Page 39 - Arabian Studies (I)

THE CULTIVATION OF CEREALS IN
MEDIAEVAL YEMEN

(A Translation of the Bughyat al-Fallahln of
the Rasulid Sultan, al-Malik al-Afdal al-‘Abbas
b. ‘AIT, composed circa 1370 A.D.)

by R. B. SERJEANT

Agriculture is the occupation of the great majority of Yemenis, and
eveji the foreign experts who have been coming to the country since
Imam Ahmad’s days admit that the country is, by and large, well
farmed. One cannot fail to be impressed, on the one hand, by the
magnificent sweep of broad fields in the fairly open country near
Ibb, layered one above the other, and beautifully farmed and kept,
while, on the other, every tiny parcel of land in the high and stony
rocks of the steep mountain sides, terraced from bottom to top,
seems to be utilised. Nevertheless I think I detected, in some of the
higher northern districts, that certain terraced lands of marginal
nature had gone out of cultivation. This is likely to happen more
frequently where the returns are poor, the rains scanty, and the
population are attracted to work elsewhere.
The pre-Islamic inscriptions naturally reflect the agricultural
activity upon which the economy of the Yemen is based. It was
however the Rasulid monarchs of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries A.D. who were not merely interested in the practical sides
of husbandry, stock-rearing, agricultural almanacs and calendars, as
the Rasulid MS.1 of mixed contents shown me by QadT IsmaTl
al-Akwa‘ shows, but took the trouble to record in writing their
personal observations, side by side with their gleanings from earlier
Arab writers. The Bughyat al-fallahin,2 completed not before 773 H.
(1371 A.D.) may be described as the quintessence of their researches.
The author, al-Malik al-Afdal al-‘Abbas b. ‘All (flor. 764 H./1363
A.D.-778 H./1376 A.D.) quotes extensively, among Yemeni sources,
from al-Isharah fi’l-'imarah of his father, al-Malik al-Mujahid 'AH b.
Dawud (721 H./1321 A.D.-764 H./1363 A.D.), but he also uses

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