Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 36

( ª aīr ), beans ( fūl ), bitter-vetch ( ¡ ulbān ),
lentils ( adas ) and flax ( kattān ). al-Marīzī
adds to al-Ma ¶ zūmī's list of winter crops
chick peas ( ummu ), clover ( ur ), onions
( baal ), garlic ( º ūm ) and lupin ( turmus ).
For summer crops al-Ma ¶ zūmī men-
tions unripe melons ( faūs ), watermel-
ons ( biī ¶ ), kidney beans ( lūbiya ), sesame
( simsim or samāsim ), cotton ( un or aān ),
sugar-cane ( aab al-sukkar ) and colocasia
antiquorum ( ulās ). Although al-Marīzī
lists the same for summer crops, he adds
aubergines ( bā £ in ¡ ān ), indigo ( nīla ), rad-
ishes ( fu ¡ l ), turnips ( lift ), lettuce ( ¶ a )
and cabbage ( kurunb ), and puts both the
unripe melon and water-melon under the
one name biī ¶ .
There were many methods known in
pre-20th century Egypt to irrigate the soil
under the summer crops. They were inher-
ited from older times and continue until
today, with the exception of one which
was very primitive and arduous. This was
the transportation of water to the fields in
buckets, jars, etc., hung from the necks
of the oxen. This method was mentioned
by al-Nābulusī as the means of irrigation
for the two villages Dima ª īn al-Baal
and Damūh, known as Kūm Darī, in the
Fayyūm province. This method, which
was a continuation of a Pharaonic tech-
nique, seems to have been known in other
Egyptian villages.
The other methods of irrigation used
by the mediaeval Egyptian peasant em-
ployed any one of four artificial irriga-
tion contrivances, namely, the naāla , the
dāliya , the sāiya and the tābūt . These four
contrivances were used in Egypt before
the advent of the Arabs and are still in
current use.
There is no mention of what was
known as the naāla in the available clas-
sical sources, but the existence of such
a device in Ancient Egypt, as well as its
depiction in the Description de l'Égypte, État

moderne , (Paris 1817), proves its existence
in pre-20th century Egypt. It is still in use
in Egypt, as well as in many African coun-
tries. Two men stand face to face, each
holding two cords of palm-fibre ropes to
which is attached a wide, shallow water-
proof basket. This basket, made from
twisted palm leaves or leather, is known
in Egypt by the name awa . The two men
holding the ropes bend slightly toward the
water, dip the basket and fill it. Then they
straighten while turning to the field, thus
raising the basket which is emptied into
the mouth of the irrigation canal.
The dāliya or shadoof is a kind of draw-
well which was used in Pharaonic Egypt
and in mediaeval Irā, and is still used in
Egypt and other eastern countries for rais-
ing water for irrigation. It usually consists
of two posts, beams of the acacia tree or
shafts of cane, about five feet in height.
These posts are coated with mud and clay
and then placed less than three feet apart.
The two beams are joined at the top by
a horizontal piece of wood, in the centre
of which a lever is balanced. The shorter
arm of the lever is weighted with a heavy
rock or dried mud, while at the end of
the longer arm hangs a rope carrying a
leather pail. The peasant stands on a plat-
form on the river bank and pulls down
the balanced pole until the pail dips into
the water and is filled. A slight upward
push, which is helped by the counter-
weight, raises the bucket above the irriga-
tion canal, into which it is emptied.
As for water-wheels, al-Muaddasī (4th/
10th century) states that there were many
dawālīb (pl. of dūlāb , a Persian word which
denotes a water-wheel ) on the banks of
the Nile for irrigating orchards during the
low waters. In the next century, Nāir-i
‡ usraw mentions in his Safar-nāma , that
“up the Nile there are different cities and
villages, and they have established so many
dūlābs that they are difficult to count.”