Arab Agricultural Revolution

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The Arabs transformed agriculture during the Islamic Golden Age by spreading major crops and techniques such as irrigation across the Old World.

The Arab Agricultural Revolution was the transformation in

Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī, demonstrates the extensive diffusion of useful plants to Medieval Spain (al-Andalus), and the growth in Islamic scientific knowledge of agriculture and horticulture. Medieval Arab historians and geographers described al-Andalus as a fertile and prosperous region with abundant water, full of fruit from trees such as the olive and pomegranate. Archaeological evidence demonstrates improvements in animal husbandry and in irrigation such as with the saqiyah
waterwheel. These changes made agriculture far more productive, supporting population growth, urbanisation, and increased stratification of society.

The revolution was first described by the historian Antonio Garcia Maceira in 1876.

archaeobotany.[8]

Medieval history

See also: Science in the medieval Islamic world

Islamic agronomy

Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī described in detail how to propagate and care for trees such as olive and date palm
.
See also: Andalusi agricultural corpus

The first Arabic book on

al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya (Nabatean Agriculture), from Iraq; it was followed by texts written in al-Andalus, such as the Mukhtasar kitab al-filaha (Abridged Book of Agriculture) by Al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) from Cordoba, around 1000 AD.[9]

The eleventh century agronomist Ibn Bassal of Toledo described 177 species in his Dīwān al-filāha (The Court of Agriculture). Ibn Bassal had travelled widely across the Islamic world, returning with a detailed knowledge of agronomy. His practical and systematic book both gives detailed descriptions of useful plants including leaf and root vegetables, herbs, spices and trees, and explains how to propagate and care for them.[10]

Village scene with poultry, sheep and goats from a copy of the Maqamat al-Hariri illustrated by al-Wasiti, 1237

The twelfth century agronomist

Abū l-Khayr al-Ishbīlī of Seville described in detail in his Kitāb al-Filāha (Treatise on Agriculture) how olive trees should be grown, grafted (with an account of his own experiments), treated for disease, and harvested, and gave similar detail for crops such as cotton.[11]

Medieval Islamic agronomists including Ibn Bassal and Abū l-Khayr described agricultural and horticultural techniques including how to propagate the olive and the date palm, crop rotation of flax with wheat or barley, and companion planting of grape and olive.[9] These books demonstrate the importance of agriculture both as a traditional practice and as a scholarly science.[9] In al-Andalus, there is evidence that the almanacs and manuals of agronomy helped to catalyse change, causing scholars to seek out new kinds of vegetable and fruit, and to carry out experiments in botany; in turn, these helped to improve actual practice in the region's agriculture.[12] During the 11th century Abbadid dynasty in Seville, the sultan took a personal interest in fruit production, discovering from a peasant the method he had used to grow some exceptionally large melons—pinching off all but ten of the buds, and using wooden props to hold the stems off the ground.[12]

Islamic animal husbandry

Arab sheep herders, by Antonio Leto

mutton.[13]

Islamic irrigation

River Nile
some 25 km away.

During the period, irrigated cultivation developed due to the growing use of

water power and wind power.[14][15] Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.[16]

The Islamic period in the

Fayyum depression of Middle Egypt, like medieval Islamic Spain (al-Andalus), was characterised by extremely large-scale systems of irrigation, with both the supply, via gravity-fed canals, and the management of water under local tribal control.[17] In the Islamic period in al-Andalus, whose rural parts were equally tribal,[17] the irrigation canal network was much enlarged.[18] Similarly, in the Fayyum, new villages were established in the period, and new water-dependent orchards and sugar plantations were developed.[17]

sakia
irrigation wheel was improved in and diffused further from Islamic Spain.

The

Umayyad period, and extended.[20][21]

Early accounts of Islamic Spain

Medieval Andalusian historians such as

al-Maqqari, quoting the ninth-century Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Musa al-Razi, describes al-Andalus as a rich land "with good, arable soil, fertile settlements, flowing copiously with plentiful rivers and fresh springs."[26] Al-Andalus was associated with cultivated trees like olive and pomegranate. After the Christian reconquest, arable farming was frequently abandoned, the land reverting to pasture, though some farmers tried to adopt Islamic agronomy.[27] Western historians have wondered if the Medieval Arab historians were reliable, given that they had a motive to emphasize the splendour of al-Andalus, but evidence from archaeology has broadly supported their claims.[28][1]

Scholarly debate

Agricultural scene from a mediaeval Arabic manuscript from al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) c. 1200

In 1876, the historian Antonia Garcia Maceira argued that where the Romans and then the Goths who farmed in Spain made little effort to improve their crops or to import species from other regions, under "the Arabs", there was an agricultural "revolution" in al-Andalus caused "by implementing the knowledge that they acquired through observation during their peregrinations,[c] and the result was extensive agricultural settlement."[1]

In 1974, the historian Andrew Watson published a paper

population distribution, vegetation cover,[31] agricultural production and income, population, urban growth, distribution of the labour force, industries linked to agriculture, cooking, diet and clothing in the Islamic world.[2]

Irrigating by hand in the 20th century

In 1997, the historian of science Howard R. Turner wrote that Islamic study of soil, climate, seasons and ecology "promoted a remarkably advanced horticulture and agriculture. The resulting knowledge, transmitted to Europe after the eleventh century, helped to improve farming techniques, widen the variety of crops, and increase yields on the continent's farmlands. In addition, an enormous variety of crops was introduced to the West from or through Muslim lands".[32]

In 2006, James E. McClellan III and Harold Dorn stated in their book Science and Technology in World History that Islam had depended as much on its farmers as its soldiers, and that the farmers had helped to create a "scientific civilisation": "in what amounted to an agricultural revolution they adapted new and more diversified food crops to the Mediterranean ecosystem: rice, sugar cane, cotton, melons, citrus fruits, and other products. With rebuilt and enlarged systems of irrigation, Islamic farming extended the growing season and increased productivity."[33] They stated further that the importance of these efforts was indicated by the "uninterrupted series" of books on agriculture and irrigation; another indication was provided by the many books on particular animals of importance to Islamic farming and government, including horses and bees. They ascribed the population growth, urbanisation, social stratification, centralisation of politics and state-controlled scholarship to the improvement in agricultural productivity.[33]

Islamic Golden Age innovation: the Moors brought a new architecture, including gardens with water engineering, as in the Alhambra's Generalife Palace, to Al-Andalus.

By 2008, the

archaeozoologist Simon Davis could write without qualification that in the Iberian peninsula "Agriculture flourished: the Moslems introduced new irrigation techniques and new plants like sugar cane, rice, cotton, spinach, pomegranates and citrus trees, to name just a few... Seville had become a Mecca for agronomists, and its hinterland, or Aljarafe, their laboratory."[13]

In 2011, the Arabist

Fatimids (in power 909-1171) made Egypt a major trade centre for the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, and in the more cosmopolitan and sophisticated society that resulted, a "culinary revolution" which transformed Egyptian cuisine.[34]

Early scepticism

Watson's work was met with some early scepticism, such as from the historian Jeremy Johns in 1984. Johns argued that Watson's selection of 18 plants was "peculiar", since the banana, coconut, mango and shaddock were unimportant in the Islamic region at the time, detracting from the discussion of the staple crops. Johns further noted that the evidence of diffusion of crops was imperfect, that Watson made "too many minor slips and larger errors" such as getting dates wrong or claiming that a 1439 document was Norman, and had failed to make best use of the evidence that was available, such as of the decline of classical agriculture, or even to mention the changing geomorphology. Johns however concluded that "The hypothesis of an 'Abbasid agricultural revolution is challenging and may well prove useful".[35][36]

The historian

Sawād area of Iraq, Michele Campopiano concluded that Iraqi agricultural output declined in the 7th to 10th century; he attributed this decline to "competition of the different ruling groups to gain access to land surplus".[38]

Diffusion not revolution

Roman and Islamic systems: the Albolafia irrigation water wheel in front of the Roman bridge at Córdoba, Spain.[39][f][40]

In 2009, the historian Michael Decker

Roman agriculture long before the Muslim conquests.[45][46]

Revolution driven by social institutions

The main trade of [Seville] is in [olive] oils which are exported to the east and the west by land and sea. These oils come from a district called al-Sharaf which extends for 40 milles and which is entirely planted with olives and figs. It reaches from Seville as far as Niébla, having a width of more than 12 milles. It comprises, it is said, eight thousand thriving villages, with a great number of baths and fine houses.—Muhammad al-Idrisi, 12th century[24]

D. Fairchild Ruggles rejected the view that the medieval Arab historians had been wrong to claim that agriculture had been revolutionised, and that it had instead simply been restored to a state like that before the collapse of the Roman Empire. She argued that while the medieval Arab historians may not have had a reliable picture of agricultural knowledge before their time, they were telling the truth about a dramatic change to the landscape of Islamic Spain. A whole new "system of crop rotation, fertilization, transplanting, grafting, and irrigation" was swiftly and systematically put into place under a new legal framework of land ownership and tenancy. In her view, therefore, there was indeed an agricultural revolution in al-Andalus, but it consisted principally of new social institutions rather than of new agronomic techniques.[1] Ruggles stated that this "dramatic economic, scientific, and social transformation" began in al-Andalus and had spread throughout the Islamic Mediterranean by the 10th century.[12]

Historiography

Looking back over 40 years of scholarship since Watson's theory, the historian of land use Paolo Squatriti

archaeobotany had failed to "decisively undermine" Watson's thesis.[8]

Notes

  1. ^ The Arab Agricultural Revolution[2] has also variously been called the Medieval Green Revolution,[3][4] the Muslim Agricultural Revolution,[5] the Islamic Agricultural Revolution[6] and the Islamic Green Revolution.[7]
  2. sakia
     is the more usual name.
  3. ^ However "mythical"[1] the idea of the wandering Arab, Ibn Bassal was indeed widely travelled and wrote from his own observations.[10]
  4. ^ In Paolo Squatriti's view, Watson's thesis also recalled the Belgian economic historian Henri Pirenne's 1939 view of the way that a seventh century Islamic maritime power in the Mediterranean had prevented Europe from trading there.[8]
  5. plantain, mango, and coconut; the fibre was cotton
    .
  6. ^ The website 'Alcazar of the Christian Monarchs' explains: "The most plausible hypothesis points to an Almoravid construction from 1136-1137. The structure was later reused in the Almohad period to supply the lower part of the Alcazaba with water. The watermill was operational up until the end of the fifteenth century, when, according to tradition, Queen Isabella the Catholic ordered it to be taken down because the noise it produced prevented her from sleeping."[40]
  7. ^ Decker wrote "Nothing has been written, however that attacks the central pillar of Watson's thesis, namely the 'basket' of plants that is inextricably linked to all other elements of his analysis. This work will therefore assess the place and importance of four crops of the 'Islamic Agricultural Revolution' for which there is considerable pre-Islamic evidence in the Mediterranean world."[41]
  8. ^ Squatriti is known for works on medieval land use such as Landscape and Change in Early Medieval Italy, Cambridge University Press, 2013.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Ruggles 2000, pp. 31–32.
  2. ^ a b c d Watson 1974, pp. 8–35.
  3. ^ Watson 1981.
  4. ^ Glick 1977, pp. 644–650.
  5. ^ Idrisi 2005.
  6. ^ a b Decker 2009.
  7. ^ Burke 2009, p. 174.
  8. ^ a b c d Squatriti 2014, pp. 1205–1220.
  9. ^ a b c Ruggles 2008, pp. 32–35.
  10. ^ a b "Ibn Baṣṣāl: Dīwān al-filāḥa / Kitāb al-qaṣd wa'l-bayān". The Filaha Texts Project: The Arabic Books of Husbandry. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  11. ^ "Ibn al-'Awwām | Kitāb al-filāḥa". The Filāḥa Texts Project. Retrieved 8 December 2019.
  12. ^ a b c Ruggles 2008, p. 36.
  13. ^ a b Davis 2008, pp. 991–1010.
  14. ^ Mazoyer & Roudart 2006, p. 147.
  15. ^ Glick 1996.
  16. ^ Lucas 2006, p. 65.
  17. ^ a b c Rapoport & Shahar 2012, pp. 1–31.
  18. ^ Jayyusi 1994, pp. 974–986.
  19. ^ a b Glick 1977, pp. 644–50.
  20. ^ a b Ruggles 2007.
  21. ^ Bolens 1972.
  22. ^ Lévi-Provençal 2012.
  23. ^ Meri 2006, p. 96.
  24. ^ a b "Description of Aljarafe, Al-Andalus, in the mid-12th century, by the geographer Abū Abd Allāh Muḥammad al-Idrīsi". The Filaha Texts Project | The Arabic Books of Husbandry. Retrieved 6 February 2018.
  25. ^ Scales 1993, p. 3.
  26. ^ a b c Decter 2007, pp. 20–21, 35.
  27. ^ Decter 2007, p. 35.
  28. ^ Schildgen 2016, p. 84.
  29. ^ Ruggles 2000, pp. 15–34.
  30. ^ a b Decker 2009, pp. 187–188.
  31. ^ Watson 2008.
  32. ^ Turner 1997, p. 173.
  33. ^ a b McClellan & Dorn 2006, p. 102.
  34. ^ Lewicka 2011, pp. 72–74.
  35. ^ Johns 1984, pp. 343–344.
  36. ^ Cahen 1986, p. 217.
  37. ^ Ashtor 1976, pp. 58–63.
  38. ^ Campopiano 2012, pp. 1–37.
  39. ^ Brebbia 2017, p. 341.
  40. ^ a b "Albolafia". Alcazar of the Christian Monarchs. 2011. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  41. ^ a b c d Decker 2009, p. 191.
  42. ^ Decker 2009, p. 187.
  43. ^ Decker 2009, p. 205.
  44. ^ Decker 2009, p. 190.
  45. ^ Oleson 2000, pp. 183–216.
  46. ^ Wikander 2000, pp. 371–400.

Sources

External links
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