Arab Agricultural Revolution

The Arab Agricultural Revolution was the transformation in agriculture from the 8th to the 13th century in the Islamic region of the Old World. The agronomic literature of the time, with major books by Ibn Bassal and 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 ''sakia'' water wheel. 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. The name was coined by the historian Andrew Watson in an influential but at the time controversial 1974 paper. However, 40 years on, it has proven useful to historians and has been supported by findings in archaeology and archaeobotany.

Medieval history

Islamic agronomy

The first Arabic book on agronomy to reach al-Andalus, in the 10th century, was Ibn Wahshiyya's '' al-Filahat al-nabatiyya'' (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.

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.

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.

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. These books demonstrate the importance of agriculture both as a traditional practice and as a scholarly science. 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. 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.

Islamic animal husbandry

Archaeological evidence from the measurement of bones (osteometry) demonstrates that sheep in southern Portugal increased in size during the Islamic period, while cattle increased when the area became Christian after its reconquest. The archaeologist Simon Davis assumes that the change in size signifies improvement by animal husbandry, while in his view the choice of sheep is readily explained by the Islamic liking for mutton.

Islamic irrigation

During the period, irrigated cultivation developed due to the growing use of animal power, water power and wind power. Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.

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. In the Islamic period in al-Andalus, whose rural parts were equally tribal, the irrigation canal network was much enlarged. Similarly, in the Fayyum, new villages were established in the period, and new water-dependent orchards and sugar plantations were developed.

The ''sakia'' or animal-powered irrigation wheel was likely introduced to Islamic Spain in early Umayyad times (in the 8th century). Improvements to it were described by Hispano-Arabic agronomists in the 11th and 12th centuries. From there, ''sakia'' irrigation was spread further around Spain and Morocco. A 13th century observer claimed there were "5000" waterwheels along the Guadalquivir in Islamic Spain; even allowing for medieval exaggeration, irrigation systems were certainly extensive in the region at that time. The supply of water was sufficient for cities as well as agriculture: the Roman aqueduct network into the city of Cordoba was repaired in the Umayyad period, and extended.

Early accounts of Islamic Spain

Medieval Andalusian historians such as Ibn Bassam, Ibn Hayyan, and Ibn Hazm, and geographers such as al-Bakri, al-Idrisi, and al-Zuhri, described Islamic Spain as a fortunate entity. Indeed, the tenth-century Jewish scribe Menahem Ben Saruq wrote to the Khazar king "The name of our land in which we dwell ... in the language of the Arabs, the inhabitants of the land, al-Andalus ... the land is rich, abounding in rivers, springs, and aqueducts; a land of corn, oil, and wine, of fruits and all manner of delicacies; it has pleasure-gardens and orchards, fruitful trees of every kind, including ... white_mulberry.html"_;"title="Morus_alba.html"_;"title="he_Morus_alba">white_mulberry">Morus_alba.html"_;"title="he_Morus_alba">white_mulberryupon_which_the_white_mulberry.html"_;"title="Morus_alba.html"_;"title="he_Morus_alba">white_mulberry">Morus_alba.html"_;"title="he_Morus_alba">white_mulberryupon_which_the_silkworm">Morus_alba">white_mulberry.html"_;"title="Morus_alba.html"_;"title="he_Morus_alba">white_mulberry">Morus_alba.html"_;"title="he_Morus_alba">white_mulberryupon_which_the_silkworm_feeds"._Ahmed_Mohammed_al-Maqqari.html" "title="silkworm.html" ;"title="Morus_alba">white_mulberry.html" ;"title="Morus_alba.html" ;"title="he Morus alba">white mulberry">Morus_alba.html" ;"title="he Morus alba">white mulberryupon which the silkworm">Morus_alba">white_mulberry.html" ;"title="Morus_alba.html" ;"title="he Morus alba">white mulberry">Morus_alba.html" ;"title="he Morus alba">white mulberryupon which the silkworm feeds". Ahmed Mohammed al-Maqqari">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." 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. 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.

Scholarly debate

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, and the result was extensive agricultural settlement."

In 1974, the historian Andrew Watson published a paper proposing an extension of Garcia Maceira's hypothesis of agricultural revolution in Al-Andalus. Watson argued that the economy established by Arab and other Muslim traders across the Old World enabled the diffusion of many crops and farming techniques throughout the Islamic world, as well as the adaptation of crops and techniques from and to regions outside it. Crops from Africa, such as sorghum, from China, such as citrus fruits, and from India, such as mango, rice, cotton and sugar cane, were distributed throughout Islamic lands, which he believed had not previously grown these plants. He listed eighteen such crops. Watson suggested that these introductions, along with an increased mechanization of agriculture and irrigation, led to major changes in economy, population distribution