Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 78

grey mullet ( būrī ), which cause gastric dis-
orders sometimes involving serious com-
plications. On the other hand, Avicenna
maintains that the flesh of the fish is, with
honey, beneficial for the treatment of
cataracts and for increasing visual acuity.
According to azwīnī, this flesh is sup-
posedly an aphrodisiac when consumed
with fresh onions. An intoxicated person,
exposed to the smell of fish, soon becomes
sober and regains lucidity. The gall of
fish in the form of eye-wash is a cure for
watering eyes and, mixed with that of the
marine turtle, it provides a golden phos-
phorescent ink.

sion to the means of illegal and immoral
appropriation. Also, ∞ anam (dialect.
∞ nem/ ∞ lem ) is understood in the sense of
“sheep-goat patrimony” (see urān, VI,
146/147, XX, 19/18, XXI, 78) complet-
ing with baar “cattle” the full meaning
of naam “livestock” (pl. anām , used 32
times in the urān). In Arabic, it is the
equivalent of the Latin nouns peculium and
pecunia , derived from pecus “herd”. Parallel
with ∞ anam and with the same meaning,
one finds, especially in the Ma ∞ rib, the
terms māl and kasb/kisb ' whence the dia-
lectal ksība/ksīb “flock of sheep” (cf. Ber-
ber ulli , from the radical l “to possess”).
Although the urānic verse (VI,
al-Anām, 144/143) saying: “[Allah has
provided you] with eight species of ani-
mals in pairs, two for the sheep and two for
the goats . . .” does not make any discrimi-
nation between the two species, a long
polemic between intellectuals reported by
al- ⁄ āi brought into opposition the par-
tisans of the sheep and those of the goat.
However, this sheep-goat duality was not
new, since echoes of it are found in the
two monotheistic religions prior to Islam.
In fact, to the degradation of the goats,
the Jews had their rite of the “scapegoat”
at the time of their Festival of Atonement,
while Christian demonology saw in this
animal an incarnation of the devil. By
contrast, sheep enjoyed the favour of the
two communities, as they were favourites
of God; there is the ram of Abraham, the
paschal lamb, the symbol of the mystical
lamb applied to Christ and the parable
of the “good shepherd” wisely leading his
“sheep” (Vulgar Latin ovicula , from ovis ).
The Arabs, long before Islam, used to
sacrifice a ewe ( atīra ) to their divinities,
in the month of Ra ¡ ab, whence its name
of ra ¡ abiyya , by way of prayer and as an
act of thanksgiving; while in the Ma ∞ rib
and Tunisia in particular, the cult of the
ram was widespread, reminiscent of the

(F. Viré)

Small livestock

fi anam (Ar.), a femine singular noun
with the value of a collective (with the
plurals a ∞ nām, ∞ unūm and a ∞ ānīm ), des-
ignates the class of small livestock with a
predominance, according to the countries,
of either sheep ( ª ā al-an, ª iyāh al-an,
āina ), or goats ( ª iyāh al-maz, māiza ). Like
the two other collectives ibil “camelidae”
and ¶ ayl “equidae”, ∞ anam defines one of
the three aspects of nomadic pastoral life
covered by the term badw as well as an
important activity of the sedentary agricul-
turalist countryfolk, who may be periodic
migrants; small livestock constitute for the
one group a direct and unique source of
subsistence ( anī al- ∞ anam ) with the milk,
fleece, hide and rarely the meat and, for
the others, an extra product negotiable in
the fairs through the intermediary of the
sheep merchant ( ¡ allāb ).
The root ∞ -n-m implies the acquisition
of goods by means other than those of
barter and purchase; the synonyms ∞ unm
and ∞ anīma “booty, war trophy” set in
relief this idea, excluding from it any allu-