Q. & A. 711 to 1707 with solved Papers css 1971 to date

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lived by agriculture, husbandry received much attention both from the rulers and the ruled. The Muslims must in fact be regarded as the first people in the post-Roman world to approach the problems of agriculture in a scientific frame of mind. It is only natural, as observed above, that in the Near Eastern countries with their notorious scarcity of water, much attention should be paid to problems of irrigation.
However important the contribution of the Arabs to irrigation, their most spectacular gift to European agriculture was comprised in the variety and numbers of new plants they introduced, for the list includes some of our most popular fruits and vegetables. Thus we owe to their transplanting our oranges and lemons, peaches and apricots, rice, sugar- cane and coffee, pomegranates and saffron. At a time when the Arabs had already introduced sugar to Spain, the rest of Europe was still unaware of its existence, and few of the new delighted them more than this sugar-cane; until that time honey had been the main sweetening ingredient known to the Christian world.
Books on agriculture and horticulture were as common among the Arabs as were those on plants and drugs. This applied particularly to the Arabs of the west, that is of Spain and Morocco. The most famous of such books was compiled by the twelfth-century agriculturist, Ibn al-Awwam of Seville, his treatise Kitab al-Falaha. At least one Western expert considers it to be the most important medical work on the subject; this book makes use not only of the whole body of ancient agricultural role and of existing Greek and Arab material on the subject, but. even more convincingly of the author’s own practical experience. It deals with 585 different plants and the cultivation of over 50 fruit trees, with different kinds of soil and fertilizers, with methods of grafting, with sympathies and antipathies between plants (a subject usually considered to be a modern discovery), with plant diseases and cures, and with the raising of cattle, bees and poultry. The famous gardens of Persia, Morocco or Andalusia attest to the Muslims’ great interest in horticulture and their love of flowers. The walled-in gardens of Persia and the patio-gardens of Andalusia and Morocco are among the most fascinating examples of the garden builder’s art. With their jealously guarded privacy, their tiled floors, their murmuring fountains or rivulets of water, their apparently casual yet perfectly thought out arrangements of trees, shrubs and flowers, and their subtle insight into the aesthetic relationship between architecture,

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Muslim agriculture. The fertility of Nile Valley in Egypt also encouraged new experimentation. In the Middle East, the prime factor in agriculture has been water for which a number of irrigation canals linked the Tigris and the Euphrates with each other. Thus specializing in dates (using controlled polynization methods), they also took great pride in their fruit and vegetable gardens, cotton and sugar-cane plantations etc. Moving to Spain, they introduced cotton, sugar-cane, rice, oranges, apricots, peaches, spinach and saffron from India, vines, olive and mulberry (and with that silkworm breeding and sericulture were in vogue), and also indigo from India.
The cultivation of flowers resulted in extracting essences and
perfumes. For example the province of Jur or Ferozabad in Iran was
noted for its ”Itr” of red roses. Shahpur and its valley produced ten
world famous varieties of perfumed oils. The Muslims were also
familiar at this period of history with various kinds of manures (such
as bones, blood, leg, waist etc.), adaptability of plants to soil and
climate. Besides wells, (Persian wheels), canals and aqueducts and
other means of irrigation were generally adopted. In addition to al-
Battani’s work in Botany and the al-Fihrist, mention may also be
made of Ibn al-Awwam’s book Kitab al-Falaha, Al-Ghafiqi, a
Spanish, made a long list of African trees along with their Arabic and
Latin names. In the field of inventions, Ibn Firnas (d.888) had
invented a type of aeroplane in which he flew a long distance.
Mechanical instruments for floating sunken ships or puiiing out trees
of enormous dimensions were available.
History
The Arabs had a natural liking for history and took endless pains to collect historical data and test their accuracy by certain standards that worked all right when applied to their own sources. I have already been discussed the art of writing history in Umayyads period, here I described the development of historiography under the Abbasids. Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (838-923) is the most celebrated historian of the Muslim world. He was born in Tabaristan (Iran). His monumental work Taiikh Rasul wal Muluk is a work of detailed and accurate information. He travelled all over Asia and Egypt together material for his book from original sources, and according to Yaqut wrote 40 pages daily for 40 years. His history begins with the creation of the world and comes down to 915 A.D. Al-Tabari arranged the events chronologically and tabulated them under the successive years of the Hijrah. The original edition of
Scientific and Literary Progress under the Abbasids 615
al-Tabari’s history is said to have been ten times as long as the surviving edition. Later historians have made free use of this authoritative work.
Abul Hasan AM al-Masudi is famous both as a historian and geographer and was one of the versatile writers of the 4th century. He was born at Baghdad. He travelled far and wide in practically every Islamic country in Asia from Baghdad and even went to Zanzibar, settling down finally in Egypt. He died at Fustat in 956 A.D. His work Muruj al-Dhahab wa-ma’Adin al-Jawahar (Meadows of Gold and Mines of Precious stones) is a record of his travels, experiences and observations from the creation up to 947 A.D. It is not confined purely to chronological facts but gives interesting geographical information as well. Hitti says, ”Arabic historical composition reached at highest point in al-Tabari and al-Masudi and after Miskawayh started on a rapid decline.”
Ibn al-Athir was a historian of wide repute, who wrote Kamil, a history of the world upto 1231 A.D. Ibn Khallikan (born in Irbil in 1211 and died at Damascus in 1282) was the Qazi of Syria and author of a most delightful dictionary of national biography (Wafayat al-A’yan wa-Anba’ Abna al-Zaman) dealing with the lives of 868 prominent Muslims-a marvel of accuracy and eloquence.4 Geography
Muslims were navigators by nature. They wandered far and wide both on land and on sea, on the trade routes and so collected a lot of geographic information not known before their time. As far as their literary work is concerned, they translated into Arabic, Ptolemy’s ”Geography” and also the Sanskrit works from the Indian authors. The map of al- Idrisi. prepared for King Roger of Sicily is astonishing for its great precision and exactitude. From the maps of the earth, (in these maps, north poirffs downward) it is evident that the Muslims knew that the earth is round. They prepared a silver globe, with a map of the world on it, and thus it is even claimed that they had discovered, America long before Columbus. Ibn Majid, who served as pilot to Vasco de Gama as far as India, speaks of the compass as an already familiar thing. According to Sediliot, on this voyage, he was guided by a sea map belonging to the Gujrat. Muslim mariners like Ibn Majid and others astonish a man, with their skill and during their voyages from Basra (Iraq) to China. Masudi
Him P388

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travelled in the middle of the 10th century. Besides visiting the Muslim empire, from one end to the other, he also visited Ceylon, Madagascar and Zanzibar. He gives a detailed description of the countries visited and their people in his famous work ”Golden Pastures”. Like al-Biruni and al-Idrisi, Ibn Batuta is another traveller, scholar and author of invaluable geographical works. ”For three hundred years”, says Sedillot, European cartographers did nothing but copy al-Idrisi’s treatise on geography, with negligible variations. The two hundred years under review fall into four main periods of fifty years duration. Each period has been studied as regards the developments of (i) Mathematical Geography (ii) General Geography, Exploration and Itineraries (in) Physical Geography and Bio-geography etc. The first period or the first half of the IX century is marked by considerable development of Mathematical Geography with Baghdad as centre. In the second period i.e. in the second half of the IX century A. D. we find the continuation and augmentation of the developments in the field of Mathematical Geography initiated in the previous period. In addition to this we find travel accounts and itineraries. The third period or the first half of the X century A. D. is marked by a large extension of exploration and growth of practical knowledge of the world. The fourth and the culminating period i.e. the second half of the X century A. D. was period of great practical achievement. It as marked not only by more systematic geographical accounts of different lands but also by immense improvements in all the different branches of geography (v\ ith main centres at Shiraz, Cairo, and Cordova).