Surgery

Note of the editor
Abu al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi the Great Surgeon, Dr Ibrahim Shaikh, Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi, Al-Zahrawi, Abulcasis, Islamic medicine, history of surgery, Andalus, Islamic Spain.

***

1. Al-Zahrawi

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Figure 1: Imaginary portrait of Al-Zahrawi. (Source)

Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, known also by his Latin name Albucasis, was born near Cordoba in 936 CE. He was one of the greatest surgeons of his time. His encyclopaedia of surgery was used as standard reference work in the subject in all the universities of Europe for over five hundred years.

The Muslim scientists, Al-Razi, Ibn Sina and Al-Zahrawi are among the most famous of those who worked in the field of medicine in pre-modern times. They have presented to the world scientific treasures which are today still considered important references for medicine and medical sciences as a whole.

Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn Abbas Al-Zahrawi (known in the West as Albucasis) was born at Madinat al-Zahra near Cordoba in Islamic Spain on 936 CE and died in 1013 CE. He descended from the Ansar tribe of Arabia who had settled earlier in Spain. His outstanding contribution to medicine is his encyclopaedic work Al-Tasrif li-man 'ajaza 'an al-ta'lif, a long and detailed work in thirty treatises. The Al-Tasrif, completed about 1000 CE, was the result of almost fifty years of medical practice and experience. Here is how the author expressed his credo in this book:

"What ever I know, I owe solely to my assiduous reading of books of the ancients, to my desire to understand them and to appropriate this science; then I have added the observation and experience of my whole life."

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Figure 2: The beginning of the first article of Part I of a manuscript of Kitab al-tasrif li-man 'ajaza 'an al-ta'lif authored by Al-Zahrawi. The page shows his definition of medicine, quoted from Al-Razi, as the preservation of health in healthy individuals and its restoration to sick individuals as much as possible by human abilities (Source)

Al-Tasrif is an illustrated encyclopaedia of medicine and surgery in 1500 pages. The contents of the book show that Al-Zahrawi was not only a medical scholar, but a great practicing physician and surgeon. His book influenced the progress of medicine and surgery in Europe after it was translated into Latin in the late 12th century, by Gerard of Cremona, and then afterwards into different European languages, including French and English. Al-Tasrif comprises 30 treatises or books (maqâlat) and was intended for medical students and the practicing physician, for whom it was a ready and useful companion in a multitude of situations since it answered all kinds of clinical problems.

The book contains the earliest pictures of surgical instruments in history. About 200 of them are described and illustrated. In places, the use of the instrument in the actual surgical procedure is shown. The first two treatises were translated into Latin as Liber Theoricae, which was printed in Augusburg in 1519. In them, Al-Zahrawi classified 325 diseases and discussed their symptomatology and treatment. In folio 145 of this Latin translation, he described, for the first time in medical history, a haemorrhagic disease transmitted by unaffected women to their male children; today we call it haemophilia. Book 28 is on pharmacy and was translated into Latin as early as 1288 under the title Liber Servitoris.^[1]

Of all the contents of Al-Zahrawi's Al-Tasrif, book 30 on surgery became the most famous and had by far the widest and the greatest influence. Translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187), it went into at least ten Latin editions between 1497 and 1544. The last edition was that of John Channing in Oxford (1778), which contained both the original Arabic text and its Latin translation on alternate pages. Almost all European authors of surgical texts from the 12th to the 16th centuries referred to Al-Zahrawi's surgery and copied from him. They included Roger of Salerno (d. 1180), Guglielmo Salicefte (1201-1277), Lanfranchi (d. 1315), Henri de Mondeville (1260-1320), Mondinus of Bologna (1275-1326), Bruno of Calabria (d. 1352), Guy de Chaulliac (1300-1368), Valescus of Taranta (1382-1417), Nicholas of Florence (d. 1411), and Leonardo da Bertapagatie of Padua (d. 1460).

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Figure 3: Frontispiece of the Latin translation of Al-Zahrawi's Kitab al-tasrif: Liber theoricae necnon practicae Alsaharavii... iam summa diligentia & cura depromptus in lucem (Impensis Sigismundi Grimm & Marci Vuirsung, Augustae Vindelicorum, 1519, 159 leaves). This is a translation of the first two books of Al-Tasrif, edited by Paul Ricius. For a long time, Al-Tasrif was an important primary source for European medical knowledge, and served as a reference for doctors and surgeons. There were no less than 10 editions of its Latin version between 1497 and 1544, before it was translated into French, Hebrew, and English. (Source).

The 300 pages of the book on surgery represent the first book of this size devoted solely to surgery, which at that time also included dentistry and what one may term surgical dermatology. Here, Al-Zahrawi developed all aspects of surgery and its various branches, from ophthalmology and diseases of the ear, nose, and throat, surgery of the head and neck, to general surgery, obstetrics, gynaecology. Military medicine, urology, and orthopaedic surgery were also included. He divided the surgery section of Al-Tasrif into three part:

1. on cauterization (56 sections);
2. on surgery (97 sections),
3. on orthopaedics (35 sections).

It is no wonder then that Al-Zahrawi's outstanding achievement awakened in Europe a hunger for Arabic medical literature, and that his book reached such proeminence that a modern historian considered it as the foremost text book in Western Christendom.

Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu (1385-1468) was a surgeon who lived in Amasia in central Anatolia. He wrote his book Cerrahiye-tu l-Hanniyye in 1460 at the age of 80 after serving for many years as a chief surgeon in Amasiya Hospital (Darussifa) for years. His text Cerrahiye-tu l-Hanniyye was presented to Sultan Mohammad the conqueror, but the manuscript disappeared afterwards until it emerged in the 1920s. The book is roughly a translation of Al-Tasrif of Al-Zahrawi, but Sabuncuoglu added his own experiences and brought interesting comments on previous application, besides that every surgical procedure is illustrated in his work.

William Hunter (1717-1783) used Arabic manuscripts for his study on Aneurysm. Among them was a copy of Al-Zahrawi's Kitab al-Tasrif.^[2] In his biography of William Hunter, Sir Charles lllingworth, the author described the circumstances and the context of the purchase by William Hunter of an Arabic manuscript of Al-Tasrif of Al-Zahrawi, which he obtained from Aleppo in Syria.^[3]

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Figure 4: Artistic scene of Al-Zahrawi treating a patient while students look on. Credits: Wellcome Library, London (Source)

The oldest medical manuscript written in England around 1250 according to The British Medical Journal has startling similarity with Al-Zahrawi's volume:

"This interesting relic consists of eighty-nine leaves of volume, written in beautiful gothic script in the Latin tongue. The work contains six separate treatises, of which the first and most important is the DE CHIRURGIA OF ALBU-HASIM [sic] (Albucasis, Albucasim ). This occupies forty four leaves, three of which are missing. It may be contended that this really is the oldest extant medical textbook written in England."^[4]

Thus, in conclusion, Al-Zahrawi was not only one of the greatest surgeons of medieval Islam, but a great educationist and psychiatrist as well. He devoted a substantial section in the Tasrif to child education and behaviour, table etiquette, school curriculum, and academic specialisation.^[5]

In his native city of Cordoba there is a street called 'Al-Bucasis' named after him. Across the river Wadi Al-Kabir on the other side of the city, in the Calla Hurra Museum, his instruments are displayed in his honour. As a tribute, his 200 surgical instruments were reproduced by Fuat Sezgin and exhibited in 1992 in Madrid's Archaeological Museum. A catalogue, El-legado Cientifico Andalusi, published by the museum, has good colour photos and manuscripts, some of which are on Al-Zahrawi's achievements, legacy and influence.

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Figure 5: A copper spoon used as a medical implement to press down the tongue (dated from the 3rd century H/ 9th century CE, Abbasid period) preserved at the Museum of Islamic Art in Cairo. This tool demonstrates that the physicians of the Islamic medical tradition attached much importance to medicine and medical tools in various areas of treatment and how they developed them. A detailed description of these tools can be found in the book Al-Tasrif of al-Zahrawi. (Source).

Hakim Saead, from Hamdard Foundation in Karachi, Pakistan, has a permanent display of silver surgical instruments of Al-Zahrawi in the library of the Foundation. He also published a colour booklet. Professor Ahmed Dhieb of Tunis has also studied the surgical instruments and reconstructed them; they were displayed in the 36th International Congress for the History of Medicine held in Tunis City in Tunisia. In this exhibition, all surgical instruments of Al-Zahrawi were described and illustrated in detail in three languages - Arabic, French and English under the title Tools of Civilisation.

2. Selected articles on Al-Zahrawi and Islamic medicine on MuslimHeritage.com

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Figure 6: Extract from the Arabic text published in De chirurgia. Arabice et Latine, cura Johannis Channing, natu etr civitate Londinensis (Oxford, 1778). This book contains the surgical section of Al-Tasrif, the first rational, complete and illustrated treatise on surgery and surgical instruments. The surgical portion of Al-Tasrif was published separately and became the first independent illustrated work on the subject. It contained illustrations of a remarkable array of surgical instruments and described operations of fractures, dislocations, bladder stones, gangrene and other conditions. It replaced Paul of Aegina's Epitome as a standard work and remained the most used textbook of surgery for nearly 500 years.(Source)

Abdel-Halim, Rabie E., The Missing Link in the History of Urology: A Call for More Efforts to Bridge the Gap (published 01 May 2009).

Abdel-Halim, Rabie E.,

Paediatric Urology 1000 Years Ago (published 13 May 2009).

Abdel-Halim, Rabie E., and Al-Mazrooa, Adnan A.,

Anaesthesia 1000 Years Ago: A Historical Investigation (published 05 June 2009).

Abdel-Halim, Rabie E., and Elfaqih, Salah R., Pericardial Pathology 900 Years Ago: A Study and Translations from an Arabic Medical Textbook (published 06 May 2009).

Burnett, Charles, Arabic Medicine in the Mediterranean (published 29 November 2004).

Buyukunal, S. N. Cenk, and Sari Nil

The Earliest Paediatric Surgical Atlas: Cerrahiye-i Ilhaniye (published 07 September, 2005).

FSTC Research Team, Medical Sciences in the Islamic Civilization: Scholars, Fields of Expertise and Institutions. Section 3: Al-Zahrawi the Genius Surgeon (published 2 February 2009).

Kaf al-Ghazal, Sharif, Selected Gleanings from the History of Islamic Medicine ( series of 5 articles published 03 April, 2007). Article 3: Al-Zahrawi (Albucasis) the Great Andalusian Surgeon.

Khan, Aliya, and Hehmeyer, Ingrid, Islam's Forgotten Contributions to Medical Science (09 January 2009).

Sayili, Aydin, Certain Aspects of Medical Instruction in Medieval Islam and its Influences on Europe (published 24 October, 2008).

Shaikh, Ibrahim, Eye Specialists in Islam (20 December, 2001)

3. General References on al-Zahrawi

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Figure 7: Front cover of Albucasis (Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi): Renowned Muslim Surgeon of the Tenth Century by Fred Ramen (Rosen Central, 2005)

Abdel-Halim, Rabie E., Altwaijiri, Ali S., Elfaqih, Salah R., Mitwali, Ahmad H., "Extraction of Urinary Bladder Described by Abul-Qasim Khalaf Alzahrawi (Albucasis) (325-404 H, 930-1013 AD)", Saudi Medical Journal 24 (12), 2003: 1283-1291.

Abdel-Halim, A. E., et al., Extraction of Urinary Bladder Stone as Described by Abul-Qasim Khalaf Ibn Abbas Alzahrawi (Albucasis) (930-1013 AD, 325-404 H), Saudi Journal of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation, 9(2), 1998, pp. 157-168. See also the article in PDF here.

Abd al-Rahim, Abd al-Rahim Khalaf, Al-Adawat Jirahiya wa al-Awani al-Tibiya fi al-'asr al-Islami min al-Qarn al-Awal hatta al-Qarn al-Tasi' lil Hijra [Surgical Instruments and Medical Vessels in the Islamic Period from the First Century to the Ninth Century], MA thesis, University of Cairo, 1999.

Ahmad, Z., "Al-Zahrawi, The Father of Surgery", ANZ Journal of Surgery, vol. 77, (Suppl. 1), 2007, A83.

Al-Hadidi, Khaled, "The Role of Muslem Scholars in Oto-rhino-Laryngology", The Egyptian Journal of O.R.L., 4 (1), 1978, pp. 1-15.

[Al-Zahrawi], Albucasis on Surgery and Instruments. A definitive edition of the Arabic text with English translation and commentary by M. S. Spink and G. L. Lewis. London, Wellcome Institute of the History of Medicine, 1973.

[Al-Zahrawi], Albucasis de chirurgia. Arabice et Latine… Cura Johannis Channing. Oxonii: e typographeo Clarendoniano, 1778.

'Awad, H. A., "Al- Jiraha fi al-'asr al-Islami [Surgery in the Islamic Period]", Majalat al-Dirasat al-Islamiya [Journal of Islamic Studies], Cairo, vol. 3, 1988.

Hamarneh, Sami Khalaf, and Sonnedecker, Glenn, A Pharmaceutical View of Abulcasis al-Zahrawi in Moorish Spain, with special reference to the "Adhean, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1963.

Horden, P., 'The Earliest Hospitals in Byzantium, Western Europe, and Islam' Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 35 (3), 2005, pp 361-389.

Hussain, F. A., The History and Impact of the Muslim Hospital. London, Council for Scientific and Medical History, 2009.

Kaadan, Abdul Nasser, "Albucasis and Extraction of Bladder Stone", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, vol. 3, 2004, pp. 28-33.

Levey M., Early Arabic Pharmacology, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1973.

Martin-Araguz, C. Bustamante-Martinez, Ajo V. Fernandez-Armayor, J. M. Moreno-Martinez, "Neuroscience in al-Andalus and its Influence on Medieval Scholastic Medicine", Revista de neurología, vol. 34 (9), 2002, p. 877-892.

[Medarus], "Portraits de Médecins", Albucasis, (Khalaf ibn Abbas Al-Zahrawi) 936-1013 Chirurgien arabe d'Espagne.

Noble, Henry W., Tooth transplantation: a controversial story, History of Dentistry Research Group, Scottish Society for the History of Medicine, 2002.

Ramen, Fred, Albucasis (Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi), The Rosen Publishing Group, 2006.

Savage-Smith, Emilie, "Attitudes Toward Dissection in Medieval Islam", Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (Oxford University Press), vol. 50 (1), 1995, pp. 67–110.

Tabanelli, Mario, Albucasi, un chirurgo arabo dell'alto Medio Evo: la sua epoca, la sua vita, la sua opera. Firenze [Florence], L.S. Olschki, 1961.

[Wikipedia], Al-Zahrawi.

Wikipedia], [Kitab] Al-Tasrif

4. Notes

[1.] Liber servitoris de praeparatione medicinarum simplicium. Bulchasin Benaberazerin, translatus a Simone Januensi, interprete Abraam Tortuosiensi, et divisit in tres tractatus. Dixit agregator hujus operis (Venetiis: Per Nicolaum Ienson, 1471, 1 vol., in-quarto. There are several copies of this edition, for example in the library of the University of Glasgow, Special collections, MS Hunterian Bx.3.26.

[2.] See H. G. Farmer, "William Hunter and his Arabic Interest", in Presentation volume to William Barron Stevenson, edited by Cecil James Mullo Weir, University of Glasgow Oriental Society, 1945, "Studia semitica et orientalia, vol. 2". See a description of the Hunterian Collection on the website of the library of Glasgow University.

[3.] Sir Charles Illingworth, The Story of William Hunter, Edinburgh: E. S. Livingstone, 1967, p. 58.

[4.] [Note in "Nova Vetera" section], "The Oldest Medical Manuscript Written In England", The British Medical Journal (published by BMJ Publishing Group), vol. 2, no. 4096 (July 8, 1939), pp. 80-81; p. 81.

[5.] Sami K. Hamarneh, Health Sciences in Early Islam: Collected Papers, Zahra Publishing Co., 1984.

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Back to the Table of Contents

* Dr Ibrahim Shaikh is a retired medical practitioner. He is a Fellow of the Manchester Medical Society, Manchester, UK.

by: Dr. Ibrahim Shaikh, Sat 22 December, 2001

Contribution of Al-Khwarizmi to Mathematics and Geography

Contribution of Al-Khwarizmi to Mathematics and Geography

N. Akmal Ayyubi *

Introduction

Islam gave birth to a new civilization that spread from China in the east, India in the south east, Russia in the north, and Anatolia in the west of Asia, to East and North Africa until the mediteranean regions of Southern Europe. This civilisation was marked by a deep interest in science. In the heart of the Islamic scientific tradition lays the queen of sciences, mathematics, where the scholars of bilad al-Islam (lands of Islam) excelled in all its branches practiced in pre-modern times.

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Figure 1: A stamp issued in honour of al-Khwarizmi by the former USSR post in 1983. The text in Cyrilic reads: 1200 Years, Mukhammad al-Korezmi. (Source).

One of the greatest minds of the early mathematical production in Arabic was Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (b. before 800, d. after 847 in Baghdad) who was a mathematician, astronomer as well as a geographer and a historian. It is said that he is the author in Arabic of one of the oldest astronomical tables, of one the oldest work on arithmetic and the oldest work on algebra; some of his scientific contributions were translated into Latin and were used until the 16^th century as the principal mathematical text books in European universities. Originally he belonged to Khwârazm (modern Khiwa) situated in Turkistan but he carried on his scientific career in Baghdad and all his works are in Arabic language. He was summoned to Baghdad by Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun (213-833), who was a patron of knowledge and learning. Al-Ma'mun established the famous Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) which worked on the model of a library and a research academy. It had a large and rich library (Khizânat Kutub al-Hikma) and distinguished scholars of various faiths were assembled to produce scientific masterpieces as well as to translate faithfully nearly all the great and important ancient works of Greek, Sanskrit, Pahlawi and of other languages into Arabic. Muhammd al-Khwarizmi, according to Ibn al-Nadîm [1] and Ibn al-Qiftî [2] (and as it is quoted by the late Aydin Sayili) [3], was attached to (or devoted himself entirely to) Khizânat al-Hikma. It is also said that he was appointed court astronomer of Caliph Al-Ma'mun who also commissioned him to prepare abstracts from one of the Indian books entitled Surya Siddhanta which was called al-Sindhind [4] in Arabic [5]. Al-Khwarizmi's name is linked to the translation into Arabic of certain Greek works [6] and produced his own scholarly works not only on astronomy and mathematics but also in geography and history. It was for Caliph al-Ma'mun that Al-Khwarizmi composed his astronomical treatise and dedicated his book on Algebra.

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Figure 2: Modern statue of al-Khwarizmi at Khiva, in Ouzbekistan. Photo Alain Juhel. (Source).

Contribution to Mathematics

Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi is one of the greatest scientific minds of the medieval period and most important Muslim mathematician who was justly called the 'father of algebra'. He wrote the Kitâb al-Jem wa'l Tafrîq bi Hisâb al-Hind also called Kitâb Hisâb al-adad al-Hindî on arithmetic in which he used Indian numerals [7] including zero in place of depicting numbers by the letters of the alphabet and the decimal notations or numeration by position" for the first time. It deals with the four basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as with both common and sexagesimal fractions and the extraction of the square root. The original Arabic text of the book is lost and its only Latin translation is available.

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Figure 3: Title page of an Arabic manuscript copy of al-Khwarizmi's Kitab al-jabr wa-'l-muqabala (Source).

Other mathematical writings of al-Khwarizmi are also not known. His best known classical work on algebra is the Kitâb al-Mukhtasar fî Hisâb al-Jabr wa'l-Muqâbala. It was translated into Latin in the Middle Ages and holds an eminent place in the history of mathematics. According to the words of Galal S.A. Shawki [8], in this book al-Khwarizmi defined algebra as an independent disciple in mathematics, and accelerated the introduction of the Arabic place value numbering into the West. The book is devoted to finding solutions to practical problems which Muslims encountered in daily life [9] concerning matters of inheritance, legacies, partition, lawsuits and commerce, with over eight hundred examples. The original work in Arabic was written in 820 CE [10]. and was translated into Latin in the 12^th century. It is worth remarking that the term al-jabr, in the Latinized form of algebra, has found its way into the modern languages, whilst the old mathematical term algorism is a distortion of al-Khwarizmi's name.

The meaning of the Arabic word Al-Jabr is restoration by transposing negative quantities to the other side of the equation to make them positive; and the term Al-Muqâbalah refers to the process of eliminating identical quantities from the two sides of the equation [11]. But the best translation for Hisâb al-Jabr wa'l-Muqâbala, according to John K. Baumgart [12], is 'the science of equations'. The algebra of al-Khwarizmi was rhetorical in form. Al-Khwarizmi had given the rules for the solution of quadratic equations which are supported in a number of cases by geometrical proofs also. The unknown quantity, in the words of Galal S.A. Shawki, was termed the "thing" (shay') or "root" (jidhr); the latter means in Arabic the origin or base, also the root of a tree, hence, the use of the expression "root of an equation" is derived from this Arabic concept [13]. Al-Khwarizmi had used the Arabic word for root to denote the first degree term of a quadratic equation. Explaining in detail he says: "the following is an example of squares equal to roots, a square is equal to 5 roots. The root of the square then is 5, and 25 forms its square, which of course equals 5 of its roots [14]." For the second power of a quantity he employs mâl (wealth, property) which is also used to mean only "quantity" and dirham is used as unit of coinage.

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Figure 4: Manuscript copy of al-Khwarizmi's book of algebra; the MS was copied in 743 H in Cairo, 500 years after the death of al-Khwarizmi. © Oxford University, the Bodleian Library.

The bases of algebra, first viewed as an independent mathematical discipline, were laid down by al-Khwarizmi who carefully formulated analytical solutions of the various forms of quadratic equation and profusely illustrated his method of solution by practical examples [15]. He was quite aware of the existence of two roots of the quadratic equation, though he cared for positive, real roots only [16].

The book Hisâb al-Jabr wa'l-Muqâbalah is actually on applied mathematics. Its first part discusses the equations of the first and second degrees. All his proposed problems can be reduced to one of the six standard forms. He gives rules for the solution of each of the six forms and explains how to reduce any given problem to one of these standard forms with examples [17]. The second part of the book deals with practical mensuration by giving rules for finding the area of various plane figures including the circles, and for finding the volume of a number of solids including cones and pyramids. The third part concerns legacies as well as inheritance and is the longest. It consists entirely of solved problems which arise out of legacies.

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Figure 5: Incipit of a Latin manuscript of the tradition of algebraic and arithmetic books known as Algorismus : Pennsylvania University, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection, Manuscript Number: LJS 027, 115 folios. Illuminated for a member of the Albertini family of Nola, Italy, in 1478. (Source).	Figure 6: Front cover of Al-Khwarizmi: The Inventor Of Algebra by Corona Brezina (Rosen Central, 2006).

The mathematical works of al-Khwarizmi were used in European universities up to the 17^th century. He is, in the words of 'Ali 'Abdullah Al-Daffa [18], the founder of algebra and had transformed the concept of a number from its earlier arithmetic character as a fixed quantity into that of variable element in an equation. He also found a method to solve general equations of the first and second degree in one unknown by both algebraic and geometric means [19]. It was through his work on mathematics that the Indian system of numeration was known to the Arabs and later through its Latin translation to the people of Europe. He synchronized Greek and Indian mathematical knowledge but was the first mathematician to distinguish clearly between algebra and geometry and gave geometrical solutions of linear and quadratic equations.

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Figure 7: Two instances of the modern application of algebra: a book of algebra for electronic circuits and a pocket calculator.

Contribution to Geography

Al-Khwarizmi had also contributed to the science of geography. As the book of Geography of Claudius Ptolemy (2^nd century CE) was translated several times into Arabic, he had a model for writing his book in this field of knowledge. His book on geography entitled Kitâb Sûrat al-Ard (Book of the image of the earth) consists almost entirely of lists of longitudes as well as latitudes of localities and gives in a tabulated form the coordinates of the places like cities, mountains, seas, rivers, islands etc. The book is arranged according to the Greek system of the seven climes (aqâlim) giving contemporary data but the knowledge acquired by the other Muslims are also incorporated into it. The first section lists cities, the second, mountains (giving the coordinates of their extreme points and their orientation); the third, seas (giving the coordinates of salient point on their coastlines and a rough description of their outlines); the fourth, islands (giving the coordinates of their centres, and their length and breadth); the fifth, the central points of various geographical regions; the sixth, rivers (giving their salient points and towns on them) [20]. This book had served as a basis for later works and stimulated geographical studies and the composition of original treatises. It is said that his Kitâb Sûrat al-Ard was also accompanied by regional maps of each of the climes and by a single world map called "al-Sûrat al-Ma'muniyya" but have been lost. It is also said that his map of the world was the first map of the heavens and the world drawn by Muslims. But the editor of the Kitâb Sûrat al-Ard Hans von Mzik, has produced only four maps. These four maps, in the words of S. Maqbul Ahmad [21], seem to be later recessions of the original maps. But Ibrahim Shawkat [22] argues that since Al-Khwârazmî wrote a brief work on geography, he did not draw a complete map of the world but confined himself to draw only the four maps as an illustration. His source of inspiration might possibly have been the mappa mundi [23] constructed for Caliph Al-Ma'mun by a team of geographers in which Al-Khwârazmî himself would have been included [24].

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Figure 8: A map by Abu Zaid Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi (850-934), a Persian geographer who was a disciple of al-Kindi and also the founder the "Balkhī school" of terrestrial mapping in Baghdad. Picture displayed on "Old Manuscripts and Maps from Khorasan". (Source).

The Kitâb Sûrat al-Ard depends, even if in an indirect manner, on the Geography of Ptolemy [25], but in the opinion of Ibrahim Shawkat, it was based on the work of Marinus [26]. The book was produced under the patronage of the Caliph Al-Ma'mun in about 830 CE in which the towns and mountains are presented in a tabulated form, and oceans, seas, islands, countries, springs and rivers are given in a descriptive form. Again, towns, mountains, springs and rivers are described according to the climes (aqâlim) to which they belong, while the description of the oceans and seas is free from the limits of these climes. Similarly islands are described under the seas and oceans to which they belong. The description of the countries is also free from the limits of the climes. Along with the geographical names of the Muslim period, a large number of ancient place names are also founded in the book but in the later portions these names rapidly begin to disappear.

The map of the world of al-Khwarizmi called al-Sûrat al-Ma'muniyya has now been fully reconstructed by an Indian scholar, Dr. S. Razia Jafri [27], on the basis of description and data given in his Kitâb Sûrat al-Ard. It is divided into 38 sections which are again sub-divided into 1740 small squares from West to East and into 1200 small squares "from South to North. Each clime (iqlîm) from West to East is again divided into seven sections. It is to be noted that the general division of the Map into climes is according to al-Khwarizmi, but the sub-division of the climes into section is done by Dr. Razia Jafri arbitrarily. In this way it is just like an Atlas. It is to be noted that the Soviet Academy of Sciences of Tajik is publishing it along with the forward and introduction of Dr. Kamal Ayni and Prof. S. Maqbul Ahmad respectively. The printing of this work is done under the supervision of Prof. M.S. Asimov who was the eminent scholar and the president of the Academy of Sciences of the former Soviet Tajik Republic at Dushanbe.

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Figure 9: Map of South Caucasus drawn ca. 950 CE by the geographer al-Istakhri in his Kitab al Masalik wa-al-Mamalik (Book of roads and provinces), showing Armenia with Mount Ararat, Lake Van and Azerbaijan. The map shows. Printed in Maps of Ancient Armenia by Roubik Galichian (London, 2004). (Source).

Al-Khwarizmi is the author of several other books on astronomy and history. He became well known as a mathematician and it is said that he is the author of the oldest work on algebra. But the late Professor Aydin Sayili says in one of his research papers entitled "Turkish contribution to Science" as follows: "Abu'l Fadl ^cAbdulhamîd ibn Wâsi^c ibn Turk was apparently the first Islamic mathematician to write a book on algebra. Indeed, he, very likely, wrote his algebra before Al-Khwârazmî wrote his. For unlike Al-Khwârazmî, he did not write an unabridged algebra, and, moreover, there is evidence that Al-Khwârazmî was still alive at about the middle of 9^th century. ^cAbdulhamîd ibn Turk was also the author of certain books on numbers, on commercial arithmetic, and on the art of calculation, probably with the decimal system. Now, it is not possible for me to agree or disagree with him but it is realistic to say that the works of al-Khwarizmi on mathematics have great influence in the birth of Western Science and he is rightly called the "father of algebra" and a peerless geographer [28]."

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Figure 10: A world map by al Istakhri (934 CE). The map is oriented with South at the top. Picture displayed on "Old Manuscripts and Maps from Khorasan". (Source).

References and further reading

• Adivar, Abdulhak Adnan, "Harizmi" in Islam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 4, p. 261.
• Fihrist al-Ulûm, edited by Flügel, vol. 1, 1871, p. 274.
• Historical topics for the Mathematics Classroom, Washington 1969.
• Hocker, Sidney G., and others, Fundamental Concepts of Arithmetic, 1963, p. 9.
• Hogbin, Lancelot, Mathematics for the Million, New York 1946, p. 291.
• Jones, Philip S., "Large Roman Numerals", The Mathematics Teacher, vol. 28, p. 261.
• Khara'it Jughrafiqyyi al-'Arab al-awwel, Majallet al-Ustadh of Baghdad, 1962, pp. 7-8.
• Kokomoor, Franklin W., Mathematics in Human Affairs, New York 1946.
• Ronart, Stephen and Nandy, Concise Encyclopaedia of Arabic Civilization, New York I960, p. 295.
• Sayili, Aydin, "Turkish Contributions to Scientific Work in Islam", Belleten (Turkish Historical Society), vol. 43, Ankara 1979, s. 16.
• Sayili, Aydin, The Observatory in Islam, Ankara 1960.
• Shawki, Galal S.A., Formulation and Development of Algebra by Muslim Scholars, published in Islamic Studies of Islamabad, vol. 23, No. 4, p. 338.
• Tafkir al-^cArab al-Jughrafi wa'itaqat al-Yunan bihi", extract from the Journal "A l-Ustadh", Baghdad 1961.
• Tarikh al-Hukama, edited by Lippert, Berlin 1903 (Cairo edition, 1326 H), p. 286.
• The Muslim Contribution to Mathematics, London 1977, p. 7.
• Toomer, G.J., "Al-Khwârazmî", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 7, pp. 359-361.
• Turkish Architecture, translated by Prof. Dr. Ahmet Edip Uysal Ankara 1965, p. 2.
• Zemanek, Heinz, "DIXIT Algorizmi - His Background, his Personality, his Work, and his Influence". Source Lecture Notes In Computer Science, vol. 122. Proceedings on Algorithms in Modern Mathematics and Computer Science. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1979 , pp. 1 - 81.

End Notes

[1] Fihrist al-Ulûm, edited by Flügel, vol. 1, 1871, p. 274.

[2] Tarikh al-Hukama, edited by Lippert, Berlin 1903 (Cairo edition, 1326 H), p. 286.

[3] Aydin Sayili, The Observatory in Islam, Ankara 1960, p. 55.

[4] Abdulhak Adnan Adivar, "Harizmi" in Islam Ansiklopedisi, vol. 4, p. 261.

[5] It was first introduced in Baghdad by an Indian traveller in 771 CE, which by order of al-Mansur was translated into Arabic by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Fazârî between 796 and 806 for the first time.

[6] Stephen and Nandy Ronart, Concise Encyclopaedia of Arabic Civilization, New York I960, p. 295.

[7] Ya'qub bin Tariq is said to be the first Muslim to introduce Indian numbers to Arabs.

[8] Galal S.A. Shawki, Formulation and Development of Algebra by Muslim Scholars, published in Islamic Studies of Islamabad, vol. 23, No. 4, p. 338.

[9] Lancelot Hogbin, Mathematics for the Million, New York 1946, p. 291.

[10] Sidney G. Hocker and others, Fundamental Concepts of Arithmetic, 1963, p. 9.

[11] Galal S.A. Shawki, Formulation and Development of Algebra…, op. cit., p. 338.

[12] Historical topics for the Mathematics Classroom, Washington 1969, pp. 233-4.

[13] Islamic Studies of Islamabad, vol. 23, No. 4, p. 339.

[14] Philip S. Jones, "Large Roman Numerals", The Mathematics Teacher, vol. 28, p. 261.

[15] Islamic Studies of Islamabad, vol. 23, No. 4, p. 351.

[16] Ibid.

[17] G.J. Toomer, "Al-Khwârazmî", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, vol. 7, p. 359.

[18] The Muslim Contribution to Mathematics, London 1977, p. 7.

[19] Franklin W. Kokomoor, Mathematics in Human Affairs, New York 1946, p. 172.

[20] G.J. Toomer, "Al-Khwarizmi", Dictionary of Scientific Biography, volume 7, p. 361.

[21] Encyclopaedia of Islam, (new edition), vol. 4.

[22] Khara'it Jughrafiqyyi al-'Arab al-awwel, Majallet al-Ustadh of Baghdad, 1962, pp. 7-8.

[23] Mappa Mundi is a term used for the map of the world.

[24] Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 4, p. 1078.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Tafkir al-^cArab al-Jughrafi wa'itaqat al-Yunan bihi", extract from the Journal "A l-Ustadh", Baghdad 1961.

[27] One of the staff members of Aligarh Muslim University of India.

[28] Aydin Sayili, "Turkish Contributions to Scientific Work in Islam", Belleten (Turkish Historical Society), vol. 43, Ankara 1979, p. 16. Click here.

*Dr., Department of Islamic Studies Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India. This article was first published in the Proceedings of the International Symposium on Ibn Turk, Khwârazmî, Fârâbî, Beyrûnî and Ibn Sînâ (Ankara, 9-12 September 1985), Ankara, 1990.

by: FSTC Limitied, Wed 27 December, 2006

What did they do ?

http://www.1001inventions.com/1001inventions

Agricultural

Note of the editor

This article was published on www.MuslimHeritage.com in August 2002. It is republished with revisions and new illustrations. Copyright: © FSTC Limited, 2002-2010.

* * *

1. Introduction

History usually conveys the notion that the agricultural revolution took place in recent times in the form of rotation of crops, advanced irrigation techniques, plant improvements, etc., and that some of those changes took place only in the last couple of centuries in Europe, whilst others are occurring today. It is explained that such revolutionary changes fed the increasing world population, released vast numbers of workers from the land and allowed agriculture to produce a capital surplus, which was invested in industry, thus leading to the industrial revolution of the 18th-19th century.

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Figure 1: Satellite view of the Nile Delta in which colour has been enhanced to show the sediment carried out of the Nile River and into the Mediterranean Sea as well as to show the differences of the land features. The Nile Delta is one of the world's largest river deltas. The delta is a very rich agricultural region for Egypt. It has been farmed for at least 5,000 years. (Source).

This is the accepted wisdom, until one comes across works on Muslim agriculture and discovers that several of those changes took place over ten centuries ago in the Muslim world, some of them being the foundations of important modern innovations. Watson, Glick and Bolens [1], in particular, show that major breakthroughs were achieved by Muslim farmers on the land, and by Muslim scholars with their treatises on the subject. Thus, as with other subjects, prejudice distorts history, and the achievements in the world of Islam ten centuries ago are covered up. This point is raised by Cherbonneau as long as the 1940s when he wrote: "it is admitted with difficulty that a nation in majority of nomads could have had known any form of agricultural techniques other than sowing wheat and barley. The misconceptions come from the rarity of works on the subject… If we took the bother to open up and consult the old manuscripts, so many views will be changed, so many prejudices will be destroyed [2]."

2. The Agricultural Revolution

As early as the 9th century, an innovative agricultural system became central to economic life and the organization of production in the Muslim land. The great Islamic cities of the Near East, North Africa and Spain, Artz explains, were supported by an elaborate agricultural system that included extensive irrigation and an expert knowledge benefiting from some of the most advanced agricultural methods known so far. The Muslims reared the finest horses and sheep and cultivated the best orchards and vegetable gardens. They knew how to fight insect pests, how to use fertilizers, and they were experts at grafting trees and crossing plants to produce new varieties [3]. Glick defines the Muslim agricultural revolution in the introduction of new crops, which, combined with extension and intensification of irrigation, created a complex and varied agricultural system, whereby a greater variety of soil types were put to efficient use. In this system, fields that had been yielding one crop annually at most were capable of yielding three or more crops, in rotation. As a result of such intensive agriculture, agricultural production responded to the demands of an increasingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan urban population by providing the towns with a variety of products unknown elsewhere, for example, in Northern Europe [4]. Scott, on his part, considered that the agricultural system of the Spanish Muslims, in particular, was "the most complex, the most scientific, the most perfect, ever devised by the ingenuity of man [5]."

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Figure 2: Scene of agriculture work in an Arabic manuscript from Islamic Spain. (Source).

Such advancement of Muslim farming, according to Bolens, was owed to the adaptation of agrarian techniques to local needs, and to "a spectacular cultural union of scientific knowledge from the past and the present, from the Near East, the Maghreb, and Andalusia. A culmination subtler than a simple accumulation of techniques, it has been an enduring ecological success, proven by the course of human history [6]." A variety of fertilisers were used according to a well-advanced methodology; whilst a maximum amount of moisture in the soil was preserved [7]. Soil rehabilitation was constantly cared for, and preserving the deep beds of cropped land from erosion was, as Bolens explains, "the golden rule of ecology", and was "subject to laws of scrupulous careful ecology [8]".

The success of Islamic farming also lay in hard work. No natural obstacle was sufficiently formidable to check the enterprise and industry of the Muslim farmer. He tunnelled through the mountains, his aqueducts went through deep ravines, and he levelled with infinite patience and labour he levelled the rocky slopes of the sierra in Spain [9]. Watson sums up by arguing that the rise of productivity of agricultural land and sometimes of agricultural labour was due to the introduction of higher yielding new crops and better varieties of old crops, through more specialised land use which often centred on the new crops, through more intensive rotations which the new crops allowed, through the concomitant extension and improvement of irrigation, through the spread of cultivation into new or abandoned areas, and through the development of more labour intensive techniques of farming. These changes, themselves, were positively affected by changes in other sectors of the economy: growth of trade, enlargement of the money economy, increasing specialisation of factors of production in all sectors, and with the growth of population and its increasing urbanisation [10].

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Figure 3: Front cover of Kitab al-filaha (Libro de agricultura) by Ibn Bassal, an 11th-century Andalusian from Toledo (edited, annotated and translated into Spanish published in Tetua´n, 1955). The book contains information about the different kinds of foodstuff and how to produce them and preserve them, in addition to the agricultural methods in cultivation, irrigation, pets control and land tilling.

From Andalusia to the Far East, from the Sudan to Afghanistan, irrigation remained central, and the basis of all agriculture and the source of all life [11]. The ancient systems of irrigation the Muslims inherited were in an advanced state of decay.[12]. The Muslims repaired them and constructed new ones; besides devising new techniques to catch, channel, store and lift the water, and making ingeniously combine available devices [13]. All of the books of Filaha (agriculture), whether Maghribi, Andalusian, Egyptian, Iraqi, Persian or Yemenite, Bolens points out, insist meticulously on the deployment of equipment and on the control of water [14].

3. Agricultural Machines and Construction

Water that was captured through a variety of ways was then successively channelled, stored and lifted using the different techniques and varied devices for each operation. Irrigation became cheap, affecting lands previously impossible or uneconomic to irrigate [15]. Irrigated fields yielded as many as four harvests annually [16], which, as in Spain, laid the foundations for the country's prosperity [17]. Damming of rivers to provide households and mills with power, and for irrigation, was also widespread [18]. The introduction of the noria (a water lifting device) in any district has always had revolutionary consequences upon agricultural productivity. Being relatively inexpensive to build and simple to maintain, the noria enabled the development of entire huertas that were intensively irrigated [19].

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Figure 4a-b: View of the frontispiece and of the title of Kitab al-filaha al-andalusiya (The Book of Andalusian Agriculture) by Yahya ibn al-Awwam al-Ishbili. Translated into Spanish and annotated by Joseph Antonio Banqueri (Madrid, 1802). The book consists of 35 chapters dealing with agronomy, cattle and poultry raising and beekeeping. It deals with 585 plants; explains the cultivation of more than 50 fruit trees; and includes many valuable observations on soils, manures, plant grafting, and plant diseases. (Source).

In Cordoba, al-Shaqundi (13th century) speaks of 5000 norias (possibly including both lifting and milling devices) on the Guadalquivir [20]. Some are still in use, as at La Nora, six km from the Murcia city centre, where although the original wheel has been replaced by a steel one, the ancient system is otherwise virtually unchanged [21]. In general, these Islamic irrigation techniques that were transferred to Spain were adapted to specific natural conditions [22]. The Muslims, Forbes holds, should be credited with important developments of irrigation in the Western Mediterranean. They did not just extend the irrigated area in Spain and Sicily, but also knew how to drain rivers and how to irrigate their fields by systems of branch channels with an efficient distribution of the available water [23]. They also captured rainwater in trenches on the sides of hills or as it ran down mountain gorges or into valleys; surface water was taken from springs, brooks, rivers and oases, whilst underground water was tapped by creating new springs, or digging wells [24].

4. Examples of Water Management

Water, such a precious commodity, was managed according to stringent rules, any waste of the resource banned, and the most severe economy enforced. Several techniques for preserving water were used. The qanat and the foggaras are discussed below.

The qanat is called different names in various parts of the Middle East and North Africa [25]. It is a water management system used to provide a reliable supply of water to human settlements and for irrigation in hot, arid and semi-arid climates. Qanats are constructed as a series of well-like vertical shafts, connected by gently sloping tunnels. Qanats tap into subterranean water in a manner that efficiently delivers large quantities of water to the surface without need for pumping. The water drains relying on gravity, with the destination lower than the source, which is typically an upland aquifer. Qanats allow water to be transported over long distances in hot dry climates without losing a large proportion of the water to seepage and evaporation. Qanats are sometimes split into an underground distribution network of smaller canals located below ground to avoid contamination. In some cases water from a Qanat is stored in a reservoir, typically storing night flow for daytime use.

From Spain, where Muslims used this technology in water management, the qanat system was transferred to the New World and qanats have been found in Mexico, Peru, and Chile. In Palermo, Italy, a qanat system from the Arab days was used to bring fresh water to the city and to irrigate its gardens. There are current plans to revive and reconstruct the Arabic qanat and utilize it to solve the acute needs of the modern city of Palermo for potable water. The project in hand is of great historical, archaeological, geological and hydro-geological importance. It is already of great interest for tourists [26].

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Figure 5: Front cover of the recent paperback printing of the French translation of Kitab al-filaha by Ibn al-Awwam: Le livre de l'agriculture, translated by J.-J. Clément-Mullet (Actes Sud, 2000, 1052 pp.)

In the Algerian Sahara, various water management techniques were used to make the most effective use of the resource. The foggaras, a network of underground galleries, conducted water from one place to another over very long distances so as to avoid evaporation. Although the system is still in use today, the tendency at present is for over-use and waste of water.

The foggaras in the Algeria Sahara are the source of water for irrigation at large oases like that at Gourara. The foggaras are also found at Touat (an area of Adrar 200 km from Gourara). The length of the foggaras in this region is estimated to be thousands of kilometers.

Although sources suggest that the foggaras may have been in use as early as ancient times, they were clearly in use by the 11th century after the oases had come under the authority of Islamic rulers in the 10th century and the residents had embraced Islam [27].

Still in Algeria, in the Beni Abbes region, in the Sahara, south of Oran, farmers used a clepsydra to determine the duration of water use for every user in the area [28]. This clepsydra regulates with precision, night and day, the amount going to each farmer, timed by the minute, throughout the year, and taking into account seasonal variations. Each farmer is informed of the timing of his turn, and required to take the necessary action to ensure effective supply to his plot [29]. In Spain, the same strict management was in operation. The water conducted from one canal to the other was used more than once, the quantity supplied accurately graduated; distributing outlets were adapted to each soil variety, two hundred and twenty four of these, each with a specific name [30]. All disputes and violations of laws on water were dealt with by a court-whose judges were chosen by the farmers themselves. This court named The Tribunal of the Waters sat on Thursdays at the door of the principal mosque. Ten centuries later, the same tribunal still sits in Valencia, but at the door of the cathedral [31].

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Figure 6a-b: Two editions of Kitab al-Tabikh (The Book of Cookery) by Al-Katib al-Baghdadi (d. 1240). The first edition appeared in Mosul, Matba'at Umm al-Rabi'ayn, 1934 and the second one is a reprint (in Beirut, 1964), with a supplement: Mu'jam al-Ma'akil al-Dimashqiya (A Dictionary of Damascene Dishes) by Fakhri al-Barudi. The author, a native of Baghdad, and an ardent food lover, wrote his book toward the end of the Abbasid Caliphate. He describes in his recipes the different foods and dishes which were prepared by the residents of Baghdad during the era of its opulence. The manuscript of this book is an autograph which the author finished on 20 Dhu al-Hijjah 623 H /12 December 1226.

5. Globalisation of Crops

Elaborating on the Islamic agricultural revolution, the picture that emerges is that of a large unified region which for a long period of time amounting to more than four centuries was unusually receptive to all that was new. It was also unusually able to diffuse novelties: both to effect the initial transfer which introduced an element into a region and to carry out the secondary diffusion which changed rarities into commonplaces. Attitudes, social structure, institutions, infrastructure, scientific progress, technological inventions and economic development all played a part in the making of this medium of diffusion. Agriculture as well as other spheres of the economy and many areas of social life were touched by this capacity to absorb and to transmit [32].'

Indeed, the advances introduced in agriculture in the Islamic world was represented by a wide use of new methods, machinery and also certain crops which could not have been grown with the typically classical agricultural methods. The Romans had imported rice but had never grown it on a large scale. The Muslims started to grow it on irrigated fields in Sicily and Spain, whence it came to the Pisan plain (1468) and Lombardy (1475) [33].

In this way, historians agree that the Andalus received all manner of agricultural and fruit-growing processes, together with a vast number of new plants, fruit and vegetables that we all now take for granted [34]. These new crops included sugar cane, rice, citrus fruit, apricots, cotton, artichokes, aubergines and saffron. Others, previously known, were developed further [35]. Muslims also brought to that country rice, oranges, sugar cane and cotton [36], and sub-tropical crops such as bananas and sugar cane were grown on the coastal parts of the country [37], many to be taken later to the New World. In addition, all these products and the methods of their cultivation were in turn transmitted to most of Europe.

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Figure 7: Kanz al-Fawa'id fi Tanwi' al-Mawa'id: Medieval Arab-Islamic Culinary Art. (edited by Manuela Marin and David Waines in Beirut, 1993). An anonymous medieval Arabic cookbook, possibly of Egyptian provenance, compiled sometime during the Mamluk period. The book contains more than 800 recipes for the preparation of dishes, sweets, drinks and medicines from different regions in the Middle East with frequent health references attached to them. (Source).

Also owing to the Muslim influence, a silk industry flourished, flax was cultivated and linen exported, and esparto grass, which grew wild in the more arid parts, was collected and turned into various items [38]. In Sicily, crops and techniques introduced by the Muslims still form the foundations of the economy [39]. Much of the transfer of such crops often is due to the enthusiasm of individual people. So, Abd al-Rahman I, out of nostalgia for the Syrian landscape was personally responsible for the introduction of several species, including the date palm [40]. A variety of pomegranate was introduced from Damascus by the chief judge of Cordoba, Mu'awiya b. Salih. It is also reported that the Umayyad soldiers originally from the Middle East introduced fig cutting which were planted first in the Malaga region. This species, called safri, subsequently became widely diffused [41].

The Muslims who had introduced sugar cane into Ethiopia, and who made the East African island of Zanzibar famous for its high quality sugar [42]. Baron Carra de Vaux observes that in general "it would make a whole book and not the least interesting, on the history of flowers, plants and animals that had come from the Orient, and which are used in agriculture, pharmacy, gardens, luxury trade, and arts [43]." He lists tulips, hyacinths, narcissi, lilacs, jasmine, roses, peaches, prunes, Barbary sheep, goats, Angora cats, Persian cocks, silk, cotton, and plants and products used for dyeing [44].

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Figure 8: Front cover of a recent edition of Kitab al-aghdhiyah wa-al-adwiyah (The Book of Foods and Medicines) by Ishaq ibn Sulayman al-Isra'ili (Beirut, 1992). In this voluminous treatise, the Egyptian Jewish physician Ishaq ibn Sulayman al-Isra'ili (d. ca. 935) who later moved to Kairouan in Tunisia, deals - according to his own experimentation - with the various foods and the best ways for preparing and using them to help the individual maintain good health. This edition was based on the manuscript MS 3604-3607, Fatih Collection, Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul, copied in 708 H/1308 CE.

Notes and References

[1] See A. M. Watson: Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, 1983; A. M. Watson, "The Arab Agricultural Revolution and its Diffusion", in The Journal of Economic History 34 (1974), pp. 8-35; Thomas Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, Princeton University Press, 1979; T. Glick, Irrigation and Hydraulic Technology: Medieval Spain and its Legacy, Varorium, Aldershot, 1996; L. Bolens, Les méthodes culturales au Moyen Age d'après les traités d'agronomie andalous: Traditions et techniques, Geneva, 1974; L. Bolens, Agronomes Andalous du Moyen Age, Geneva/Paris, 1981 and L. Bolens, "L'Eau et l'irrigation d'après les traités d'agronomie Andalous au Moyen Age (XI-XIIèmes siècles)", Options Méditerranéenes, vol. 16, December 1972, pp. 65-77.

[2] A. Cherbonneau: "Kitab al-Filaha of Abu Khayr al-Ichbili", in Bulletin d‘Etudes Arabes (Alger), vol. 6, 1946, pp. 130-44; p. 130. See also Abu al-Khayr al-Ishbili, Kitâb al-Filâh'a ou Le Livre de la culture [by Aboû 'l-Khayr ach-Chadjdjâr al-Ichbîlî], notice et extraits traduits par Auguste Cherbonneau, éclaicissements par Henri Pérès, Alger: Carbonel, 1946.

[3] Frederick B. Artz, The Mind of the Middle Ages, The University of Chicago Press, 1980, 3rd edition revised, p. 150.

[4] T. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, op. cit., p. 78.

[5] S. P. Scott, History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, J.B. Lippincott Company, London, 1904, vol. 3, p. 598.

[6] L. Bolens, "Agriculture", in Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non Western Cultures, edited by Helaine Selin, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht/Boston/London, 1997, pp. 20-2; p. 20.

[7] T. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages, op. cit., p. 75.

[8] L. Bolens, "Agriculture", op. cit., p. 22.

[9] S.P. Scott, History, op. cit., p.604.

[10] A. Watson, Agricultural Innovation, op. cit., pp. 2-3.

[11] L. Bolens, "Irrigation", in Encyclopedia of the History of Science, Technology and Medicine in Non Western Cultures, op. cit., pp. 450-2; p. 451.

[12] A. M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation, op. cit., p. 104.

[13] Ibid, pp. 109-10.

[14] L. Bolens, "Irrigation", op. cit., p. 451.

[15] A. M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation, op. cit., p. 104.

[16] T. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, op. cit., p. 75.

[17] D. R. Hill, Islamic Science and Engineering, Edinburgh University Press, 1993, p. 161.

[18] Ibid, pp. 159-69.

[19] T. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, op. cit., p. 74.

[20] Al-Saqundi, "Elogio del Islam espanol", p. 105; quoted in T. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, op. cit., p.75.

[21] D. R. Hill, Islamic Science and Engineering, op. cit., p. 97.

[22] E. Lévi Provençal, Histoire de l‘Espagne Musulmane, Maisonneuve, Paris, 1953, 3 vols.; vol. 3, p. 279.

[23] R. J. Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1965, 2nd revised edition, vol. 2, p. 49.

[24] A. M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation, op. cit. p. 107.

[25] It is called kariz in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, khettara in Morocco, galleria in Spain, falaj in United Arab Emirates and Oman and foggara/fughara in North Africa. See Sankaran Nair, Etymological Conduit to the Land of Qanat (August 15, 2004; retrieved 22.01.2010).

[26] Ahmad Y. Hasan, Transfer Of Islamic Technology To The West, Part Ii: Transmission Of Islamic Engineering. See also A. Y. Al-Hasan in Cultural Contacts in Building a Universal Civilization: Islamic Contributions, edited by Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Istanbul, IRCICA, 2005, pp. 183-223.

[27] See the following a UNESCO article with numerous clear photographs showing the Foggara in Algeria: Inventory of Traditional Knowledge to Combat Desertification (A-17): Underground Water Catchment Systems (foggara, qanat, etc).

[28] L. Goonalons, "La Clepsydre de Beni Abbes", in Bulletin d'Etudes Arabes, vol. 3, 1943, pp. 35-7.

[29] Ibid, p. 37.

[30] S. P. Scott, History, op. cit., pp. 602-3.

[31] Ibid.

[32] A. M. Watson, Agricultural Innovation, op. cit., p. 2.

[33] R. J. Forbes, Studies, op. cit., p. 49.

[34] G. M. Wickens, "What the West Borrowed from the Middle East", in Introduction to Islamic Civilisation, edited by R. M. Savory, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976, pp. 120-5; p. 125.

[35] M. Watt, The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe, Edinburgh University Press, 1972, pp. 22-23.

[36] A. Pacey, Technology in World Civilization. A Thousand Year History, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1990, p. 15.

[37] E.Lévi Provençal, Histoire de l'Espagne Musulmane, op. cit., p. 283.

[38] W. M. Watt, The Influence, op. cit., pp. 22-3.

[39] Francesco Gabrieli, "Islam in the Mediterranean World", in The Legacy of Islam, edited by J. Schacht with C.E. Bosworth, Oxford Clarendon Press, 1974, 2nd edition, pp. 63-104; p. 75.

[40] T. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, op. cit., p. 76.

[41] Ibid.

[42] A. Pacey, Technology, op. cit., p. 15.

[43] Baron Carra de Vaux, Les Penseurs de l'Islam, Paris, Librairie Paul Geuthner, 1921, vol. 2, Chapter X, "Les Sciences Naturelles, Histoires Naturelles", p. 306.

[44] Ibid, pp. 309-19.

* The original article was produced by Salah Zaimeche, Salim Al-Hassani, Talip Alp and Ahmed Salem. The members of the new FSTC Research Team have re-edited and revised this new version. The team now comprises of Mohammed Abattouy, Salim Al-Hassani, Mohammed El-Gomati, Salim Ayduz, Savas Konur, Cem Nizamoglu, Anne-Maria Brennan, Maurice Coles, Ian Fenn, Amar Nazir and Margaret Morris.

by: FSTC Research Team, Tue 25 December, 2001