On top sugarcane and under Balsam.
(All pictures not from this book.)
On top ebony.
Under left Ginger and right Brazil wood or Baqam wood.
Back to Table of Contents
To next page
Abu Hanifa al Dinawari; Kitab al-Nabat:
(Botanical Dictionary) (d895)
Iran
--------------------------------------------------
Abu Hanifah Ahmad ibn Dawud Dinawari (815–896 AD) was an Iranian Islamic Golden Age polymath, astronomer, agriculturist, botanist, metallurgist, geographer, mathematician, and historian. His most renowned contribution is Book of Plants which consisted of six volumes, for which he is considered the founder of Arabic botany. Only the third and fifth volumes have survived, though the sixth volume has partly been reconstructed based on citations from later works; 637 plants are described from the letters sin to ya. He mentions an East African origin for a number of plants.
Taken from: Sugar in the Social Life of Medieval Islam by Tsugitaka Sato
Sugarcane (qasab al-sukkar) is classified by color into three varieties: white, yellow, and black. Of these, the black variety is not pressed, due to its thin and barren nature, unsuitable even for a shroud (kaffan). The pressed juice from the white and yellow canes is called the “honey of the cane” (asal al-qasab), the best of which comes from cane from Zanj (East Africa), producing a lemon yellow colored juice. The pressed juice is solidified to produce raw sugar (qand), and then, refined sugar (sukkar).
Taken from : Hamdard foundation : Al Biruni's book on pharmacy and materia medica.
….balsam from which platters are made is not a longish tree but its wood is hard and patterned with yellow and blackish tints. At times the yellowish tint is substituted by reddish. It grows in the valleys of Rome and around the Gulf. This is an excellent variety. The other variety of ebony is that which has no color except the black. This is brought from Waqwaq (1) in the islands of Qamir (2). The people of Waqwaq are blackish; they prefer the golden complexioned Turkish slaves.
Taken from: كتاب النبات Abū Ḥanīfah Aḥmad ibn Dāwūd Dīnawarī
And ginger is what grows in the Arab countries in the land of Oman, which are veins running on the land and not trees. He told me who saw it. He said: This plant is the elecampane plant, and they eat it moist as the pods are eaten and also used dry, and the best quality of it in the country of China and the land of Zinj, and has more……
Left: Teak tree
Baqam: is wood of bone trees. Its leaf is like green almond leaf. Its trunk and branches are red. And its land is India and Zanj. Its dye is made by its cooking. Its name frequently occurs in ancient poetry.
Al Sayn - Saj (The Teak Wood from India. Sajat). And the teak tree grows great, and goes tall and wide. And he has leaves like al Diylimia. It covers a man with a leave of it and has him out from the rain. It has a pleasant scent shared by the scent of walnut leaves, with delicacy and grace. The elephants likes the leaves and the banana leaves. And it grows in India and Zanj.
Sasib bih …. A poisonous tree…. It was said it is ebony; others said it is alshayz (3) ……
Look at the time of the Nile flooding, it is at the heart of the heat (season), but rather floods from the rain in the country in which it falls, which is behind Aden in the west and south. Likewise, the rain of Sindh, India and the land of Sudan begins with the sun in cancer (13) or in the lion (14). This is the strong warming. And that's before it started in Yemen.
Abu Hanifa al Dinawari; Akhbar Al Tiwal:
(The Book of Lengthy Histories) (d895)
-------------------------------------------------------------
Taken from: Abu Hanifa Ahmad ibn Dawud ibn Wanand al-Dinawari (A.D. 828-895) translation Michael Richard Jackson Bonner 2012
[The Confounding of Tongues]
They say: in the time of Jamm (4) tongues were confounded in Babil (15)— this was because the progeny of Nuh had multiplied there and and [Babil] was burdened of them. The speech of all men had been the Syrian language, namely the language of Nuh, but at the beginning of that day their tongues became muddled, expressions changed, and they were convulsed one to another, and every group of them spoke in the tongue which their descendants speak unto this day. They went out from the land of Babil, and each group became separated in a particular direction. The first that went out from among them were the sons of Yafit son of Nuh, and they were seven brothers: Turk, Hazar, Saqlab (5), Taris, Mansak, Kamara (6), and Sin (China). They took what lay between the east and the north. Then the sons of Ham son of Nuh left after them, and they were also seven brothers: Sind, Hind, Zanj, Qibt (Copts in Egypt), Habas (Ethiopia), Nuba, and Kan’an (7). And they took what lay between the south and the west. And the sons of Sam son of Nuh dwelt with their cousin Jamm (4) the king in the land of Babil notwithstanding the change of their expressions.
……………….
[Iskandar’s Conquests]
He marched until he went into the land of Sudan, and saw men black as ravens, nude and barefoot, who roam about in thickets, and eat of the fruit there. If they undergo dearth or drought some of them eat one another. He went by them until he came to the sea and cut across to the shore of Aden from the land of Yaman, and Tubba’ al-Aqran (8), king of Yaman, marched against him. He submitted to him with obedience and he granted tribute, and he brought him into the city San’a (16). He let him stay there and gave him some of the gifts of Yaman, and he stayed one month. ……
They say: the land is four and twenty thousand parasangs (9), and the lands of the Turks are three thousand parasangs from this, and the land of the Hazar (10) is three thousand parasangs, and the land of Sin one thousand parasangs, and the land of India and Sind, and Aethiopia, and the rest of the Sudan six thousand parasangs, and the land of Rum three thousand parasangs, and the land of the Slavs three thousand parasangs, and the land of namely Egypt and what is behind it (such as Africa (11), Tanja (12), Faranja (France) and Andalus (Muslim Spain)) three thousand parasangs, and the Arabian peninsula and what is near it, one thousand parasangs.
(1) Waqwaq: must here be (in this context) the Austronesian people.
(2) Qamir: here Qumr but with meaning Khmer (South East Asia).
(3) Alshayz: Al Say wood (teak wood).
(4) Jamm: Dinawari himself writes: Jamm son of Wiwanjahan son of Iran set up the beacon of monarchy, and he was Arfaḫsad son of Sam son of Nu. (Jamm, the Iranian culture hero par excellence, also called Jamsed).
(5) Saqlab: Slavic people from North-East Europe.
(6) Taris, Mansak, Kamara: according to Dinawari they lived close to the people of Gog and Magog (high North).
(7) Kan’an: according to Al Bakri 1067 the father of the Berbara and Canaanite; according to Maqrizi 1441 the father of the Syrians. Ibn Qutayba (880) says that Kanan and Kush are the fathers of the races of the Sudan.
(8) Tubba’ al-Aqran, king of Yaman: Tubba' is not the name of a particular individual, but is said to be the royal title of the kings of Himyar in Yemen. Tubba 'al-Aqran is the semi-legendary king of pre-Islamic southern Arabia, who is traditionally attributed with great achievements even outside the Arabian Peninsula.
(9) parasangs: 1 parasangs or farsakhs = 2.8 nautical miles/ about 5km.
(10) Hazar: (also Khazar) was the name of a Turkic people on the shores of the Caspian Sea.
(11) Africa: here Ifriqaya: coastal parts of eastern Algeria, Tunisia and western Libya.
(12) Tanja: Tangier in Morocco.
(13) Cancer: in the Northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for crab.
(14) Leo: in the Northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for lion. Among its many bright stars are Regulus and Denebola.
(15) Babil: Babylon
(16) San’a: present-day capital of Yemen.