AGRICULTURE
The river was one of those phenomena of nature held to possess divine attributes. People believed that therein dwelt a mysterious spirit, which caused the water to move, and made it useful or harmful.
The river Skamandros in ancient Greece evidently was so personified, according to Aeshines, a fourth century B.C. Greek orator. Girls bathed in it before marrying and said: “Skamandros, accept my virginity.” Magical rites in which water serves as a substitute for semen or the fertility of men are numerous.
Because rivers were held to be sacred in ancient times (even to this day, some are still held sacred) people began to worship them and offer up sacrifices to them. It was this concept of holiness that hindered man in his conquest of nature. People saw rivers in the form of deities rather than in the form of physical objects to be exploited by common methods. That is why the use of river water in agriculture remained limited in antiquity. It is astonishing that the history of irrigation had its beginnings in relatively modern times.
With the onset of the Islamic revolution based on monotheism, it was revealed to man that the river was a creature and not a creator, it was a servant and not the Lord. Only then was it possible for man to give thought to finding ways and means to exploit rivers on a large scale. That is why we come across the fact in history books that there is no precedent in any nation to the large-scale irrigation system developed by the Spanish Muslims.
The Spanish Muslims developed agriculture to such an extent that it became a regular science. They studied trees and carried out research on the properties of soil. Vast expanses of land, which had hitherto been lying infertile, were then converted into orchards and lush green fields. It was a virtual green revolution.
Philip K. Hitti writes:
They dug canals, cultivated grapes and introduced among other plants and fruits, rice, apricots, peaches, pomegranates, oranges, sugarcane, cotton and saffron. The south-eastern plains of the peninsula, especially favoured by climate and soil, developed important centres of rural and urban activity. Here wheat and other grains as well as olives and sundry fruits were raised by a peasantry who worked the soil on shares with the owners.
The agricultural development was one of the glories of Moslem Spain and one of the Arabs’ lasting gifts to the land, for Spanish gardens have preserved to this day a “Moorish” imprint. One of the best-known gardens is the Generalife (from Al-Janat al-arif, the inspector’s paradise), a Nasrid monument of the late thirteenth century whose villa was one of the outlying buildings of the Alhambra. This garden, proverbial for its extensive shade, falling waters and soft breeze, was terraced in the form of an amphitheatre and irrigated by streams which, after forming numerous cascades, lost themselves among the flowers, shrubs and trees represented today by a few gigantic cypresses and myrtles.
Charles Sinobose, a French author, writes that the Spanish Arabs adopted the method of irrigation by canals. They also dug large wells. Those who discovered new sources of water were given sizeable rewards. In Spain they dug broad canals, and then subdivided them, with the result that the arid plain of Valencia was turned into a vast tract of lush green. They established a permanent department of irrigation, which supplied all kinds of relevant information.
Describing Muslim Spain, Bertrand Russell writes:
One of the best features of the Arab economy was agriculture, particularly the skillful use of irrigation, which they learnt from living where water is scarce. To this day Spanish agriculture profits by Arab irrigation works.
It is a fact that the Muslims who went to Spain brought about a veritable green revolution. There they established such irrigation systems for fields and orchards as were unprecedented in history. However, strangely enough, Bertrand Russell attributes this to their having lived in the past in desert areas, where water is scarce. This explanation is meaningless. The true, underlying cause of this feat is the monotheistic revolution, which had overhauled the minds of Arabs. Prior to this, people had seen rivers, springs, and the sea in the form of gods. They held them to be objects of reverence rather than of conquest. The Arabs with their changed mind saw these phenomena of nature in the form of God’s creations. They saw them with an eye to conquering them for exploitation. It was this mental revolution, which enabled the Arabs to perform their historic feats in the world of irrigation and agriculture.
How can we learn methods of irrigation in the desert where water is scarce? Ignorant of the true source of this Arab skill, Bertrand Russell linked it, quite irrelevantly, to their life in the desert, sans water, instead of to their mental revolution, which had come about thanks to monotheism. The science of irrigation was developed not because of their desert life but because of their monotheistic thinking.
