On the Authorship and Title of a 10th Century Arabic Treatise on Perfumes

In Islamic era several remarkable works have been written about perfumes and their properties. Among them, the similarities between the structure and content of Kitab al-Ṭīb Attributed to al-Khāzin, Mukhtaṣar fī al-Ṭīb Attributed to Ibn Kaysān and Risāla fī Uṣūl al-Ṭīb Attributed to Ibn Mandawayh are so evident that they can be considered as three versions of a single work. Usually perfumery works that have been written by physicians mention the medicinal properties of the parfumes, but the author of this work is less concerned with such properties. This fact can indicate that the author was not a physician while we know that Ibn Mandawayh and Ibn Kaysān were both physicians. Moreover, according to the introduction to the treatise, the author’s purpose is to prepare a work that would be useful for kings’ treasuries. This presumes that al-Khāzin who according to his title was a treasurer, could be the right author. In addition, comparison of scribal variants of these three versions of the treatise shows that they have a common origin. Based on some codicological evidence, all the three versions are copied from a manuscript that was written by al-Khāzin; if so, the attribution of the treatise to the others has wrongly been done by scribes.