, and the overlining written over the
beginning of each paragraph. There are also catchwords (taʿqībah). Some cor-
rections are present in the margins or with collation marks. The paper is a
beige colour and has some damp stains. Traces of a primitive conservation
treatment are visible, especially on the upper and lower edges.
The volume is bound in brown leather with simple decoration: a single
central medallion, stamped in relief on the leather, with plain fillets, and end-
ing with a flap.
Seven statements are given on the front-page of the volume, including four
ownership marks (tamalluk), two general statements in Turkish and a third
statement that has been rendered illegible, scratched out. The four ownership
statements read as follows:
.
–
–
٣٠
–
–
The manuscript was previously part of the collection belonging to Aḥmad
Ṭalʿat Bek (d. 1346/1927). It entered Dār al-Kutub after 1929,16 and was never
described in any published catalogue or database.
Topics of the Text
The text begins with the book’s title and the name of the author, and then
defines the motive behind its composition, stating for whom it was written:
the scribes and their professional needs:
16
Ayman Fuʾād Sayyid, La Bibliothèque nationale égyptienne, son histoire et son évolution: Dār
al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya. Beirut: Awrāq Sharqīyah, 1996, p. 32.
228 M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234
،
، .
17
The introduction concludes with a summary of the main topics and content,
including ink recipes, invisible inks, erasers for use on paper and parchment,
etc.:
،
،
،
18
،
The text continues with a series of recipes and techniques. Although there is a
lack of clear classification, the beginning of each entry is indicated using red
overlining. There are eighteen recipes in total: seven ink recipes for common
use and eleven invisible ink recipes. Together, these recipes make up about
thirty percent of the entire text. Although coloured inks were used at that
time, the included recipes are only for making black ink.19
The ink recipes include various specialized inks. For example, one sort of
ink listed can be used immediately after preparation, while another is more
suited for longterm storage or for travelers. Other recipes are for invisible inks
which can be made to reveal their message using certain techniques. While
one such ink reappears only at night, another disappears gradually; there are
many interesting tricks.
The materials which are commonly used in ink-making are gallnut, vitriol
and gum arabic. The writing tools most often mentioned are the pen, the
inkwell and the līqah, which is the pad (usually made of wool) used to absorb
ink. No other instruments are described.
The author offers information and methods for removing ink traces from
writing surfaces and from clothes, as well as for the reuse of parchment
(palimpsest = ṭirs or ṭils). He also gives detailed instruction for the removal of
other stains, caused by fruits and various natural or industrial materials. More
than fifty functional recipes for this purpose are provided. Nine out of these
are for removing ink from writing surfaces, and eight are for removing ink
17
MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, Majāmīʿ Ṭalʿat 331, f. 79a.
18
MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, Majāmīʿ Ṭalʿat 331, f. 79a.
19
Recipes for gold ink and red ink are mentioned in Jābir ibn Ḥ ayyān, Kitāb al-Khawāṣṣ
al-Kabīr, in: Aḥmad Yūsuf Ḥ assan, ‘Industrial Chemistry’, essays 31, 60.
M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234 229
stains from clothes. These recipes represent approximately forty percent of
the text.
As for writing surfaces, parchment (raqq or riqq), papyrus (qirṭās), and
paper (kāghid or kāghad) are all mentioned. Their inclusion in this text
confirms that all these materials were available at the time when the treatise
was composed, and that a special terminology was employed to distinguish
between them.20
The author mentions processes for soaking, adhering and thickening paper,
which he calls al-kāghid al-muṭabbaq (‘layered paper’), as well as a recipe for
treating papyrus to look aged. This section represents less than ten percent of
the text.
Lastly, the manuscript touches on other topics of a more general nature,
some of which may or may not be overly relevant to bookmaking. These sub-
jects include hair pigments, the sharpening of knives and swords, etc.21 and
represent roughly twenty percent of the text. Al-Rāzī does not deal in the pres-
ent treatise with other matters related to bookmaking, such as paper-making
and bookbinding.
A Comparative Analysis
The comparison of this newly rediscovered text with preceding and subse-
quent works reveals marked influences. For example, the removal of ink traces
had been previously treated by other authors, in particular by al-Kindī
(d. 252/867) in his treatise Risālah fī qal ʿ al-āthār (‘a treatise on the removal
of traces),22 and by ʿAlī ibn Rabbān al-Ṭabarī (d. 247/861) in his medical
handbook Firdaws al-ḥ ikma.23 Furthermore, invisible inks have been men-
tioned by others, especially in literary works; although mainly in al-Rāzī’s own
al-Risālah al-ʿadhrāʾ.24
In addition, there are lost titles which are contemporary to al-Rāzī’s treatise,
such as ʿAmal al-aṣbāgh wa-al-midād wa-al-ḥ ibr (‘The making of dyes and
20
For more details see: Ḥ abīb Zayyāt, Al-Wirāqah wa-ṣināʿat al-kitābah wa-muʿjam al-sufun;
Adam Gacek, ATM and suppl.
21
It should however be noted that knives and swords were used in bookbinding and in pre-
paring pens.
22
Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, Risālah fī qal ʿ al-āthār: pp. 141-197; ed. Muḥammad ʿIsa
Ṣāliḥiyya: pp. 83-111.
23
ʿAlī ibn Rabban al-Ṭabarī, Firdaws al-ḥ ikmah, ed. Muḥammad Zubayr Ṣiddīqī, pp. 530-532.
24
Al-Shaybānī, op. cit., pp. 190-201.
230 M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234
inks’) by al-Kindī’s student Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-Baghdādī Dūbays
(deceased around 311/923).25
Contemporary texts as well as earlier works affected al-Rāzī’s treatise, while
he himself influenced later productions, both directly and indirectly. Much of
al-Rāzī’s Zīnat al-karabah has been copied by Ibn Bādīs in the ʿUmdat al-kuttāb.
His work can also be recognized in other texts, without proper referencing; the
source not specified. In fact, few authors are the exception. One is al-Qalalūsī,
who often alludes implicitly to al-Rāzī, yet mentions him explicitly approxi-
mately four times.26 Al-Marrākushī, who refers to al-Rāzī only once, is another
such author.27
An example of one of al-Rāzī’s recipes, slightly altered, can be found in later
texts as follows:28
، :
،
،
،
، ،
،
،
The corresponding passages can be found in ʿUmdat al-kuttāb29 by Ibn Bādīs,
in al-Mukhtaraʿ fi funūn min al-ṣunaʿ30 by al-Malik al-Muẓaffar, in Tuḥ af
al-khawāṣs31 ̣ by al-Qalalūsī, in Qaṭf al-azhār32 by al-Maghribī, in al-Azhār fī
ʿamal al-aḥ bār33 by al-Marrākushī and in al-Abrār fī bary al-qalam wa-ṣunʿ
al-aḥ bār.34
A further analysis of bibliographical sources used in later works on book-
making may help correct textual distortions. Some well-known statements on
the history of bookmaking now prove to be incorrect, as we were unaware of
25
Al-Nadīm, ed. Ayman F. Sayyid, vol. 2, p. 463.
26
Abū Bakr Muḥammad al-Qalalūsī, Tuḥ af al-khawāṣṣ fī ṭuraf al-khawaṣs,̣ ed. Ḥ usām
al-ʿAbbādī, pp. 21, 23, 36.
27
Al-Marrākushī, op. cit., p. 75.
28
Al-Rāzī, Zīnat al-katabah, MS Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, f. 79b.
29
Ibn Bādīs, ʿUmdat al-kuttāb, ed. al-Ḥ alwajī, p. 100.
30
Al-Malik al-Muzaffar (694/1294), al-Mukhtaraʿ fī funūn min al-ṣunaʿ, ed. Muḥammad ʿĪsā
Ṣāliḥiyya, p. 12.
31
Al-Qalalūsī, op. cit., p. 21.
32
Aḥmad ibn ʿAwaḍ al-Maghribī (1120/1708), Qaṭf al-azhār fī khaṣīṣ al-aḥ jār. Ed. Bīrwīn
Tawfīq, p. 277.
33
Al-Marrākushī, op. cit., p. 75.
34
MS Tit ̣wān 140, p. 17.
M. Zaki / Journal of Islamic Manuscripts 2 (2011) 223-234 231
al-Rāzī’s treatise. Ibn Bādīs’ work ʿUmdat al-kuttāb is no longer considered to
be the oldest treatise concerning bookmaking. Some sources, for example
Ibrāhīm Shabbūḥ, state with certainty that the ink recipes described in works
by al-Marrākushī and al-Qalalūsī can be attributed to al-Rāzī among others.
The proposed justification being that they are recipes for ink which they them-
selves used. However, while the afore-mentioned inks do originate from Zīnat
al-katabah, the presence of a recipe in his treatise does not guarantee that
al-Rāzī used, let alone preferred, a specific ink over all others, nor does the text
declare such a statement.35 Thus, the recently rediscovered treatise by al-Rāzī
can be used as a tool for the reassessment of previous studies done on the his-
tory of Arabic bookmaking. This ancient text may extend our knowledge of
Arabic codicology as well as of bookmaking history, and, finally, it may play a
role in the development of new strategies in manuscript conservation.
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