چکیده:
The profession of oil pressing/extraction was one of the important and frequent occupations in various regions of the Islamic world, where extracting oil from oilseeds for food, industrial, fuel, and medicinal purposes was considered its main function. In this article, by examining a wide range of historical, literary, and social sources, the pattern of the oil pressing profession within the structure and texture of the traditional Islamic world is extracted and analyzed in a historical context using a thick descriptive (detailed) approach. The extraction of the general pattern of the oil pressing profession is done by researching its phenomenological dimensions, including diverse functions, tools and equipment, professional space (oil press shop), professional ethics, supervision and accountability of oil pressers, and their main and secondary incomes, occupational base, and social status. Oil pressers were among the high-income guilds due to the wide variety in their productions and the needs of different groups in society for their products, and members of this guild were often composed of wealthy groups in the Islamic world.
خلاصه ماشینی:
In this article, by examining a wide range of historical, literary, and social sources, the pattern of the oil pressing profession within the structure and texture of the traditional Islamic world is retrieved and extracted in a historical context using the approach of ‘thick description’ (detailed description)².
Flaxseed oil, produced from flax seeds, was mostly used in industry, including in paint making and oil painting; sesame oil had other uses, especially edible use, and was often used in confectionery, including in preparing zolbia and bamieh; castor oil had medicinal uses in addition to providing lamp fuel, and olive oil was used to a large extent both in daily food and for providing lighting; at the same time, sometimes a combination of oils was used for certain applications, especially for providing lamp fuel, or cheaper and inferior oils were mixed with higher quality oils (Moqaddam Golmohammadi, 351/1; Shahribaf, 334/2; Wulff, Ibid.
). Geographical Distribution A large number of oil presses were active in most agricultural regions of the Islamic world; in all regions where the cultivation and growing of olive trees flourished, especially in Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Andalusia, numerous oil presses/oil mills were established for extracting oil from olives (Maqdisi, 227; Hasan al-Wazzan, 234/2; Maqrizi, 281/1, 287; Subt ibn ‘Ajami Halabi, 515/1; Na’imi 17/1; 320/2).
In regions of the Islamic world such as Khuzestan in the south and Mazandaran in the north of Iran, Egypt, and the lush green areas of North Africa where sugarcane was abundant, many oil presses existed for extracting juice from sugarcane stalks and converting it into sugar and molasses (Ibn Hawqal, 142/1; Bakri, 646/2; Al-Istibsar fi ‘Aja’ib al-Amsar, 212; Idrisi, 339/1).
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