Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 58

going around a picturesque class of water-
carriers ( gāba , pl. of gāb , from grba <
irba “water skin”), who attracted atten-
tion by their eye-catching appearance, the
tinkling of their little bells and the copper
vessels in which they handed out drink-
ing water from their dripping water skin
to thirsty passers-by without asking the
slightest return; in order to make a liv-
ing, they had a regular clientèle to whose
homes they delivered drinking water. The
installation of a modern water distribution
system had reduced the activities of these
gāba , who have now become largely a
tourist attraction.
In Spain, Muslim travellers were able to
note the Roman aqueducts which brought
water from quite considerable distances,
but the Arabs in turn did not fail to con-
struct water channels, in particular to
bring water from the sierra to the mosque
of Cordova. However, the most original
installations, it seems, are in the region of
al-ayrawān, in Byzacena (Tunisia), and
are attributable not to the Phoenicians or
Romans, as has been thought, but to the
Arabs, who developed an earlier-existing
system by practising, during the four cen-
turies before the Hilālian invasion (mid-
5th/11th century), a real policy for water.
We have here in one part water channels
open to the sky, and in another, reservoirs
meant for “storing up streams of running
water and, in some cases, water from
certain springs and certain underground
water-levels”. These reservoirs have as a
feature two basins, one for decantation,
one as a reserve, and sometimes, a third
one for drawing water from it.
Water gathered up in this fashion was
used extensively for irrigation, which has
always been the great care of peasants in
regions where the scarcity of rain and of
perennial running streams has compelled
them to make do with unwatered culti-
vated lands [see bal] and to lavish all

their attention on gardens and orchards
outside the towns and villages, where,
thanks to a more or less thick network of
canals and channels, they ended up by
making a real oasis.
In general, water is so important in the
eyes of the peasant that ownership of it
is sometimes independent of that of the
soil. Two main ways of acquisition are
in effect possible: (a) personal ownership
acquired by purchase or inheritance of
the piece of land where there is a spring,
well, etc., of which the owner can dispose
at his own will, subject to his respecting
certain rights of use; and (b) collective
ownership, in which one part is appropri-
ated to each patch of land which can be
irrigated by water belonging to the com-
munity. The sale or lease of the estate
implicitly includes the disposal of a corre-
sponding part of the water, but the land's
owner can also sell or lease out the land
whilst reserving to himself a right of usage
which he can then dispose of how he likes,
compelling the buyer or lessee to obtain
by some other means the water which he
needs.
The customary law which governs the
utilisation of the water has very precise
provisions which often go back to the
period before the arrival of Islam; indeed,
the provisions regarding, in particular, the
rights of usage affecting the land owners
and the water supply, are clearly similar
to those of classical Islamic law, which in
fact only confirmed those of the custom-
ary regulations.
The division of the individual shares
is also subject to strict rules, which nev-
ertheless do not always ensure absolute
equality between the participants and
which do not sufficiently guard against
wastage which might well be avoided.
The measuring-out is done in various
ways. E.g. a copper vessel with a hole
pierced in it may be placed in a tank, etc.