However, it is likely that the Isatis tinctoria has been abandoned at the 10 th century due to its poor quality. We know from Arab authors that two kinds of plants were available, possibly the Isatis tinctoria (woad) and a species of Indigofera. The 10 th century geographer Ibn Hawqal reports that the dye workers in Sughar were as numerous as those of Kabul even though the quality of the indigo dye was inferior. belowīefore being famous for its sugar industry, the city of Zoara, in the surroundings of the modern Safi village, was well known for its indigo production. Indigo even became the main crop cultivated in the Jordan Valley. Sughar) are well attested in the writing of the Arab scholars of the 10 th to the 13 th centuries. The production of Baisan in the North of the Valley, of Jericho in the middle and Zoara ( Ar. ![]() The tropical climate of the Jordan Valley and the efficient irrigation network perfected through the agricultural technological progresses offered ideal conditions to the cultivation of indigo. The crop was widespread in different areas of the Arab world, notably in Egypt and Yemen. However, with the technological advances that occurred subsequently to the Islamic expansion in Asia, the cultivation of indigo was imported to the Middle East in order to also produce it locally. ![]() The modern Arabic keeps the name nil, from the Sanskrit nila meaning dark blue or darkness. Until the emergence of the prosperous centuries of the Islamic Agricultural Revolution, The Middle East imported indigo from India, as it name suggests it (from Gr. ![]() Indeed, several civilizations have independently developed indigo dyeing from different sources containing indigotin and we find evidences of it in all the ancient civilizations of the Near and Middle East, of India, of China and Japan, of Africa but also of Meso- and South America. Indigo can be produced from different type of plants (about 300 kinds of plants contain the indigotin, the basic chemical compound producing the blue color). It is one of the oldest dyes used for textiles and printing. Among the different types of natural dyes that were in used in the Middle East, indigo holds a special place.
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