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A Medieval Description of Manna

Appears in
Delights from the Garden of Eden

By Nawal Nasrallah

Published 2019

  • About
Manna, according to medieval Arabic sources, is initiated by the rising vapors of the fruits of trees, water, and earth. All these gather up in the sky and ‘cook’ with the heat of the sun, and then condense and thicken and sweeten in taste. With the cold of night they condense even further, and, as a result, they become thick and heavy and fall on the ground, rocks, and trees, like dew. This explains why manna and similar sweeteners were called ‘honey of dew’ in medieval times.

Also, according to medieval descriptions, the quality of manna depends on the kind of trees they fall on. Good varieties are taken from terebinth, almond, and similar trees. The kind that falls on tamarisk they called turunjabeen (al-Biruni; Ibn al-Baytar).

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