Al-Maqrizi's treatise on bees

Taqī l-Dīn Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī (d. 845/1442) is the author of the well known Kitāb al-Mawāʿiẓ wa-l-iʿtibār fī dhikr al-khiṭaṭ wa-l-āthār and of dozens of other works. He also wrote a brief treatise about bees with the significant title Kitāb Naḥl ʿibar al-naḥI (‘the book of the gift of the bees’ moral teachings’), where the double meaning of the term naḥl is emphasized. The lexicographer al-Zajjājī reminds us that bees are called naḥl because God donated (naḥala) honey to man. The work is structured into eleven chapters of various lengths, that give a clear idea of the content: 1. The bee and its names; 2. The kinds, colours, sizes, and peculiarities of bees; 3. Wax, the building of combs, the hives; 4. Honey, its lexicon, its colours, and its varieties; 5. Information from Aristotle and other scholars, honey’s nature and origin; 6. Qurʾān, sūra of the Bee (16:68-69), other Qurʾānic references and various exegetic comments; honey as a ‘healing for men’; 7-8. The Prophet’s traditions; 9. various opinions about what bees eat; the zakāt on the honey; 10. Anecdotes about wax; 11. Poems about wax.