المداد الأحمر

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

The red ink (al-midad al-ahmar) was used primarily for rubrication (p. 364). This included writing the title (al-Unwan), chapter headings (al-Abwab), biographies (al-Tarajim), and section headers (al-Fasl) (p. 364). Scribes in Najd specifically utilized this color to distinguish these structural elements from the main body text, following traditional Islamic scribal practices cited by scholars like al-Almami (p. 364).

Evidence

"كتابة العنوان بلون مداد مختلف عن اللون المستخدم في المخطوط بأكمله... ولا بأس بكتابة الأبواب والتراجم والفصول، ونحو ذلك بالحمرة، فإنه أظهر في البيان"

Remarks

The author notes that while red ink was used for titles, the size of the script for these titles was often larger than the main text (p. 362). In some Najdi manuscripts, the word 'Fasl' (Section) would be written at the top of the page in red or black ink, often in a larger script size (p. 364). The study highlights that Najdi scribes were keen on using red ink for clarity and to assist students and scholars in navigating the text (p. 365).