Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 5

the author, who is revealed as the most
original and objective of all the Hispano-
Arabic specialists.
After the capture of Toledo by Alfonso
VI of Castile (478/1085), Ibn Baāl
withdrew to Seville, to the court of
al-Mutamid for whom he created a new
royal garden.
In Seville Ibn Baāl again met Alī Ibn
al-Lūnuh of Toledo, a doctor and dis-
ciple of Ibn Wāfid, and like him interested
in botany and agronomy. He had left his
native town shortly before its capture and
settled in Seville in 487/1094. He died at
Cordova in 499/1105.
He also encountered Abū Umar
Amad b. Muammad b. a ¡¡ ā ¡
al-I ª bīlī, the author of several works on
agronomy, among them al-Muni , written
in 466/1073. This writer is distinguished
from others by his scorn for “the inadmis-
sible tales of stupid yokels” ( ahl al- ∞ abāwa
min ahl al-barārī wa-awāluhum al-sāia ) and
his almost exclusive use of ancient agron-
omists, especially Yūniyūs. However, he
also recounts his personal experiences in
· araf. There he became acquainted with
the agronomist Abu 'l- ‡ ayr al-I ª bīlī
whose work, with title unknown, is often
quoted by Ibn al-Awwām. All that we
know about him is that in 494/1100 he
was studying with the Seville doctor Abu
'l-asan · ihāb al-Muayī.
In Seville, Ibn Baāl and Ibn al-Lūnuh
were the masters of the mysterious “anon-
ymous botanist of Seville”, the author of
the Umdat al-abīb fī marifat al-nabāt li-kull
labīb , a botanical dictionary of consider-
able merit and far superior to that by Ibn
al-Bayār. He seems to have been a cer-
tain Ibn Abdūn, to be distinguished from
the doctor (Al- ⁄ abalī) and the literary
writer (al-Yāburī). The only fact about
him in our possession is that he was a
member of the diplomatic mission which
went to the Almohad court of Marrāku ª

in 542/1147 and that he wrote his Umda
after that date.
In Granada, the principal agricul-
tural writer was Muammad b. Mālik
al-i ∞ narī (from the name of a village now
known as Tignar, a few kilometres north
of Granada). He worked in succession in
the service of the anhā ¡ ī princeling Abd
Allāh b. Buluggīn (466/83/1073-90) and
then of the Almoravid prince Tamīm,
son of Yūsuf b. Tā ª fīn, at the time when
that prince was governor of the province
of Granada (501-12/1107-18). It was
for the latter that he wrote a treatise on
agronomy in twelve topics ( maāla ) enti-
tled Zuhrat al-bustān wa-nuzhat al-a £ hān .
Al-i ∞ narī also went on pilgrimage to
the East. Probably while staying in Seville
he came into contact with Ibn Baāl and
was able to profit from his experiences.
It is probably with al-i ∞ narī that we
should identify the anonymous agronomist
whom Ibn al-Awwām frequently quotes
under the name ā ¡¡ al- fi arnāī. It
should be noted that several manuscripts
of the Zuhrat al-bustān are attributed to a
certain amdūn al-I ª bīlī, who is other-
wise unknown.
Towards the end of the 6th/12th cen-
tury or in the first half of the 7th/13th
century (the capture of Seville by the
Christians took place in 646/1248), Abū
Zakariyyā Yayā b. Muammad Ibn
alAwwām of Seville wrote a lengthy Kitab
al-Filāa in 35 topics ( bāb ). We know noth-
ing of his life. To orientalists, however, he
is celebrated since he was the first to be
published and also translated, into Spanish
by J.A. Banqueri, Madrid 1802, then into
French by Clément-Mullet, Paris 1864-7,
and finally into Urdū. He is also the only
agronomist whom Ibn ‡ aldūn (second
half of the 8th/14th century) thought wor-
thy of quoting in his Muaddima (he regards
the K. al-Filāa as an abridged version of
al-Filāa al-nabaiyya ). He is, however, far