Food Resources and their Transformation - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 176

to be found, as can be expected, in the
encyclopaedias of the Arabic and Persian
literature. Preliminary statements already
appear in al- w ārazmī's Mafātī al-ulūm
under medicaments, while ample mate-
rial is given by Nuwayrī, Nihāyat al-arab ,
the entire twelfth volume of which is
devoted to this subject; scents ( īb ), per-
fumery ( baūrāt ), many kinds of Galia
moscata ( awālī ), perfumes made of aloe
with various admixtures ( nudūd ), distillates
( mustaarāt) , oils ( adhān ) and certain per-
fumes ( naūāt ). Among these rubrics we
find also descriptions of some of the spices
already mentioned, such as sandalwood,
spikenard, cloves, costus, etc. All this is
mixed up with detailed statements about
other materials which can be counted
among spices only with reservations or in
no way at all. As in mediaeval Europe,
ground spices were often adulterated,
especially in times of distress. Here we
only recall the original work of awbarī
( ca. 615/1218), Kitāb al-Mutār fī kaf
al-asrār wa-hatk al-astār , which allegedly
informs traders about deceitful devices in
commerce and trade; it was printed sev-
eral times in the Orient and deserves a
critical edition.
Since there is hardly any spice which
was not at the same time used as medi-
cament, it is no wonder that the most
comprehensive material on spices is to
be found in the pharmacopoeias. These
are essentially based on the Materia medica
( ὔλη ἰατρική ) of Dioscorides. This work,
translated into Arabic at an early period,
lived on in the Islamic world in ever-new
compilations, expanded by a great num-
ber of drugs which the Arabs had come
to know in the course of their conquests.
The material is to be found on the one
hand in pharmacognostic and pharma-
ceutical monographs, the development of
which came to a certain conclusion with
Ibn al-Bayār's great compilation, and
on the other hand in the pharmaceutical

sections of compendia on general medi-
cine. It should, however, be remembered
that in these works spices are entered and
described as medicines in the first place,
not as condiments.
Together with cambric textiles, spices
were considered as the most fashion-
able luxury; both products are often
mentioned together as the most lucra-
tive ones. In Egypt, where for a long
time corn had offered the best chances
for investment, spices and drugs took
its place after the Crusades. In the later
Middle Ages, the spice trade, and the
pepper trade in particular, was mainly in
the hands of Egyptians and Venetians. A
good survey on the spice trade under the
Ayyūbids and Mamlūks is to be found in
G. Wiet, Les marchands d'épices sous les sul-
tans mamlouks , in Cahiers d'histoire égyptienne ,
série vii (1955), with a rich bibliography.
However, the author does not deal with
particular spices, but with their general
trade. Under the protection of the sultans
this trade was carried out by important
bodies of merchants, who forwarded the
spices from India and South-East Asia
to Europe by way of Egypt through the
Red Sea or by way of Syria through the
Persian Gulf. About these trading compa-
nies and their monopoly we have some
detailed information, especially about the
wealthy Kārimī, who controlled the spice
trade between the Yemen and Egypt.
The “spice-wars” with the European
ports in the Mediterranean, started by the
Ayyūbids and continued by the Mamlūks
and the Ottoman Turks, were waged on
both sides with great ruthlessness. Internal
policy was carried out, just as rigorously,
especially by the Mamlūks: in 832/1429
Barsbāy founded a state monopoly of
pepper and three years later he forced the
wholesale merchants to buy from him for
80 dīnārs a iml the pepper which they had
sold to him earlier for 50 dīnār s. Even so,
ānawh al-awrī not only maintained