Agriculture and botany
Family: Knowledge: science, medicine, astronomy and the rest · 5 entries
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The Nilometer
The Nile gauge in al-Mas'udi's account: sixteen cubits means full kharaj, seventeen the perfect flood, eighteen floods a quarter of Egypt and augurs plague — the record nineteen came in 99 under Umar II; the gauge's thirteenth and fourteenth cubits are named Munkar and Nakir and below them Egypt prays for rain; the four great canals open at the Feast of the Cross on 14 Tut.Shajar (trees and their rulings in sale, pre-emption, orchard contracts and the sacred enclosure)
In language shajar is plant with a stem, while kala' is grass with no stem, and zar' is what is sown by seed. The jurists agree that cutting or uprooting the trees of the sacred enclosure is forbidden, on the hadith that its grass is not cut and its trees are not felled. Trees fixed in the ground pass with the sale of land for the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Malikis, while there is no pre-emption in trees sold apart from land, and orchard contracts for a share of fruit are allowed by most jurists. Relieving oneself under a fruit-bearing tree is disliked by most jurists, and forbidden by the Hanbalis when the tree bears fruit.Shirb (the right to water: public and owned waters, distribution, cleaning of canals, and sale of water rights)
In language shirb is taking one's share of water; the word also names water, the turn fixed for the right to draw it, and the watering-place. Waters are of four kinds: public water owned by none; water flowing in owned canals; water from an owned spring; and water collected in vessels, which is owned by the one who collects it. Public water is shared among landowners by priority and nearness to the head of the stream, and public canals are cleaned from the treasury. Most jurists allow the right to water to be sold, let, or made the subject of settlement, and the Hanafis do not allow selling it apart from land.Fertilizer (simad) and its rulings
Simad is what the land is manured with: material such as earth or animal dung cast at the roots of crops and vegetables so that the plant thrives; the technical sense does not depart from the lexical one. The jurists differ on whether fertilizer is pure or impure according to its source. Droppings of animals whose flesh is not eaten, other than birds, are impure by consensus; the droppings of birds of prey are impure for the majority and pure for Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf. The Malikis, the Hanbalis and Zufar hold the droppings of eaten animals pure, while the Shafi'i preferred view holds the droppings of all animals impure. Beyond purity, the entry also covers the use of impure manure on crops, the sale of fertilizer, and conditions on it in share-cropping and irrigation contracts.
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