The Literary Dimension and Life of Arabic Treatises on Ink Making

In Arabic literary tradition, single ink recipes are scattered in works of different genres, from the alchemical and medical, to those related to calligraphy and penmanship and dedicated to the class of the kuttab. A handful of treatises stand out for their collection of a significant number of recipes, organized in categories and juxtaposed with other textual sections on different technical crafts. Ranging from the 9th to the 17th centuries and from al-Andalus to Yemen, they show a great fluidity in their transmission, fostered by their fragmented structure in short textual units. This contribution presents a series of case studies highlighting the modalities of formation of these compilations and the literary elements that emerge alongside their technical content. This can only be retrieved and properly interpreted by taking into account their literary dimension, which reflects the cultural context in which these treatises have been generated.