Arab Agricultural Revolution

The Arab Agricultural Revolution is a historical theory positing that Muslim Arabic peoples pioneered many great advances in farming starting about the ninth century CE. These advances included highly regulated land- and water-management techniques that promoted and enhanced the productivity of natural resources. Other advances involved new plowing and planting processes and the introduction of new crops to diverse conditions. Brought to light by the writings of professor Andrew M. Watson in the 1970s, the Arab Agricultural Revolution concept suggests that Arabs modernized farming long before Westerners did so, despite the greater public awareness and acknowledgement of Western accomplishments.

Background

The discovery of agriculture was one of the foremost accomplishments of humankind, and was essential for the growth of modern civilizations. The earliest evidence of farming likely dates back about 10,000 years. These first agricultural experiments allowed people to begin abandoning their former nomadic lifestyles and reliance upon hunting and gathering. By growing their own reliable sources of food, people could form permanent villages and foster stable and increasingly cultured societies.

Ancient farming tools and techniques developed among many parts of the inhabited world. These allowed the growth of villages, towns, and eventually cities and kingdoms. However, farming methods were still primitive by modern standards. Through the Middle Ages, most farmers were able to produce just enough food to avoid hunger, and only the most successful harvested a surplus to share or sell. Farming technology, crop yield, land management, and many other factors needed improvement to make agriculture support the ever-growing human population.

Many historians point to 1700s Europe as the period when farming entered a more modern era. Popularly known as the Agricultural Revolution, during this period farmers in Europe devised such tools as the seed drill, fantail windmill, and improved horse-drawn plows. They also put to use new methods such as crop rotation, a process of yearly changes in the crops planted in a particular field to ensure the soil remained rich. Later innovations from this Agricultural Revolution included improved animal breeding, chemical pesticides, and other scientific advances.

Although the farming developments of post-medieval Europe and, later, the United States, are generally well-known, some historians posited that an extremely important wave of agricultural modernization took place much earlier in India and the Middle East. This movement was sparked by the 1970s writings of Toronto-based professor and historian Andrew M. Watson, in which he coined the term Arab Agricultural Revolution.

Watson and other scholars, including Thomas F. Glick, Lucy Bolens, Garcia Sanchez Expiración, and Fairchild Ruggles, spent the next decades learning more about agricultural changes in predominately Muslim parts of the world. These scholars, finding a lack of modern information on the topic, returned to ancient documents. They claimed these records provide abundant evidence that great strides in farming were led by Arabic people starting about the ninth century CE, centuries before such advances were developing in Europe.

Supporters of the Arab Agricultural Revolution concept suggest that the history of the revolution may have become obscured or lost through time for a variety of reasons. One suggested reason is a general discrediting of, or disinterest in, studies relating to Islamic history and accomplishments, particularly in Western countries. Such a trend might relate to Western or non-Muslim historians attempting to reduce the confidence or esteem of Muslim people, or to transferring credit for Muslim achievements to other cultures.

Overview

The Arab Agricultural Revolution, as outlined by Watson, began even before the rise and spread of Islam. Major farming innovations that moved agricultural science out of ancient times and toward modern standards began in India. Arabic people observing or participating in these new methods of farming began to adopt them. As Arabs moved to new areas, they took these farming practices with them. Similarly, when Arabs conquered other lands and people, they instituted and shared these practices, thus spreading them widely.

The greatest expansion of these early farming improvements occurred alongside the spread of Islam during the seventh and eighth centuries CE. As the religion moved across multiple continents, so too did agricultural innovations. Notably, as the lessons spread northward, they required modifications. The techniques originated in the hot, humid lands of India, to benefit specific native crops. As farming peoples moved to new lands in cooler or drier areas with different vegetation, farming techniques required adaptation.

The Arab innovations closely followed the path of Islam, first through Persia and Mesopotamia, which were already in close proximity to India and had learned some of its techniques. By the thirteenth century, Arab innovations had spread across a tremendous span of land and took hold in areas throughout the Middle East, Africa, and southern Europe, mainly around the Mediterranean. Lands such as Egypt, the Levant, Sicily, and regions of West and East Africa were transformed into increasingly green and hospitable places.

Some of the main innovations to arise during the Arab Agricultural Revolution pertained to water use. Previously, poor irrigation was a serious inhibitor of plant growth—and population growth—in arid regions. Arabs studied water and found ways to create qanats, or sloping channels that carried water from inside hills down to settlements and farms below. Qanats drew water from deep wells and carried it to outlets with distribution networks of furrows, dams, and gates that would regulate its flow and path.

Arabs viewed water as a life-giving resource, as celebrated in Muslim holy texts and beliefs. Water was so important, in fact, it gave rise to a complex system of laws as to how the resource would be controlled, distributed, and used. Muslim laws designated special institutions and counsels to manage water and ensure it would be properly utilized throughout the land. This helped to minimize waste and maximize availability. Official oversight of water systems also encouraged the efficient construction and maintenance of water-delivery systems.

Just as Arabic farming techniques required careful control of water, so too did they involve new innovations in the use and management of agricultural land. Islamic law held that land and other natural resources were commonly owned by all humans and other living things. Farmable land was especially scarce and important in dry desert areas. However, for the sake of law and order, land was divided and put into individual control. Arabic people kept careful records of land ownership as well as the ways land was used.

Landowners who neglected to care for their land or use it wisely risked being dispossessed by officials and having their lands redistributed to worthier caretakers. Ceasing to cultivate usable land was an offense because land was meant to provide benefit for living things; in this case, crops to feed people and animals. This legal and religious policy ensured that farmers were productive and efficient in their work. Other official measures rewarded farmers who improved their land or found ways to increase its usefulness, such as by planting new, higher-yield crops or crops that grew better in dry environments. For instance, sorghum, wheat, and watermelon could grow in sandy or salty areas. These hardy crops provided nourishment for people and helped to enrich the soil.

Arab farmers used other scientific techniques to improve the quality of their land. Farmers were encouraged to use fertilizers, ranging from animal droppings to leftover vegetation of many kinds, on their soil. The soil could further be enriched through techniques such as planting grass or using new methods of plowing. Carefully plowing the soil multiple times, along with proper hoeing and harrowing techniques, could help to draw out and enhance its nutrients.

Introducing new crops was not only a means of improving the land. Arabic farmers experimented with many plants, including cotton, hard wheat, rice, bananas, coconuts, lemons, and sugar cane. Science-minded farmers even experimented with early forms of genetic engineering by crossing different kinds of crops. Many of these new crops became staples and valuable commodities for trade. In many formerly barren areas, introduction of new crops created bountiful harvests, improved diets and health, and increasing populations.

Farmers grew crops as a food source and for other purposes as well. They grew fodder for animals; medicinal herbs; ornamental flowers; and plants that could be processed into perfumes, fibers, cosmetics, and many other products. Farmers and agricultural officials studied new uses for crops as well as new ways of growing them. This crop science improved the lives of the farmers and their communities and created more opportunities for financial development.

According to the Arab Agricultural Revolution concept, the Arabic people engineered many forms of land and water management, new crop science, and other tools and techniques that turned primitive farming into a highly efficient and productive industry. Many of these innovations spread through the lands inhabited by the Arabs and were ultimately absorbed by surrounding lands. Declines and defeats among the Arabs, and animosity of many outsiders toward Muslims, however, led to a clouding of the origins of these innovations. Eventually, some Arabic inventions were wrongly identified as Western developments.

Bibliography

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Mazoyer, Marcel and Laurence Roudart. A History of World Agriculture: From the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis. Monthly Review P, 2006.

The Filāḥa Texts Project, www.filaha.org. Accessed 2 Oct. 2019.

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Watson, Andrew M. “The Arab Agricultural Revolution and Its Diffusion, 700–1100.” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 34, No. 1 (March 1974), 8–35.

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