Machine summary:
This is the earliest record we possess containing a classified survey of the trades and crafts of medieval Islam, and is, despite its somewhat abstract and philosophic treatment, a most valuable document for the economic history of the Islamic lands.
which considered such matters beneath their attention, and only by the laborious collection of odd references in various works it is possible to reconstruct a picture of the life and development of the unprivileged classes in Islamic society.
II Human products are those which craftsmen make by shaping, painting, and dyeing natural bodies in the city market-places 11 Natural products are the phenomena of the animal, vegetable, and mineral king• doms ; spiritual products are the four elements-earth, fire, air, and water• and the astral bodies.
The craftsman needs' both instruments, · which are defined as being parts of the body, and implements, which are external aids II such as the axe of the carpenter, the hammer of the smith, the needle of the tailor, the pen of the scribe, and the awl of the cobbler.
The next passage, dealing with material gives us our first classification of crafts according to the material used.
"3 After a digression on the usefulness of fire in the practice of crafts and trades, the Rjsiila goes on to its third classification, according to II ranks.
After another digression on the philosophic principles of the Pure Brethren, we come to the last main classification, according to " nobility," that is, according to the titles of the crafts to merit and distinction.