Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 95

peacefully their passion for riding. Caliphs
and high Muslim dignitaries were zealous
in elevating it, with venery, to the rank
of an institution under the direction of a
“master of chases” ( amīr al-ayd ), and later
( amīr ª ikār ). The Umayyad caliph Yazīd
b. Muāwiya (680-83) was one of the first
to show an unbridled enthusiasm for the
flying-hunt. Historians, biographers and
chroniclers in the Arabic language pro-
vide information, each according to his
own period and country, on the current
practice of hawking, and relate for the
occasion lively anecdotes of the exploits
of certain princes in this field. Much more
valuable is the information concerning
bayzara found in certain encylopedic works,
edited for the purpose of adab or philologi-
cal learning, such as the K. al-ayawān of
al- ⁄ āi, the Al-Mu ¶ aa of Ibn Sīda, the
K. ub al-A ª ā of al-ala ª andī, and the
K. Murū ¡ al-ahab of al-Masūdī.
The Ma ∞ rib and Muslim Spain, as well
as the Orient, had their enthusiasts for the
hawking-sport. In A ∞ labid Ifrīiya, the
governor Muammad II (864-75), called
not without reason the “Cranesman”
(Abu 'l- fi arānī), exhausted the state
exchequer with his wild expenses on the
“flying-play” ( lab ). Later the afids, too,
were smitten by hawking. Like a Sāsānid
prince, Al-Mustanir (1249-77) found his
pleasure, with the hawk on his fist, in a
vast “preserve” ( mayad ) near Bizerta. In
the 15th century his descendant U º mān
(1435-88) spent several days a week in
this entertainment. At the Umayyad court
in Cordova, the Grand Falconer ( āib
al-bayāzira ) enjoyed a high office, close to
the ruler. The fashion of hawking, wide-
spread in the countries of Islam during
the Middle Ages, was the livelihood of a
great number of people, and its practice
was not limited to the privileged classes,
as it was in the Christendom. The rural
population and the nomads continued to

devote themselves to it and preserved the
tradition, down to the beginning of the
20th century. From this fact it is easy to
evaluate the rôle played by the sporting-
bird in Muslim economic life, especially
during the medieval period, by the com-
merce it provoked and the people required
for its maintenance.
The traditional classification in the
Orient of predatories worthy of training
( arāwa and arā'a ), based on the black or
yellow colour of the iris denoting remark-
able visual powers, corresponds exactly
to the modern ornithological system.
In fact the “dark-eyed birds” are found
only in the genus Falco , “ falconidae ”, who
alone have a black iris. These are “long-
winged sweeping birds, ”lured-birds, used
to “highflying” (the flight of the heron:
bal ª ūn , of the crane: kurkī or ∞ irnī , of
crows: ∞ irbān , from time to time the
eagle: uāb , the kite: idā , and the wild
water-fowl: ayr al-mā ). The Arabist is
often puzzled by the abundance of terms
designating sporting-birds, such abun-
dance not being due to the multiplicity of
types, but to the great variety of adjec-
tives qualifying the innumerable shades
of plumage worn by the bird according
to its sex, its age and habitat. The Arabs
saw several different types when it was
only a question of individual birds of the
same family, whether immature, young or
adult, male or female. One can discover,
however, among that accumulation of
names the generic term, with the aid on
the one hand of scientific inventories of
the avifauna of each country, and on the
other, of the descriptions provided by the
great Muslim naturalists, such as azwīnī
(1203-1283) in his K. A ¡ āib al-Ma ¶ lūāt ,
al-Damīrī (1341-1405) in his K. ayāt
al-ayawān , and especially by the authors
of cynegetic works.
Thus the aār , falconer, was occupied
in training only: a) the Ger-Falcon, Falco