The history of soap-making dates back thousands of years. The craft of making sopa in the Islamic world stemmed from the accumulated generational knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the Levant, Egypt, and Mesopotamia.

The first record of soap was mentioned in ancient Babylon in 2800 BC. The primary purpose of soap was probably to clean textile fibers, rather than for any notion of personal hygiene. The Ebers papyrus indicates the ancient Egyptians bathed regularly and combined animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance.¹

During the Islamic Golden Age, the emphasis on hygiene and cleanliness manifested in various forms of scented cleansing products. The Islamic tradition stresses personal hygiene and Ṭahāra (purity) as a form of religious obligation. Islam is a highly ritualistic religion that practices precursory rituals to commence several religious duties. Purification rituals varied according to the occasion and specific ritual and usually necessitated the usage of water.

The most quotidian and necessary ritual was wūḍūʾ (ablution), required before each prayer throughout the day. Other rituals included Ghusul (full-body ablution), required after certain occasions such as sexual intercourse, after wet dreams, after childbirth, after post-partum bleeding, and after menstruation. Not to mention regular body washing and bathing for general hygiene. It is the mindfulness of Muslims constantly dwelling in a spiritually and physically “pure” condition that propelled them to develop numerous cleansers and body washes.

Good grooming and wearing perfume (taṭyyīb) are highly regarded in the Islamic tradition. A true Muslim is supposed to show fidelity to his lord and respect for his fellow Muslims by smelling his best, particularly on Friday during the congregation prayer.

The cleanliness of clothing, the environment, and the body were always emphasized and regulated per Islamic jurisprudence. Cookery books and literature (adab) are filled with instructions intended for cultured and refined men and women, outlining the proper methods of handwashing before and after meals, along with a wide variety of scented powders and perfumes.

Medieval Arab cookery books, as early as the 10th century, contain recipes for handwashing powders called dharāʾir (diapasmata) used to clean the hand and body. These were primarily composed of potash (ušnān) and various kinds of dried and powdered herbs, spices, and plants.

First-grade handwashing powders served to the elites contained rare and pricey ingredients ranging from cubeb, clove, rose petals, cinnamon, nutmeg, citron peels, mahlep, mastics, coffee beans, cyperus, and citronella, to sandalwood, aloeswood, and camphor. Meanwhile, handwashing powders for commoners were made from affordable and common ingredients like chickpea flour or rice flour.

Aromatic preparations used in daily cleansing rituals included perfumes (āṭyāb), aromatic oils (adhān), incense (buẖur), handwashing powders (ḏarira/ušnān), soaps (ṣābun), detergents (ġāsul), breath refreshing tablets (ḥab muṭayyib lil fam), aromatic unguents (ġalīya), air fresheners (lāẖlaḥa), and aromatic distilled waters (mīyah mūqaṭara).

Muslims enjoyed a sophisticated hygiene culture and etiquette that was at the center of their social and communal activities.

Soap-making methods in the Islamic world

In the Islamic world, the hard toilet soap, which was oil-based and scented, made a breakthrough on the world stage. Muslims made soap by mixing oil (usually olive oil) with al-qali (a salt-like substance). According to manuscripts, this was boiled to achieve the right consistency, left to harden, and used in the hammams or bathhouses.² These hard block soaps were sold in the markets for the general masses. Ibn Diqmaq mentions that he witnessed the caravanserai of soaps “qaysariyyat As-sabbaniyyah” in Fustat, which had several shops selling soaps in various types, shapes, and colors.

Soap-making in Europe relied mainly on wood ash as a source of alkali, given the abundance of forest trees across the continent. This was rarely the case in the Middle East since the region’s arid climate contributed to the scarcity of wood, so people resorted to using the ashes of saltwort plants rich in soda ash or potash. These plants grew in surplus in the Jordan Valley, the Syrian Desert, the Sinai Desert, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

The primary source for alkali (from the Arabic qali) was extracted from bunt saltwort plants, mostly Salsola Kali, Anabasis articulata, and Soda Rosmarinus, to produce potash. These woody shrubs were collected by Bedouins dwelling in these Middle Eastern deserts and used as soap, and were even considered a lucrative trade for the area.

References to soap (sabun) in medieval cooking treatises, chronicles, geographic explorations, market inspection manuals, and chemistry encyclopedias are abundant. However, detailed recipes for their making are scarce. Arabic market inspection manuals (hisba) discussing the supervision of the public bathhouses mention soap (sabun) included with the several washing products used in the baths.

Examining recipes for making soap in cooking manuals is not helpful since these recipes instruct using pre-existing soap that is shredded or grated and mixed with potash and other aromatics, and are not a step-by-step tutorial for making soap from scratch. However, soap recipes were mentioned in several chemistry books and some medical encyclopedias.

Jabir bin Hayan, an Arab Chemist in the 9th century, was credited with having discovered the method of extracting Sodium hydroxide or caustic soda (Soda Al-kawiya) to make soap. Recipes for soap-making are described by Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (c. 865–925), who also gave a recipe for producing glycerine from olive oil.³ The Preparation of caustic soda was known by al-Razi, and the recipe ran as follows:

“Take one mann [about 1 kg] of white al-Qali and an equal quantity of lime and pour over it [i.e., the mixture] seven times its amount of water, and boil it until it is reduced to one half. Purify it [by filtration or decantation] ten times. Then place it in thin evaporating cups (kizan), and then hang in [heated] beakers (jamat). Return what separates [to the cup], raise it [the cup] gradually, and protect from dust whatever drops from the cups into the beakers, and coagulate it into a salt.”⁴

Al-Maqdisi chronicled that Palestinian women in the 10th century in Nablus were making Nablus Soap by mixing Virgin olive oil, water, and a sodium compound (caustic soda). Soapmaking is still a longstanding industry in the country to this day. In Syria, where soap-making was a thriving industry, Laurel oil and olive oil were used together with al-qili and lime to make soap. They were shaped into various shapes and stamped.

The 10th-century Arab physician, Al-Tamimi, described making potash by burning the Soda rosmarinus plant. According to Al-Tamimi, the plants were gathered in their fresh, green state in large bundles and transferred to furnaces made with plastered floors and stone spouts, where they were cast inside, beneath which were laid large timbers that were set aflame, causing the melting alkali substance to drip down by the spouts into a threshing floor directly below.

The liquid would be collected and eventually become hardened when it cooled, the finished product resembling a hard, black-colored stone. The stone-like mineral could be broken up into smaller fragments and used as a laundry detergent. He describes that in his day, it was imported into Palestine, Egypt, and other regions from the riverine gulches around the vicinity of Amman, in Transjordan.⁵

Recently, a Yemeni manuscript from the thirteenth century was discovered that gives more details on the recipes for making soap. These recipes include, for example, mixing some sesame oil (shirij), some alkali (Al-qali), and some quicklime (Nura thakar ghayir mutfa’a), boiling it all and cooking it, then pouring it into molds and leaving it to dry and solidify, producing dry soap.

The manuscript mentions that there was another scented variety with additional aromatic herbs and saffron. We notice the base oil for making soap in this recipe is sesame rather than olive, which is not unusual since Yemen, where this manuscript originated, wasn’t popular for growing olives.

Historical references mentioned that during the Fatimid period, soap was made from turnip oil and lettuce oil, in addition to olive oil. This elucidates that soap-making across the Islamic world was adaptive to the native climate and flora of the region.

The fourteenth-century chemist, Al-Jaldaki, wrote in his book, Rutbat Al-Hakim: “Soap is made from sharp water taken from alkali and lime, but the sharp water damages the garment. They circumvented the issue by mixing the sharp water with fats, which are oils that produce soap appropriate for handwashing and laundry.”

The precise process of soap-making was mentioned by the 16th-century Ottoman physician and pharmacist, based in Cairo, Dawud al-Antaki, in his seminal work “Tathkirat ulu-l albab”.

“Take one part of al-Qali, and half a part of lime. Grind them well and place them in a tank. Pour five times water and stir for two hours. The tank is provided with a plug hole. When the stirring is stopped and the liquid becomes clear, the hole is opened. When the water is emptied, plug the hole again and pour water and stir, then empty, and so on until no taste is left in the water. This is done while keeping each water separate from the other.

Then take from the pure oil ten times the quantity of the first water and place it on a fire. When it boils, feed it with the last water little by little. Then the water before the last until at last you feed it with the first water. Then it becomes like dough. Here it is ladled out [and spread] on mats until it is partially dry. Then it is cut and placed on nura [slaked lime]. This is the finished product, and there is no need to cool it or wash it with cold water while cooking. Some add salt to the al-Qali and lime in half the quantity of lime. Others add some starch just before cooking is over. The oil can be replaced by other oils and fats, such as the oil of carthamus.”⁶

It seems that the Islamic scientific renaissance compounded the ingenious tradition of soap-making already established in the Mediterranean by changing many of the characteristics of soap and developing it further. Muslims introduced oils as the base material, making them more fragrant and pleasant on the skin, and improved saponification potency by employing caustic soda (Sodium Hydroxide) from treating quicklime (Calcium oxide) and Soda ash (Sodium Carbonate). The mixture of water, oil, alkali, quicklime, or sometimes slaked lime yielded various types of soaps.

The introduction of toilet soap into Europe was largely through the cultural osmosis between the Crusaders and the Muslims in the Levant during the 11th–13th centuries. By AD 800, soap made from animal fats was produced in Europe, which had a very unpleasant smell. But hard toilet soap with a pleasant smell from the Islamic lands started to arrive. Ordinary and colored perfumed toilet soap was made and exported from Syrian towns like Nablus, Damascus, Aleppo, and Sarmin. Soap was also made in other Islamic lands, especially where olive oil was produced.⁷ Later, medieval European soapmakers treated the wood ash solution with slaked lime, which contains calcium hydroxide, to get a hydroxide-rich solution for soapmaking.⁸ The knowledge of increasing the alkalinity of soap by adding slaked lime was more than likely transmitted through the Islamic world. Spanish Castillian and French Marseille soap trace their origins to the Syrian Aleppo soap brought back to Europe by the Crusaders.

Another possible source for the introduction of the craft of toilet soap was transferred to Europe through contact with the Muslims in Al-Andalus. Olive was grown in Spain and across the pan-Mediterranean and would’ve provided the perfect base material for making soap. Good-quality olive oil and linseed oil were produced in large quantities in several Andalusian cities such as Seville, Granada, and Valencia. Al-Razi sang praises of the quality of olive oil in Coimbra (qalmariya). Al-Himary, in his description of the Iberian Peninsula, described the olive oil produced in the region of Aljarafe (al-sharaf), in Seville, as being of the highest quality.

By the 14th century, a significant soap-making industry had developed in Nablus, and several soap manufacturing centers flourished in other parts of the Levant, in Aleppo and Tripoli. The Nabulsi soap was reputedly prized by Queen Elizabeth I of England and exported throughout the Middle East and Europe. Aleppo “Laurel” soap, Nabulsi soap, and Tripoli soap are still regarded with high esteem for their medicinal and cosmetic benefits across the Arab world.

1. https://www.arabamerica.com/who-commercialized-soap/ ↩︎
2. Al-Hassani, Salim T. S. 1001 Inventions. National Geographic Books, 2012. ↩︎
3. Ahmed, Maqbul, and A. Z. Iskandar. Science and Technology in Islam: Technology and Applied Sciences. UNESCO Publishing, 2001 ↩︎
4. Ḥasan, A. Y. al-, & Hill, D. R. (1994). Islamic technology: An illustrated history (Repr). Cambridge Univ. Pr. [u.a.]
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5. Contributors to Wikimedia projects. “Soda Rosmarinus – Wikipedia.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 20 Dec. 2016, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda_rosmarinus. ↩︎
6. Ḥasan, A. Y. al-, & Hill, D. R. (1994). Islamic technology: An illustrated history (Repr). Cambridge Univ. Pr. [u.a.] ↩︎
7. Ahmed, Maqbul, and A. Z. Iskandar. Science and Technology in Islam: Technology and Applied Sciences. UNESCO Publishing, 2001. ↩︎
8. Jungermann, E., & Sonntag, N.O.V. (Eds.). (1991). Glycerine: A Key Cosmetic Ingredient (1st ed.). CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780203753071 ↩︎