added 9/12/2011
Profile of Ibn Kannān, Syria, 17/18th C.
added 25/11/2011
The month when...
... the young birds hatch out, the bees reproduce, the creatures of the sea begin their migration; our womenfolk begin to incubate the silkworms; the cranes return to the river islands. Saffron bulbs are planted and summer vegetables sown; many trees are already in leaf. There are truffles, wild asparagus and fennel in abundance. Pear trees and apple trees are grafted, young cuttings planted, and the vine shoots transplanted. We may be bled and, if need be, take our medicines, though they must not be too strong. This is also the month during which instructions on recruitment for the summer months are issued. Swallows and storks return to their nests in the towns.
See all months
Arīb ibn Sa‘d
Welcome to the Filāḥa Texts Project
The purpose of the Filāḥa Texts Project is to publicise and elucidate the written works collectively known as the Kutub al-Filāḥa or ‘Books of Husbandry’ compiled by Arab, especially Andalusi, agronomists mainly between the 10th and 14th centuries (see Authors & Works). These systematic and detailed manuals of agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry have been sadly neglected and remain largely unknown in the Anglophone world - apart from some of the Yemeni works they have never been translated into English. They not only provide primary source material for the understanding of what has been called the ‘Islamic Green Revolution’ but constitute a rich body of knowledge concerning a traditional system of husbandry which is as valid today as it was a thousand years ago and has much relevance to future sustainable agriculture. See Introduction.
The Filāḥa texts are preserved in some 240 manuscripts scattered in libraries and institutions in 40 different cities, mainly in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. See Map of Holding Institutions.
The objectives of the Filāḥa Texts Project are:
- To bring to a worldwide English-speaking readership the current state of knowledge on the Filāḥa texts and their authors, especially the findings of Spanish scholars J.M. Carabaza Bravo and E. García Sánchez who have worked in this field for the past twenty-five years. To them we owe a huge debt of gratitude. See Bibliography.
- To gather together a corpus of digitized manuscript facsimiles, along with their Arabic editions where they exist, and provide an online collaborative translation platform to facilitate translation of these into English. See Community.
- To present for the first time in English a series of digitized, searchable and cross-referenced Filāḥa texts. See Texts & Translations.
- To provide a variety of scholarly online resources such as glossaries, bibliographies, published articles, links, etc. See Articles & Resources.
- To encourage interest and research in the field, and provide a locus for the publication of scholarly and more popular articles on the Filāḥa manuals and traditional farming in Arab and Islamic lands in general.
- To provide a forum for discussion and the exchange of ideas among scholars engaged in the field. Register to join the Forum here.
The Filāḥa Texts Project is a collaborative project co-ordinated by Simon Fitzwilliam-Hall, Senior Researcher at the Golden Web Foundation.
Contact: info@goldenweb.org
We encourage all those interested in the field to join the FTP community. Members will be able to contribute content, join the discussion forum, and participate in the collaborative translation programme. Register here
We would like to thank the following contributors and translators:
Daniel Birnstiel, Roberta Borghero, Julia María Carabaza Bravo, Ana Maria Giraldo, Phoebe Luckyn-Malone, Expiración García Sánchez, Saida Spiker, Daniel Martin Varisco
The Filāḥa Texts Project is a Golden Web Foundation project
The Golden Web Foundation
3rd Floor, Broers Building, 21 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge, CB3 0FA
Tel: +44 (0) 1223 755000 / Fax: +44 (0) 1223 352828
http://www.goldenweb.org/