Академия Корана:Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān/Agriculture and Vegetation

David Waines, "Agriculture and Vegetation" in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: J. D. McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC.

The production of crops and plants in general. Agriculture and vegetation figure prominently in the Qurʾān, reflecting their significance in the environment in which the text was revealed. The Arabic root f-l-ḥ carries the basic meaning of «cleaving» or «splitting». When applied to the land, it carries the sense of «furrowing», «tilling» or «plowing.» «Filāḥa», therefore, is the art of plowing and cultivating and is the term used in the general sense of «agriculture» in the titles of medieval Arabic treatises on agronomy. The qurʾānic references to this root, however, all derive from the form «aflaḥa», carrying the meaning «to prosper» and «to be in a fortunate, happy state.» Other roots denoting cultivation in the Qurʾān are z-r-ʿ and ḥ-r-th, appearing together in q 56:63-4. The verb athāra, «to till», occurs in q 30:9. The most general term for «vegetation» is nabāt, which is found in q 18:45 and 71:17. Edward Lane renders nabāt «whatever God causes to grow, vegetate or germinate, in the earth» (Lane, viii, 2754).

Agriculture and vegetation in the Qurʾān

There are frequent direct and indirect references to the general concepts of agriculture and vegetation in the Qurʾān, despite the mention in q 14:37 of Abraham (q.v.) having settled his son Ishmael (q.v.), the traditional «father of the Arabs», in «an uncultivated valley» beside the sacred house of the Kaʿba (q.v.), and possible references to famine (q.v.). With regard to the latter, it is impossible to determine the degree of need Mecca and the surrounding areas experienced in seasonal or cyclical shortages of food. Although shortages were likely as much a part of the rhythm of daily life there as was the case in many other regions of the Middle East, the Qurʾān suggests less severe austerity. The storage of grain in anticipation of lean times, as exemplified in the story of Joseph (q.v., q 12:47), was well known. Widely-grown hulled grains, such as emmer, spelt and barley could be stored in the spikelet stage, their hard outer glumes protecting them against insects and pests. Moreover, recent ethno-archaeological evidence suggests that storage decision-making in the ancient Mediterranean occurred at the level of the household or farm unit — rather than the community — amid a complex trade-off between environmental, political and economic factors (Forbes and Foxhall, Ethnoarchaeology and storage, 69-86); storage strategies, therefore, should be considered as part of the overall economic picture of sixth and seventh century Arabia. Grain was produced for animal as well as human consumption (q 32:27). One verse (q 6:136) mentions the practice of setting aside a portion of the cattle and seed produce (ḥarth) for God, which may be a reference to storage.

There were other crops as well, like date palms (q.v.), pomegranates, olives and grapes (q 6:99, 141; 13:4; 16:11) and one qurʾānic passage (q 18:32) depicts two gardens (sing. janna) of grape vines surrounded by palm trees with cultivated fields between them. Nouns referring to planted areas include janna (pl. jannāt) as already noted (also q 6:99, 141; 17:91), not all of its very frequent occurrences being in reference to a heavenly paradise (see paradise; garden). In one of these, however, the expression «gardens under which rivers flow» (q 2:25) may conceivably be an allusion to the underground irrigation systems well-known in Arabia at the time. One of the signs of the divine economy was the revival of «dead land» with gardens of dates and vines watered from flowing springs, giving forth fruit (thamar) to feed humankind (q 36:33-5). Luxuriant gardens (ḥadāʾiq) are also mentioned (q 27:60; 80:30). Natural meadows (rawḍa, pl. rawḍāt, q 30:15; 42:22) are noted as rewards in the afterlife while pastures (marʿā) were created on earth so that flocks may feed (q 79:31; 87:4). One qurʾānic simile compares the self-inflicted harm in this life that is the consequence of improper behavior to a destructive glacial wind laying low the crops (ḥarth, q 3:117; see also 3:14; 10:24). Similar to this is the moving parable of the owners of a garden or orchard who on discovering their possessions destroyed overnight (ka-l-ṣarīm, as though all the fruit had been severed from the trees) acknowledged their transgression against God (q 68:17-33). The threat to or actual loss of what is precious yet familiar, as described in these passages, underlines the fine balance between sufficiency and want in Arabian material life. A passage promising cultivated fields in a future life (ḥarth al-ākhira, q 42:20) has a similar import. In a long description of paradise, there is the single occurrence of a word, meaning «two well-watered and intensely green gardens» (mudhāmmatān, q 55:64). This term was less commonly applied to cultivated gardens in this world, but the comparative intention of the expression would have been obvious to the Prophet’s audience.

A notable aspect of the Qurʾān is the number of terms related to the date palm, possibly the single most important food crop throughout the pre-modern Middle East. A range of other words, often appearing only once, refers to vegetation in the broadest sense, dry or fresh, including leaves or stalks of corn (ʿaṣf, q 55:12), trefoil or clover (qaḍb, q 80:28), acacia (ṭalḥ, q 56:29), a bunch of grapes (quṭūf, sing. qiṭf, q 69:23), stubble (hashīm, q 18:45; 54:31), plant stalk (shaʾ, q 48:29), a handful of green or dry grass or husks (ḍighth, q 38:44; pl. aḍghāth, q 12:44; 21:5), gardens with thickly planted trees (jannāt alfāf, q 78:16), leaves (waraq, q 7:22; 20:121; waraqa, q 6:59). Ayka, the word for «woods» or «thicket», occurring in the phrase «the people of the thicket» (q.v.; q 15:78; 26:176; 38:13; 50:14), is said to refer to the people of Midian (q.v.). Two words (sidr, ʾathl) designate plants growing in hell. Ḍarīʿ (q 88:6), a plant with large thorns which no animal would approach — known to the people of the Hejaz in its dry form — is described as the sole nourishment of the inhabitants of the nether world. The tree of al-Zaqqūm (q 37:62; 44:43; 56:52), the fruit of which was like the head of devils, is described as the fare of sinners and was evidently known in Arabia for its bitter taste.

Many of these terms and others to be noted now are used in contexts demonstrating the all-powerful nature of God. For example, the word ḥaṣīd (q 10:24) is used in the sense of «stubble» to describe the formerly fertile fields destroyed by God to punish the owners' presumption that they had control. In q 56:65 (also 57:20) the word ḥuṭām, «dried straw», describes what God could do to fields in a similar instance. Plants, including fruit (fākiha), herbage (abb) and seeds (ḥabb), exemplify the benefits of God’s creation (q 80:24-32). A person who expends his property for the sake of God is likened to a seed producing seven ears of corn (sanābil, sing. sunbul) each of which contains one hundred seeds (q 2:261). Another passage describes how God revives «bare land» (al-arḍ al-juruz, q 32:27) to produce cereals (zarʿ).

Several words and expressions referring to water, a necessity of life, should be mentioned. For water as rain, there are the terms ghayth (q 31:34; 42:28; 57:20), wābil (q 2:265, which also contains the word for dew, ṭall), and wadq (q 24:43; 30:48). «The impregnating winds» (al-riyāḥ lawāqiḥ, q 15:22) are so called because they are cloud-bearing winds which cause rain to fall. Underground water comes from springs (yanbūʿ, q 17:90, pl. yanābīʿ, 39:21; ʿayn, 88:12, dual ʿaynān, 55:50, pl. ʿuyūn, 26:57) and appears in the phrase «water running underground» (māʾuhā ghawran, q 18:41; cf. 67:30). By far the most common word is simply «water» (māʾ) employed in the frequent expression «[God] sent down water from the sky» (anzala min al-samāʾ māʾ). This expression occurs twenty-six times and in another nine instances the word «water» appears in a similar context. The following verse may be considered the key passage which captures both this expression and a number of the plant terms already noted:

God is the one who sent down water from the sky and with it we brought forth all manner of plants (nabāt) and foliage (khaḍir) from which we bring forth clustered seed (ḥabb); and from the flowering date palm(al-nakhl min ṭalʿihā) [come] accessible clusters of the fruit (qinwān). [We also brought forth] gardens (jannāt) planted with grapes(aʿnāb), olives (zaytūn) and pomegranates (rummān), in many similar and distinct varieties. When they blossom, look to the fruit (thamar) when they bear fruit and ripen. These are surely signs for people who believe (q 6:99).

Drawing upon what has been already said, it is possible to correct an image which has been present in Western scholarship at least since C. C. Torrey submitted his doctoral dissertation, The commercial-theological terms in the Koran (published in Leiden in 1892), to the University of Strasburg at the end of the last century. In this brief work, Torrey asserted that, while in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament commercial-theological terms are found only «as occasional figures of speech», in the Qurʾān they are not used to adorn certain facts, but rather are «terms regularly employed to state the bare and blunt facts themselves» (p. 7). These qurʾānic «facts» then produce a theology governed by the predominating «business atmosphere» (sic, p. 3) of the Qurʾān: «The mutual relations between God and man are of a strictly commercial nature. Allāh is the ideal merchant… Life is a business for gain and loss. He who does good or evil work („earns“ good or evil), receives his pay for it, even in this life. Some debts are forgiven, for Allāh is not a hard creditor….» (p. 48). The commercial background of the rise of Islam has been treated in the established biographies of the Prophet Muhammad by W.M. Watt and M. Rodinson and examined closely in the more recent rebuttal of Watt’s argument by P. Crone in her Meccan trade (Princeton 1987). Whatever the actual complex of forces at work in the historical background of the Qurʾān, the text offers a dominant motif quite distinct from Torrey’s «commercial theology.» This motif, while addressed to actual human experience is at once rich in theological meaning and goes to the core of the qurʾānic message. The theological import of passages like the one cited above is that the life cycles of the natural world, of plants and animals, are governed by the divine gift of water which an equally dependent humankind should acknowledge with appropriate expressions of gratitude (q 34:15). On the other hand, the secular significance of the numerous references to agriculture, vegetation and animal husbandry in the Qurʾān will be better understood as our knowledge of these subjects related to central Arabia in the early centuries of the common era is enriched. We turn now briefly to the background against which the qurʾānic text may be set.

The origins of agriculture

In the generations following the Prophet’s death, Islam became the newly-established religion in the very lands where, as is now almost universally accepted, the origins of agriculture had begun several millennia earlier. The food-producing revolution of the post-Pleistocene era (from about 9,000 b.c.e.) occurred in the great arc of hills stretching from Palestine and western Jordan, through southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq and thence down through western Iran. The revolution was decisive for the subsequent emergence of urban civilization for «with the domestication of plants and animals… vast new dimensions for cultural evolution suddenly became possible» (Braidwood, The agricultural revolution, 71). The earlier hunting-gathering way of life slowly yielded to the development of settled villages, although this did not immediately entail the adoption of agriculture or the total abandonment of former ways of food collection. Sedentation, however, did lead to an increase in population, which caused an increased demand for food. This could not be met through hunting and gathering in a village and its immediate environs. At this time, the implements for reaping the grains of wild grasses, grinding stones for their preparation for cooking and storage facilities already existed. With the use of stored grain to raise cereal crops, the area given over to cultivated plants gradually increased and the time devoted to the older methods of food gathering decreased (Reed, Origins, 543-67, 941-4). The rise of towns and cities in the arid and semi-arid region of the Middle East was accompanied — in places, perhaps, preceded — by the emergence of new techniques for marshalling the water resources, of both river and rain, for more intensive and extensive cultivation of food crops. Irrigation took different forms in different areas, including the flood and natural flow methods of irrigation; the use of manual hydraulic devices (shādūf, sāqiya) and waterwheels (nāʿūra, dūlāb) and the construction of surface and underground water channels of Iran (qanat, kārīz) and the systems in Arabia (ghayl, falaj). It is known that all of these hydraulic machines had long been in use before the rise of Islam, although the questions of their origin and diffusion have yet to be resolved.

Archeological knowledge of Arabia has grown more slowly than that of the thoroughly-explored regions of Iraq, Egypt and Iran. The ancient hydrological systems of Arabia have only recently begun to be investigated. Nevertheless, it is now clear that early settled life differed considerably from the stereotype of the nomad and the desert tent-dweller. The Yemen, long regarded as the center of trade, possessed an agricultural system almost entirely dependent upon irrigation. Although there is only a single possible reference to the artificial control of water in the Qurʾān (q 34:16, which may refer to the Mārib Dam, the remains of which lie approximately 135 km. east of Sanʿa; see al-ʿarim), it is evident that sophisticated systems for the catchment, storage and distribution of water existed from early times in other areas of the peninsula, suggesting that Arabia should also be considered a «hydrological society», like Iraq and Egypt, where settlement was dependent upon hydraulic constructions. «One of the most characteristic settlement patterns throughout Arabia is the concentration of the main built-up area on a rocky outcrop surrounded by a cultivated flood plain» (Costa, Notes on traditional hydraulics, 264).

See archaeology and the qurʾān.

Commentary on selected passages

The prophetic ḥadīth, the qurʾānic commentaries and similar works assign secular and religious significance to many of the words and phrases noted above in the first section. Al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), for example, in the section of his ḥadīth collection concerned with qurʾānic exegesis provides a lexicographical explanation for three terms in q 55:12, ʿaṣf, rayḥān and ḥabb. He says ʿaṣf is the stem of cereal plants which have been cut before reaching full maturity and rayḥān is the residual product after the ḥabb (seed) has been extracted for consumption. Al-Bukhārī also adds other definitions from mainly unnamed sources which do not always prove helpful. Certain authors, he says, claim that the ʿaṣf is the consumable part of the cereal, another says it is the leaf of the plant and yet another that it is the straw. Further in the same sūra, q 55:68 reads, «Therein are fruit (fākiha), date palms (nakhl) and pomegranates (rummān).» Al-Bukhārī comments that the odd overlapping of «fruit» and «pomegranates» can be explained by reference to q 2:238, which reads «observe the prayers and the middle prayer», the repetition of «prayer» being added for emphasis. The nearly-contemporary exegesis of al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923) is much more extensive than that of al-Bukhārī. In dealing with the vocabulary of the plant kingdom, his approach is also lexicographical, citing ḥadīth as evidence in his own exposition. However, glossing the passage cited above (q 6:99), beginning, «God is the one who sent down water from the sky», al-Ṭabarī writes, «With the water we sent down from the heavens, we produced nourishment for cattle, beasts, birds and wild animals and sustenance and food for human beings» (Tafsīr, vii, 292). He concludes that creation contains «proofs, a demonstration and an illustration» for «those who affirm the unity of God and rate him as all-powerful» (Tafsīr, vii, 296).

The eighth/fourteenth century commentator Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1372) adds nothing of substance to al-Ṭabarī's discussion of this particular passage. He is, however, more expansive than al-Ṭābarī in his commentary on q 2:21-2, where the divine gift of rain which brings forth fruits (thamarāt) as sustenance for humankind is also mentioned. God’s unity, divine power and blessings, both manifest and hidden, are all expressed here and the meaning of the phrase «[Your Lord] is the one who made the earth a place of repose for you and the heavens a protecting edifice» (q 2:22) is explained by reference to other qurʾānic passages (e.g. q 21:32; 40:64). What particularly interests Ibn Kathīr in the passage is the command, «Do not set up rivals (andād) to God», for which he adduces a number of references in the ḥadīth collections supporting the prohibition. A man once said to the Prophet, «What God has willed, and what you have willed.» The Prophet reproached him, saying, «Have you set me up as a rival to God? Say, ‘What God wills,’ and nothing else.» Associating peers or rivals with God is pure polytheism (shirk, see belief and unbelief). A tradition from Ibn ʿAbbās describes «polytheism» as undetectable «as an ant crawling over a black rock in the dead of night.» Ibn Kathīr’s exegesis stresses, on the one hand, the absolute singularity of God, a point Jews, Christians and even Muslims tended to forget in practice, despite the common acknowledgement in their scripture of one, sole divine being. On the other hand, using an earthy analogy that «droppings (in the desert) indicate the presence of a camel», Ibn Kathīr stresses how the divine existence and unity are mirrored in the multiplicity of God’s creation (q.v.), that is the «signs (q.v.)», including the heavens, the earth and all that comes forth from them such as the life-giving rain which supports the plant kingdom upon which the existence of the humans and animals depends. It should be noted that, differences in presentation aside, al-Ṭabarī's commentary on q 6:99 and that of Ibn Kathīr on q 2:21 are in essential agreement in their view of the nature of God as demonstrated in creation.

Scriptural insistence, therefore, on observing God’s signs in the natural world as proof of his existence, unity, power and beneficence, was seconded by the commentators who further affirmed the need to use the mind in pursuit of the truth. Al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1282), for example, commenting on q 2:164, which concerns God’s signs for people with understanding, adds that this verse provides instruction as well as a «stimulus for the pursuit of research and study.» Developing John Burton’s schema of the three broad sources of exegesis — tradition, reason and intuition — which illuminate the meaning of the qurʾānic text, a further indirect and pragmatic method of exegesis was the investigation of the «signs» which serve to confirm the truth of the text. In the early centuries of Islam, this stimulated an impulse toward the collection and dissemination of information on plants in general and agriculture in particular. This concern, traced in the following sections, is reflected in a rich agronomic literature and in the medieval «green revolution» which fostered the study and diffusion of new plants westward across the Islamic domains.

Ibn Waḥshiyya and al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya

During the vigorous translation movement of the early ʿAbbāsid period (late eighth to late tenth century c.e.), there was evident interest in agronomic, and indeed botanical, works. Among the ancient geoponic works known to the Arabs was one by Apollonius of Tyana (not Anatolius of Berytos as once thought), which was translated under the title Kitāb al-Filāḥa in 179/795. The Georgica of Cassianus Bassus was translated first into Pahlavi and then into Arabic in 212/827 as al-Filāḥa al-Rūmiyya. The most outstanding of these treatises, however, was al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya, «Nabatean [i.e. Syriac] Agriculture», attributed to Abū Bakr b. Waḥshiyya. The author — whose identity has been disputed — claims that he translated it from the «ancient Syriac», the Aramean dialect of the Kasdān community of Iraq, in 291/903 and then dictated the translation to a disciple in 318/930. If for no other reason, the work is remarkable for its sheer size, the author saying that the original ran to around fifteen hundred folios. The work appears to have been compiled in a milieu where Alexandrian Hellenism and gnosticism still survived and where neither Judaism nor Christianity had much influence, suggesting an era prior to the fifth century c.e. While the work reflects Hippocratic medical principles and certain aspects of Dioscorides' Materia medica, it may also represent a tradition independent of the latter. Furthermore, it seems to have no connection with the Arabic botanical writing which had already appeared prior to Ibn Waḥshiyya’s translation. Indeed, it presents a far more varied range of plant life than that found in Akkadiansources: more than 360 plants, with special attention given to the olive tree, the vine and the date palm, indicating their essential place in the agricultural activities of the region. In comparison with known Greek geoponic works, al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya is more developed, dealing with matters both practical and theoretical. In short it represents a kind of «philosophy» of humankind’s relationship with the soil. The text’s editor Toufic Fahd has argued that al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya presents a picture of the state of knowledge of agriculture, botany and the rural and domestic economy in Iraq at the end of the Hellenistic era (Matériaux pour l’histoire, 276—379).

The opening chapters of al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya are dedicated to the olive tree, its benefits, the places where it best grows and the properties of its various components such as the leaves, roots, the oil and pits of the fruit. At one point the text says that «concerning all these matters, some [information] came to us by experience (tajriba) and some by revelation (waḥy) from the gods to our forefathers… some by inspiration(ilhām) to us and to the idols who in turn instructed us… all of which we put to the test and thus were able to judge the soundness of the best practice… for which we are grateful to [the gods]» (i, 49). The contrast with the monotheistic spirit of the Qurʾān is evident. It is similar, however, to the response of gratitude found in the qurʾānic verse, «Vegetation comes forth from good earth with the permission of its Lord, while from bad land it comes forth with difficulty; thus do we expound the signs to a people who are grateful» (q 7:58). Indeed, the pagan Nabatean text translated well into the monotheistic Islamic context as it provided a rich catalog of the gifts of the divine economy. Inserted in a lengthy and largely theoretical discourse on how to manage an agricultural estate — complemented by a discussion of the principles of procreation and generation — is an agricultural calendar which lists the activities occurring each month of the year (i, 218-41). This is the earliest example of the genre in Arabic and may be compared with later works from al-Andalus and the Yemen.

As stated above, detailed attention is given to the olive tree, the vine and the date palm, the first and last of the trio forming the opening and closing sections of the work. The three plants are also grouped together in two qurʾānic passages, q 16:11 and 80:28-9, signaling the importance of the triad. Apart from this, the bulk of the work is devoted to a wide range of other edible plants, the names for many of which the translator was obliged to leave in transliteration as he could find no Arabic equivalents.

Following the section on the olive, cereals are the next group of plants treated. Wheat and barley are discussed at greatest length, as both had played a major role in the Mesopotamian diet for several millennia. Rice and sorghum (dhura) are also noted among many other grains. Various aspects of cereal culture are discussed: the appropriate location for growing; the season and atmospheric conditions required for a good crop; the procedures for harvesting, threshing, winnowing and storing the grain and the means of testing whether the grain is beginning to deteriorate.

In sum, the spirit of al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya may be expressed in words not so distant from the qurʾānic passages cited earlier, save for the absence of the single divine agent:

Agriculture is a source of plant life whose nutritional benefits are the very foundation of [human] life… Plants have also medicinal value, dispelling pains, ailments and illnesses… Furthermore, our clothes which conceal our nakedness and protect our bodies from the dangers of heat and cold also come from [cultivated] plants (i, 702).

Later agronomic works: Egypt, Yemen, Syria

No surviving agronomic work matches the encyclopedic breadth and detail of al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya. The manual of Ibn Mammātī (d. 606/1209), Kitāb Qawānīn al-dawāwīn, contains information on the farming practices in his native Egypt. In the beginning of the eighth/fourteenth century, the Egyptian Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā al-Waṭwāṭ (d. 718/1318) produced another work on agriculture, in which he frequently cites Ibn Waḥshiyya. Later in the same century, the Yemeni Rasūlid sultans al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿUmar (d. 696/1296) and al-Malik al-Afḍal al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAlī (d. 778/1376) wrote agricultural treatises. To al-Ashraf’s brother al-Malik al-Muʾayyad Dāwūd is attributed another book on agriculture now lost. These almanacs provide a basis for reconstructing the agricultural activities throughout the year. In the almanac of al-Malik al-Ashraf, it is clear that the dominant crop in the Yemen was sorghum, some twenty-two different varieties of which — distinguished chiefly by color — are listed. Indeed, the common term for sorghum was simply «food» (ṭaʿām). There is evidence of Ibn Waḥshiyya’s influence on this Yemeni «school», although its nature and degree have yet to be determined precisely. Although there is the eighth/fourteenth-century Miftāḥ al-raḥā li-ahl al-filāḥa (ed. M. Ṣāliḥiyya) by an unknown author, likely a Syrian, it is in the far west of the Islamic domains, in al-Andalus, that the tradition of agronomic writing continued with vigor and novel contributions of its own.

The agricultural revolution and the Andalusian «school» of agronomy

In the first half of the fourth/tenth century, Dioscorides' Materia medica became known in al-Andalus, stimulating an interest in botany and pharmacology, which were allied to the development of agronomy. The so-called Calendar of Cordoba of Arīb b. Saʿīd (d. 370/980) contains data on arboriculture and horticulture, reflecting local knowledge and custom. Arīb may have also written a treatise on agriculture and, if this is correct, it would have been the first of its kind in al-Andalus. From the end of the fourth/tenth century, an agronomic treatise of unknown authorship has survived entitled Kitāb fī tartīb awqāt al-ghirāsa wa-l-maghrūsāt (ed. A. Lopez) with contents similar to those of the Calendar, complementing that work with an important section on the cultivation of ornamental plants.

These activities were undoubtedly fostered by another factor, which A. Watson in 1983 called «the agricultural revolution» in his important and controversial bookAgricultural innovation in the early Islamic world. At the heart of this revolution was the diffusion of new crops westward from India and Persia through the Arab lands to the Iberian peninsula during the early centuries of Islamic expansion and consolidation. Watson examines in detail sixteen food crops and one fiber crop as part of this process of diffusion. In most cases, diffusion meant the acclimatization of plants native to a humid tropical environment to a Mediterranean climate. Diffusion was accompanied by changes in farming practices. The development of summer crops and more intensive and extensive land exploitation were made possible by a combination of the use of more varied types of soil, the more widespread application of a different kind of manure, improvements in irrigation and changes in landholding size and fallow practices. Watson’s critics have challenged certain of his conclusions, while confirming others. The overall impression remains that during the first Islamic centuries there was indeed a greatly renewed interest in agriculture, including horticulture and arboriculture, with a corresponding rise in food production, which made possible the rise of new urban cultures throughout the Middle East. In al-Andalus, a concomitant development was the appearance of experimental botanical gardens, generally founded by rulers, where new plants were grown and old varieties improved. A more precise picture of the process and scope of this «green revolution» will be gained only when a thorough study of the agronomic treatises is closely integrated with an examination of works of the botanical, medical (especially dietetic) and culinary traditions.

By the fifth/eleventh century, al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya was not only known in al-Andalus, but was a factor in the emergence of what Garcia Sanchez has called the «Andalusian school of agronomy», which continued uninterrupted into the seventh/ thirteenth century. Andalusian agronomic writing culminated in the works of several individuals in different cities spanning the fifth/eleventh century to the seventh/thirteenth. First are the Toledans Ibn Wāfid (d. 466/1074) and Ibn Baṣṣāl (d. 499/1105), the latter’s treatise being based upon his personal experience. Ibn al-Ḥajjāj of Seville wrote his work in 466/1074. The work of the Granadan botanist al-Ṭighnarī (fl. fifth/eleventh-sixth/twelfth century) has yet to appear in a printed edition. A contemporary of al-Ṭighnarī and a personal acquaintance of Ibn Baṣṣāl, Abū l-Khayr of Seville, also made a significant contribution. The great successor and synthesizer of this «school» was the Sevillian Ibn al-ʿAwwām, who lived between 512/1118 and 663/1265. He left the most extensive of all the Andalusian works, Kitāb al-Filāḥa. Its contents, covering agriculture and animal husbandry, are selected from eastern and Andalusian texts, supplemented by the author’s own experimental practice. Finally, the cycle ends with Ibn Luyūn (d. 750/1349) of Almeria, who wrote a lengthy poem (urjūza) on agronomy. The sources employed by these Andalusian scholars, the relationship between the authors and the precise nature of the influence of the classical geoponic tradition have been subject to much recent investigation and debate. Compared with certain classical works translated into Arabic — such as the one sometimes attributed to Anatolius of Berytos — the Andalusian texts appear far more developed and sophisticated. They frequently exhibit both a theoretical and practical outlook and project the authors' collective conviction that agriculture was «the basis of subsistence for men and animals… [allowing for] the preservation of life and the sustaining of the spirit» (al-Ṭighnarī) and that it was «a well-founded science, a divine gift and a great recompense» (Abū l-Khayr).

Conclusion

In the works of qurʾānic commentary, the significance of the plant kingdom within the natural world is explained as an aspect of the Creator’s unique, all-powerful, beneficent nature. In their broadest sense, the «signs» of creation are the keys to the comprehension of the divine reality. The works dedicated to agriculture are by extension the exploration of the signs themselves, the types of land, plants, climatic conditions and the like, a proper understanding of which could maximize for human society the benefit of the divine gifts. The relationship between these two literatures is suggested by the stimulus to learning of the «green revolution» in the early Islamic centuries which gave scope for the practical examination of plants and agricultural techniques documented in the agronomic texts. Taken together in this way, the works of the commentators and agronomists are complementary and illustrate that the proposition that God’s creatures are both determined and yet free (see freedom and predestination) is only an apparent contradiction in the thought of medieval scholars such as al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111). That is, humankind is determined by the divine nature’s creative act, but free to explore and exploit the natural world for its own greater benefit.

See also food and drinks.

Bibliography

Primary

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