Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 71

at Bu ¶ ārā, at the western end of the
Zaraf ª ān basin, and this can be supple-
mented by items from the local historian
Nar ª a ¶ ī. According to the latter, the
main irrigation channel through the city
was known as the rūd-i zar “golden, or
gold-bearing river”. Al-Muaddasī and
Ibn awal describe how locks and sluices
along the ar s through the city controlled
the water flow at times of the river's spate
and inundation.
There was a continuously-cultivated
strip of agricultural land along the left
bank of the Oxus from Āmul to ‡ w ārazm,
with ar s led off the main channel of
the river, some big enough for boats to
sail on, until the extensive network of
canals in ‡ w ārazm itself was reached
(see above). Irrigation canals in the Syr
Darya basin began in the Far ∞ āna val-
ley, into which the river's most volumi-
nous source, the Nahr ⁄ id ∞ il (probably
the modern Naryn), began; then as now,
the Far ∞ āna valley was a land of intense
cultivation, and the towns there, such as
A ¶ sika º and ‡ u ¡ and, derived their
water supplies from conduits leading off
the irrigation canals. Further down the
Syr Darya basin, irrigation channels were
a feature of such provinces as · ā ª , Īlā
and Isfī ¡ āb until Sawrān and the frontier
with the O ∞ uz steppes were reached.
The Mur ∞ āb river in northern ‡ u-
rāsān (now mainly in Turkmenistan) had
numerous canals and dams along its course,
controlling the waters which came down
from melted snows in the Paropamisus
mountains of northern Af ∞ ānistān. One
should add here that we possess especially
valuable information for the very com-
plex irrigation system in the Marw oasis
from some of the Arab geographers and
from the section on the terminology of
the dīwān al-mā in al- ‡ w ārazmī's concise
encyclopaedia of the technical terms of
the various sciences, the Mafātī al-ulūm ,

were regulated by an official resident in
Samarand who had a staff of subordinates
responsible for the upkeep of the banks of
the channels, etc., whilst the inhabitants
of Wara ∞ sar itself were exempt from
paying ¶ arā ¡ in return for maintenance
work on the dam. The largest channels
in the region were navigable, but prob-
ably for rafts rather than for boats, and
timber was floated down along them to
Samarand. Within the city itself, water
was brought into the ª ahristān or inner city
along a channel which crossed the defen-
sive ditch formed by excavating material
for the walls, hence the channel was car-
ried on an aqueduct into the ª ahristān at
the ras al-ā “head of the arch”. Along-
side the channel, the properties were con-
stituted as awāf for its upkeep, and the
local community of Zoroastrians were
free of the ¡ izya or poll-tax in return for
maintaining the channel in good repair.
Such constructions and arrangements
in Sogdia were undoubtedly of pre-
Islamic origin. An early Arab governor of
‡ urāsān, Hi ª ām's nominee Asad b.
Abd Allāh al-asrī, in 117/735 tried
to deprive the inhabitants of Samarand
of water by blocking the channel at
Wara ∞ sar and diverting it from the
city, at a time when Sogdia had thrown
off short-lived Arab control and tempo-
rarily recovered its independence under
the local king fi ūrak, and had now to
be reconquered by the Arabs. The dam
at Wara ∞ sar was obviously an ancient
work. Further information on the irriga-
tion system of Samarand, this time in the
ara ¶ ānid period, is given by the local
historian Abū af Umar al-Nasafī (early
6th/12th century) in his Kitāb al-and fī
tarī ¶ Samarand ; he enumerates the vari-
ous ar s and gives the total area of irri-
gated land.
The Arab geographers likewise give
detailed information on the situation