Ibn Ahmed Ibn Al Awam Sevillano
Kitab Al-Filaha is an extensive historical treatise on agriculture attributed to Ibn Mohammed Ibn Ahmed Ibn Al Awam of Seville. Bringing together earlier agricultural learning and practical observation, the work presents agriculture as a systematic science encompassing the land, cultivated plants, water, animal husbandry, and the preservation of agricultural produce.The author states that he consulted agricultural writings known among Muslims in Spain as well as works transmitted from other authorities. He draws extensively on earlier agricultural and philosophical traditions while repeatedly relating inherited teaching to experience and conditions encountered in his own region.The work opens with detailed consideration of the qualities of land and methods for distinguishing fertile, weak, saline, sandy, moist, dry, and otherwise unsuitable soils. It proceeds to manure and fertilization, irrigation and the location of water, orchard planning, tree planting, transplantation, grafting, pruning, cultivation, and the treatment of plant diseases.Later chapters address the cultivation of grains, legumes, vegetables, root crops, medicinal and aromatic plants, methods of storing fruits and seeds, seasonal agricultural operations, food preparation in conditions of scarcity, and observations concerning weather and agricultural timing.The final portion turns to animal agriculture: cattle, sheep, goats, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, veterinary remedies, domestic birds, and bees.Throughout the manuscript, agricultural knowledge is presented through the comparison of authorities, accumulated experience, classification of natural conditions, and practical instructions adapted to particular soils, plants, animals, and seasons.An important source for readers studying the history of agronomy, Andalusi agricultural learning, horticulture, environmental knowledge, animal husbandry, and the transmission of premodern scientific traditions.Suitable for scholars, students, historians of science and agriculture, agricultural libraries, research institutions, and readers interested in the intellectual and practical traditions of agriculture in medieval Spain.
