Agriculture Reference
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the fact that the blade of a sword or dag-
ger made of iron, having stayed in the
ostrich's gizzard, was unalterable and
unbreakable. Finally, a scrap of ostrich skin
cut in the shape of a fish floated as soon
as it was plunged into a bottle of vinegar.
Until quite recent times, the people of the
Sahara held in high esteem the marrow of
the ostrich bone for, inserted into the ear
afflicted with deafness, it would restore
hearing to it. Likewise, melted ostrich fat,
a sovereign remedy against rheumatism,
was also sold in Agadès by the litre in the
last century; it was used, moreover, in
the composition of cosmetics for women
and served, in cooking, for frying. The
extremely resistant tendons of the ostrich
provided an excellent thread for shoemak-
ing, for strong bow strings and for staunch
binding cords. The ostrich skins plucked
of their feathers were tanned to make sad-
dlebags and ornaments of harnesses.
ria of size, colour and behaviour. For the
city-dweller as for the nomad, there are
only large or small ants (
£
arr, dabā
n
) or,
in addition, those which sting or bite and
the harmless ones, although certain of the
latter are capable of spitting a corrosive
liquid, formic acid (
am al-naml
), causing
severe burns. Similarly, attention is often
paid only to the colour, with black ants on
the one hand and yellow-red ants on the
other. Arabophone naturalists of the Mid-
dle Ages such as azwīnī, al-
⁄
āi and
al-Damīrī, reproducing the statements of
Aristotle, Pliny the Elder and Aelianus,
added nothing to these forms of distinc-
tion. Their only contribution was to sup-
ply the nicknames (
kunya
) given to ants in
local dialects including, for the male,
abū
ma
ª∞
ūl
and, for the female,
umm tawba
and umm
māzin.
Since early Antiquity, ants have been
an object of admiration on account of
their prescience, the feverish activity with
which they provide for their sustenance
and the perfect organisation of their
societies. The Bible refers to them as an
example (Proverbs, vi. 6-8, xxx. 24-5).
With the arrival of Islam, Muslims were
obliged to consider them a privileged
“race” (
umma
), since the urān, in the
sūra
al-Naml
(XXVII, l8), recalls the leg-
end attributed to Solomon who, arriving
with his army in the “Valley of the Ants”
(
Wādī 'l-naml
) in Syria, is supposed to have
heard the sentinel of the local population
calling to his companions to return with
all possible speed to the ant-hill (
aryat al-
naml,
¡
ur
º
ūma, manmala
) to avoid being
trampled underfoot by the soldiers. Solo-
mon smiled, seeing here a direct message
from the Most High who had granted him
the supernatural gift of understanding the
language of animal and, in particular,
that of the birds. In corroboration of this
divine protection enjoyed by ants, a
adī
º
of the Prophet Muammad prohibits the
(F. Viré)
Ants
Naml
(Ar.) is a substantive of a collec-
tive nature (unitary noun
namla
, pl.
nimāl,
namul, numul
) denoting ants (Persian
namal,
mūr
, Turkish
karınca
, Tamaa
anellu
∞
,
pl,
inellu
∞
en
, Hebrew
nemālah
, pl.
namālim
.
These hymenopters living in organised
societies comprise more than l,600 spe-
cies worldwide, and are divided into two
groups: “formicines” (genera
formica, cam-
ponotus, lasius
) which do not possess an
aggressive sting, and “myrimicines” (gen-
era
myrmica, tetramorium, aphenogaster
) which
are thus equipped. These classifications
being of interest only to specialist ento-
mologists, the majority of laymen, in the
Arab and Berber world as elsewhere, dif-
ferentiate between the numerous species
of ant only according to the external crite-
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