Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Mustawfī describes how small catchpools
were made on the edge of the cultivated
area round Tūn to catch rain water which
was used for grain cultivation.
time is by a kind of hour-glass, the time-
unit being the time it takes for a small
copper bowl with a hole at the bottom to
fill and sink in another large basin. Stack
mentions that in some of the villages of
Firaydan, the water distribution was regu-
lated in the daytime by the length of a
man's shadow and at night by the stars.
Since the water of rivers is subject
to diminution at certain seasons of the
year, and in both rivers and anāts may
be reduced in a series of dry years, much
care is exercised over the division and
allocation of the water in order to sat-
isfy cropping needs. In the case of anāt s,
the rotation period may be lengthened in
periods of water shortage and the amount
of water per share reduced. In general,
the scarcer the water, the more detailed
and complicated the distribution of water;
and the greater the fragmentation of the
ownership of the water, the more meticu-
lous and elaborate the organisation of its
distribution.
Irrigation practices and water distribution and
measurements
Irrigation practices range from heavy
perennial irrigation, land watered less
heavily through the year or parts of the
year, to land watered once or twice a sea-
son through the capture of flash floods
or water stored in a cistern. The usual
method of irrigation is by inundation; for
some crops, trench irrigation is used. In
the case of rivers, the water is diverted
into canals and sub-canals and cross-
canals, whence it is led into the fields to
be irrigated. The division is made accord-
ing to established rights of priority, usu-
ally (but not always) starting upstream and
ending downstream. The water of other
sources, if it is prolific, is also divided
into various channels and led to different
users simultaneously. The division of the
water between several users is assured by
a variety of mechanical devices, distribu-
tors, or runnels with inlets of a fixed size
or by the allocation of fixed periods of
time. Where water is divided by a weir
between a number of villages or users, the
size of the orifices at the rim of the weir
varies according to the share of the water
permanently allocated to the different
users. Water is led into individual fields,
plots or gardens by breaching the banks
of the canals (usually with a spade) for the
appropriate length of time.
The rotation period of the water ( dawr-i
āb ) normally begins in early October with
the start of the agricultural year and is
fixed at so-and-so many days. Within that
period, so many shares, defined in days,
hours, or minutes, are allocated to the dif-
ferent districts, villages, fields, or plots of
land watered by the source in question.
A common way of measuring the unit of
Water laws and water rights
So far as the ª arīa is concerned, water
laws belong to muāmalāt as opposed to
ibādāt and are based on urf or custom
enshrined in the traditions and given
sanction as the practice, or supposed
practice, of the Prophet and his com-
panions and their immediate successors
and, in the case of the · īa, of the imām s.
These practices reflect not only the con-
ditions and needs of Arabia at the time
of the Prophet, but also those of other
regions into which the Muslims later pen-
etrated. They do not, therefore, present
a coherent and uniform basis for a body
of water laws, but rather a series of unre-
lated decisions, sometimes in conflict with
each other. In general terms, irrigation
was governed in theory by the ª arīa , but
in practice and in matters of detail local
custom prevailed and was extremely var-
ied. In the law topics, there are references
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