Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
tion system and very elaborate cultivation
techniques. Indeed, some vast irrigation
networks comprising numerous remark-
able works of art have been uncovered in
Morocco at the same time as the sugar
refineries. In all regions, canals for carry-
ing water, aqueducts and recovery basins
have been uncovered, indicating a use of
water both skilful and economical, for it
was also used to drive the mills. Today
sugar cane cultivation has completely
disappeared from Morocco, Algeria and
Tunisia. In Morocco, however, a “sugar-
refinery plan” envisages the revival of its
cultivation alongside that of sugar beet in
regions where water has been dammed
up, not necessarily in those where sugar
cane was formerly grown. There are vari-
ous reasons for the disappearance of this
plant but, for the whole of the Mediter-
ranean, the primary cause was the dis-
ruption of the sugar market following the
discovery of new territories and subse-
quent increasingly valuable investment in
the West Indies and America. Burdened
by the onerous need for irrigation, only
in Spain cane production could withstand
the competition of the New World lands;
yet it should not be forgotten that sugar
cane contributed to the economic pros-
perity of the Muslim lands of the West
for almost eight centuries.
1, we have an introductory oath “By the
fig and the olive . . .”.
According to Dioscorides, leaves of wild
and cultivated olive are beneficial for the
eyes, skin conditions, pains and inflamma-
tions (i, 137-140). Zahrāwī describes the
extraction and use of oils (
adhān
) not-ably
various types of olive oil. Green unripe
olives give
infā
(
omphakion
: cf Dioscorides,
i, 29); according to him, oil washed in
water is
rikābī
, a “vehicle” for other ingre-
dients (but see 2. below for another, more
widespread explanation of the term).
Olive oil is mentioned as useful in oint-
ments (
marāhim
) which need astringent
properties; his
maāla
24 on ointments
lists 86 prescriptions, of which 47 contain
oil. He quotes Dioscorides that oil warms
and softens the skin and protects from the
cold (Albucasis 81, 90, 98-100, 114-15,
cf. Dioscorides, i, 30) Ibn Sīnā recom-
mends it for many internal and external
ailments (
ānūn
, i, 309-10). Al-Kindī uses
oil for burns (nos. 120, 135) and abscesses
(nos. 129, 131), whilst Galen recommends
it for headache (310-12).
Olive oil has long featured in folk medi-
cine, continuing up to the present time.
It has the authority of the Prophet, for
it is “from a blessed tree”, and is recom-
mended in particular for erysipelas, itch,
ulcers, and skin eruptions (
Medicine of the
Prophet
, tr. John-stone, 227). In Persia of
the 1930s, it was “much used in magical
rites”. Gabriel was said to have told Adam
to plant an olive tree and from the fruit to
extract an oil which could be used for any
pain; thus it was said to cure “every illness
except that one from which a person is
destined to die” (Donaldson,
The wild rue
,
141, 144). Earlier, in Palestine, it is men-
tioned as being used for wounds (Canaan,
Aberglaube
, 69). In this region in the 1970s,
it was recommended, in villages or by the
local herbalist (
aār
), for earache, sprains,
as a massage on the throat for the ton-
(P. Berthier)
Olive tree
(Ar.
zaytūn
;
Olea europaea
L., the cultivated
olive;
O. oleaster
, the wild one).
1. In materia medica and
folklore
Olives and their oil (
zayt
) have been
used as a food and medicine since ancient
times. In the urān, Sūrat al-Tīn, XCV,
Search WWH ::
Custom Search