dark blue

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

Applied as a background to denote the 'night' or the 'earthly realm' in contrast to the celestial gold (p. 39).

Evidence

"the dark blue background of the sky. The contrast between the golden clouds and the deep blue color of the sky reflects the distinct boundary between the two realms; the celestial and the earthly."

Remarks

The symbolic meaning of blue changed during the Umayyad rule due to inter-racial marriage and cultural shifts, eventually moving away from early Islamic negative stigmas (p. 20-21). For philosophers like al-Kirmani, blue results when darkness is mediated by light; the description of the physical darkness of the sky is used as a metaphorical attribution of the sinful human soul (p. 25). Al-Hujwiri and Nizami also associated blue with mourning, modesty, and remorse (p. 31).