Ibn al-'Awwam
Ibn al-'Awwam (
Biography
His full name was Abu Zakariya Yahya ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Al-'Awwam Al-Ishbili (
Kitāb al-Filāḥa (كتاب الفلاحة)
The work is mostly compiled from the writings of other authors. Al-'Awwam cites information from 112 different prior authors. His citations of earlier authors have been analyzed with the following summary results: about 1900 direct and indirect citations altogether, of which 615 are to Greek authors (the great majority to the Geoponica of Cassianus Bassus), 585 are to Middle Eastern Arabic authors (the great majority to the Book of Nabataean Agriculture attributed to Ibn Wahshiyya), and 690 are to Andalusian Arabic authors (the great majority to Ibn Bassal, Abu al-Khayr al-Ishbili or Ibn Hajjaj, all three of whom wrote books about agriculture in the later 11th century in southern Spain, copies of which have survived only partly and incompletely).[3][4] Ibn al-Awwam compiled from only a subset of the authors he cites: This subset in turn contains all the material of the full set of authors he cites. His most influential direct sources were the Andalusian Arabic sources, who in turn were acquainted with various non-Andalusian sources, including sources from classical antiquity.[4] Like himself, his Andalusian sources had read the Geoponica and the Nabataean Agriculture.
Ibn al-Awwam's book is divided into thirty-four chapters. The first thirty deal with crops and the last four deal with livestock. The first four chapters in the book deal successively with different types of
Ibn al-Awwam's book, an agriculture encyclopedia of more than a thousand pages, is primarily a compilation of the writings of other authors. But it is a compilation that is guided and informed by Ibn al-Awwam's own rich and non-bookish knowledge of the subject.[4]
An edition was published in 1802 with the Arabic text placed alongside a translation into Spanish, and in 1864 it was published in French. These publications are freely available online.
See also
Notes and references
- ISBN 9780199545568.
- ISBN 9004109838.
- ^ a b c Ibn al-‘Awwām's Kitāb al-filāḥa, by the Filāḥa Texts Project (www.Filaha.org).
- ^ a b c "The Islamic Traditions of Agroecology: Crosscultural Experience, Ideas and Innovations", by Karl W. Butzer, in journal Cultural Geographies (previously known as Journal of Environment, Culture, Meaning), year 1994, volume 1, pages 7-50 (including pages 28-29 and 39-40); online.
External links
- The Filāḥa Texts Project: Ibn al-‘Awwām—a good short introduction to Ibn Al-Awwam. Includes a concise presentation of the 34 chapter-headings of his book.
- Ibn al-Awwam's Book of Agriculture in Arabic and Spanish, 1802, online in two volumes: Volume 1 and Volume 2.
- Ibn al-Awwam's Book of Agriculture in French, 1864, online in two volumes: Volume 1 and Volume 2.