1 the Palace and the Garden: the Connection Between the Agricultural

The Palace and the Garden : The connection between the agricultural milieu and 1 power structures within Islamic Iberia. 2 John Tighe ([email protected]) ‘We'll lounge beneath the pomegranates, palm trees, apple trees, under every lovely, leafy thing, and walk among the vines...wells that emitted water in streams from their mouths like rivers’-Solomon Ibn Gabirol, The Palace and the Garden .3 The so-called ‘garden poetry’, which flourished in al-Andalus in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, was a testament to the ability of both the state and individual communities to produce fertile fields in place of aridness. To do this, they incorporated the techniques of irrigation e.g. aqueducts and canals, which the Romans had left, and expanded the system, as Watson argued ‘‘The Islamic contribution was less in the invention of new devices than in the application on a much wider scale of devices...’. 4 The above description by the Jewish Andalusi poet Ibn Gabirol of the gardens of the Alhambra is a realisation in literary form of the fertility and water management systems employed in Islamic Iberia. Although it is an integral part to this subject, it is impossible to go into the intricacies of Islamic land law and divisions in this article. 5 The focus of this article will be on the tools of the irrigation system, the intellectual milieu and its associated physical structures which created and maintained it. 6 1 I would like to thank the Societa Friulana di Archaeolgia for allowing me to speak to their society in Udine in June 2015. Furthermore, I would like to thank Anita Pinagli and Giulia Cesarin 2PhD candidate, Trinity College, Dublin- [email protected]. Academia- https://tcd.academia.edu/JohnTighe 3 Solomon Ibn Gabirol, The Palace and the Garden quoted in Menocal, Maria Rosa, Visions of al- Andalus in Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin and Michael Sells (eds.) , The literature of al-Andalus , (Cambridge: 2006 (2000), pp.1-2. 4 Watson, Andrew M., Agricultural innovation in the Early Islamic World , (Cambridge: 2008 (1983)),p.108. 5 For more information see Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/9217938/Concept_of_Land_in_Islamic_Iberia_Notes_for_talk_, (Accessed 8th November 2015); for issues of inheritance see Pearl, David, M uslim Personal Law, (London 1989 (1987)) and Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic law , (Oxford: 1982 (1964)). Although what must be noted is that In the Muslim countries the size of land-holdings varied widely with peasant- owned lands existed side-by-side with large estates. 6 There is no space in this article to expand on the many tools used within the irrigation system, namely the qanat and the qaria . Further information on these can be found in Rotolo, Antonio, 1 The experimentation and the ‘Green’ revolution led to an increased agricultural output. While the effects of this were no doubt revolutionary, the term itself suggests a quick transition, which can be countered in two ways, those being the sheer size of the Dar el-Islam , and the fact that rural communities of farmers tend to be some of the most conservative people in society. Due to this, it is not advantageous for them to make decisions which may impact on their very survival. 7 A further assistance in this diffusion was the fact that the caliph was religiously obliged to promote the construction of irrigations systems for agricultural use across the Dar-el-Islam .8 This period of cultural openness led to the transmission of ideas from Roman and Byzantine agricultural traditions to the Islamic one. This began to go into decline in the later part of the epoch due to ecological, but also socio-political reasons. This expansion of irrigation practices across Iberia allowed the growth of tropical plants, otherwise unsuited to the climate of the peninsula, including cotton and sugar. Another crop plant, sorghum, is important as not only was it more drought resistant than many of the grain plants grown before in Iberia, it also illustrates the interaction of the two religious communities in convivencia . This is shown through its distribution right into Christendom. Galloway wrote one of the main monographs on The Sugar Cane Industry: An historical geography from its origins to 1914, which while more focused on the more modern aspects of the industry, does provide a decent synopsis of sugar in Iberian during the Islamic epoch. 9 Drainage Galleries in the Iberian Peninsula during the Islamic period , Journal of Water History, 5 (2013), pp. 7 Tighe, John, The inter-relationship of agricultural systems and power structure in Islamic Iberia, c.AD900-1300 , unpublished MPhil Thesis, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, 2014, p.51. 8 Mitteraur, Michael (translated by Gerald Chapple) Why Europe? The medieval origins of its special path , (London: 2010), p.14. 9 Galloway, J.H., The Sugar Cane Industry; An historical geography from its origins to 1914 , (Cambridge: 1989). 2 Figure 1 Fig(Left) Image of sugar plant and (Right) Map of full extent of sugar crop growth in the Western Mediterranean. 10 While it may have been introduced to the west in the century after the conquest the first reference to sugar cane being cultivated in Iberia comes from the Calendar of Cordoba, which denotes all the major agricultural processes for the year. 11 It discussed how sugar cane is harvested in November and February, planted in March and begins to grow in September. 12 It has been argued that this was a fiscal document, that the varying sowing and harvest times made it difficult for the state to take its share in tax, further granting greater autonomy to the peasant communities. 13 Ibn al-Awwam talks of three sugar harvests, that of the cane itself and subsequently of two rattoon crops. 14 He goes further saying that the crop was grown as far north as Castellon, arguably the most northerly point at which sugar has ever been grown, due to its climatic sensitivities. 15 These sensitivities include its threshold being twenty-one degrees Celsius, with a temperature of between twenty-seven and thirty-eight degrees being optimal, while 10 Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris, Ms. Arabe 2771 , fol.184r; Watson, Agricultural innovation , (Cambridge: 2008 (1983)),p. 11 Galloway, The Sugar Cane, (Cambridge: 1989), p.34. 12 Calendar of Cordoba by ‘Ar īb ibn Sa‘id (translation by John Brogden) in Schulz-dornburg, http://www.schulz-dornburg.info/english/Presse/Cordoba-Grafe.html (26th July 2014). Its author, Arib ibn Sa’d, was secretary fo the royal chancellery of the Umayyad caliph al-Hakam II. 13 San José, Carmen Trillo A social analysis of irrigation in Nazari Granada: (13 th -15 th centuries) , Journal of Medieval History, 31 (2005), p.169. 14 Ibn al-‘Aww ām Kit āb al-Fil āḥa, 2 vols . Edited, with a Spanish translation by J. A. Banqueri, (Madrid:1802), Vol.1, p.392. 15 Watson, Agricultural innovation ,(Cambridge: 2008 (1983)),p.28. 3 growth stops entirely between eleven and thirteen degrees, depending on the strain. 16 Its tropical background meant that in al-Andalus it had to be watered between every four and eight days. 17 Sugar was one of the few foodstuffs in the Middle Ages which needed chemical processing, its manufacture necessitated a high level of technological competence in its refining through different processes, and as such unlike milling, it was completely impossible for local communities to set up, so from the very start the State played a pivotal role in the establishment of sugar factories. 18 This, once more, shows the role and interest of the state in promoting agricultural output of the rural areas. In contrast, sugar cane became so marginalised after the conquest that James II of Aragon (1260-1327) had to send a delegation to Sicily to try and re-introduce the crop to Iberia, while Frederick II of Sicily (1194-1256), recently conquered from Muslim forces, had to send to the Holy land for sugar cane seeds and experts in efforts to re-introduce the crop but had no long-term success. 19 The tradition in al-Andalus of agronomical treatises that were patronised by Islamic rulers is critical, and as agricultural texts it is imperative to place these within the socio-agricultural and economic life of al-Andalus. Consequently, drainage galleries may not be seen outside of the modes of production. 20 In the period of this study, particularly during the period of the Taifa kings, at least ten books of filaha were written: the Anonymous Andalusi, Al-Zahr āwi, Ibn W āfid, Ibn Bass āl, Ibn Hajj āj, Abu ‘l-Khayr, Al-Tighnar ī, Ibn al-‘Aww ām, Ibn al-Raqq ām and Ibn Luyun. 21 Many of these men were polymaths, Ibn Hajj āj was a waz īr, a representative of the state, thus showing the importance of one to the other. Only two, Ibn Bassal and Ibn al-‘Aww ām seem to have been solely interested in husbandry.22 al-‘Aww ām gives some useful information to new landowners and farmers, in that he contended that 16 Galloway , The Sugar Cane , (Cambridge: 1989), p.14. 17 Watson, Agricultural innovation ,(Cambridge: 2008 (1983)), p.103. 18 Al-Hassan, Ahmad Y. and Hill, Donald R., Islamic technology: An illustrated history , (Cambridge:1986), p.221. 19 Watson, Agricultural innovation , (Cambridge: 2008 (1983), p.66. 20 Rotolo, Antonio, Drainage Galleries in the Iberian Peninsula during the Islamic period , Journal of Water History, 5 (2013), pp.2-3 21 Fitzwilliam-Hall, Introductory survey , An Introductory survey of the the Arabic books of filaha and farming almanacs , p.5. 22 Ibid., p.6. 4 repeated sowing of beet in a saline soil will eventually remove all salinity from the soil, allowing it to be cultivated.

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