Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 50

of the water source and according to the
nature of the soil. Al-Muai permits
1,000 cubits ( ar ª ) for a anāt if the soil is
soft and 500 cubits if it is firm.

been a prejudice against long-term agree-
ments. Sayyid Rukn al-Dīn Muammad
b. Niām (d. 732/1331-2), who consti-
tuted much property—shares in anāt s,
real estate and landed estates—into awāf
in Yazd, laid down that no muzāraa or
musāāt should be concluded for more
than one year.

Muzāraa and musāāt
The first is a crop-sharing agreement
and the second an agreement for the
exploitation of fruit trees and other trees,
under which the two parties each have a
share in the proceeds. Agreements of this
type were known in pre-Islamic Persia.
Under the former, water is traditionally
regarded as one of the five elements (the
other four being land, draught animals,
seed and labour) affecting the proportion
in which the crop is divided between the
two parties to the agreement, the land-
lord and the peasant. In theory, one share
went to each of the five elements, but in
practice there was much variation in the
shares going to either party, though the
ownership or provision of water always
played an important part in the division
of the crop in the case of irrigated land.
Musāāt was an agreement made between
the owner of a garden and another party,
who would undertake to irrigate the trees
and who would receive in return a speci-
fied share of their fruit. It could also be
concluded for trees or plants which did
not bear fruit, but the produce of which
was capable of exploitation, such as the
henna or tea plant. It could also be con-
cluded for newly-planted trees which
would not bear fruit for some years.
The responsibility for cleaning anāts and
irrigation channels under a muzāraa or
musāāt varied according to local custom.
The digging of new wells and canals was
normally done at the expense of the land-
owner. These agreements might be writ-
ten agreements, but were probably often
oral agreements based on local custom.
They might be for one or more years.
In some quarters there appear to have

Taxation
It is difficult to lay down the connection
between the provision of irrigation and
taxation, because no general principle
prevailed. Probably in most districts, tax
was assessed on the land (together with its
water), though in the case of land watered
by the great rivers and some of the lesser
rivers, water dues were paid to the state.
Apart from the source from which it
comes, water is also divided by the jurists
into u ª r water and ¶ arā ¡ water, accord-
ing to whether it is found in u ª r or
¶ arā ¡ land. There is, however, some dif-
ference of opinion among the jurists over
the status of the water of the great rivers
and the implications of its status for tax
purposes. Land reclaimed with u ª r water
paid u ª r and with ¶ arā ¡ water, ¶ arā ¡ .
When in the course of time the distinc-
tion between u ª r land and ¶ arā ¡ land
became blurred, the distinction between
u ª r water and ¶ arā ¡ water also ceased
to be of practical effect. What was crucial
in assessing the tax-bearing capacity of
the land was not the hypothetical status of
the water, but the method by which it was
irrigated. Crops irrigated by water carried
on the back of a beast or raised by a lifting
device paid half- u ª r , while lands watered
by river, spring or anāt water or rain paid
full u ª r . In the later centuries, when tax
was often assessed on the crop, not on
the area of land, many authorities per-
mitted the deduction of expenses, which
included those on irrigation, before the
¶ arā ¡ of the government was reckoned.