Page 41 - Arabian Studies (I)

The Cultivation of Cereals in Mediaeval Yemen 27

his mis-rcadings of, in the main, I bn Bassal, provided these make
sense. From time to time however it is necessary to interpret the text
of the Bughyah from one of the sources upon which it draws. With
this translation I have not included the marginal notes containing
further technical vocabulary for which I must go to Zabld to
establish. My text is now pretty satisfactory, but a few passages
remain about which the QadT himself is unsure.
As long ago as 1954 I had some help from Qahtan al-Sha‘bI, later
first President in an independent Aden, but at that time an
agricultural assistant. My debt to QadT Isma‘Tl al-Akwa4 is
overwhelmingly great. Not only have I questioned him to the point
of weariness — if he could be wearied — concerning Yemenite tech­
nical terms and usages, but on our journeys together he has neglected
no opportunity of showing me in the fields practical illustrations of
what the Bughyah describes. His brother QadT Muhammad also
helped from time to time. The Bughyah describes technical practices
strange to me, but the greatest difficulty of interpretation lies in the
many technical terms peculiar to the Yemen, not merely unknown to
the lexica, but particular to the Lower Yemen where the Rasulids
held their court, farmed and taxed the countryside. In the northern
districts of the Yemen quite different technical words are currently
employed, and QadT lsma‘11 himself is not acquainted with some of
the Tihamah vocabulary.
In view of the liberal policy of the Government, after the end of
the Egyptian occupation, in opening the Yemen to research I have
decided to anticipate my edition and translation of the Bughyah by
rendering into English the most important and purely Yemeni
chapter — that on cereals, the staple diet of its people. I may later
follow this with the chapter on pulses. To the dates of seasons of the
agricultural year, given according to the RumT months and/or
agricultural stars, I have added, in brackets, the corresponding date in
our solar year, following the almanac of Shaikh Muhammad Ahmad
Haidarah, Tawali* al-Yaman al-zirdV0 for the year 1391 H./
1971 A.D., 'published in Ta‘izz. If this rough and ready method
should introduce a margin of error upon which historians of the
calendar would be informed, it can be but slight. Indeed it is
surprising how many entries in the Haidarah almanac reproduce data
figuring in the Bughyah — this implies a continuity in almanac
literature which I could in fact demonstrate.

Present-day Investigation of South Arabian Agriculture
For the former Aden Protectorates I have seen agricultural reports