Page 43 - Arabian Studies (I)
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The Cultivation of Cereals in Mediaeval Yemen                  29

      disposal the JTzan agricultural calendar which we worked out from
      local informants in December 1971. In the Wadi JTzan there is much
      variation as to the precise dates, by several days in fact, upon which
      the period covered by the twenty-eight stars falls. I relied on Shaikh
      Ahmad b. Mansur al-Sa‘dT of Abu ‘Arlsh who was stated to be the
      best authority in the WadT. The JTzan stars correspond exactly to
      Glaser’s ‘Sun Stations’ and ‘Morning Ascension’, though there is a
      wide discrepancy in the dating of the two.19 Both these differ again
      from the Ta‘izz calendar, which last, however, does exactly tally with
      that of WadT Hadramawt. In point of fact there is considerable
      variation from district to district in Southern Arabia, apart from
      other Arab countries, and it has to be established what the local
      usage is in each place. Not all countrymen who use the star calendar
      to guide them can even list the star periods, and anyway this lore is
      probably beginning to be abandoned nowadays in some districts. In
      all the calendars mentioned the star period is thirteen days, with one
      star of fourteen days’ duration.20
        For the author of the Bughyah the year commences with RabT‘,
      and the Ta‘izz almanac gives the dates of the seasons as follows:
         RabT‘ (Spring) 22 March, Hamal (Aries)
        Saif (Summer) 22 June, Sara tan (Cancer)
        KharTf (Autumn) 23 September, MTzan (Libra)
        Shita’ (Winter) 23 December, Jady (Capricorn)
      Aries (al-Hamal) was found convenient to use as a term to a letting in
      Lahej, for Ba Makhramah21 was asked for his opinion concerning ‘a
      person who rents (ista’jar) from another, land in Lahej up to the sun of
      Aries (shams al-Hamal), according to their custom ('adah)'. His
      reply commences with the assertion that most of the (contracts of)
      lettings (ijarat) are improper (Jasidah).
        The agricultural year in JTzan, on the other hand, commences a
      little before mid-June with the sowing of shabb millet, though in the
      mountain districts there this last takes place a little earlier. This is the
      opening of the season of KharTf (12 June),  2 2  So in JTzan the fiscal
      year during which the zakat-iax is paid upon grain produce, runs,
      approximately, from KharTf to KharTf, or as it may be expressed,
      ‘from shabb to shabb', since .s/?flZ?Z?-millet is planted at the stars
      al-Dhira‘, the last star of Saif, and al-Nathrah the first star of KharTf.
      Al-Dhira‘ is actually often called Shabb as a proper name because of
      the association of millet sowing with it. This JTzan practice would
      seem to me to be ancient.
        A Russian Arabist, Anatoli Agaryshev,23 has given a not very
      accurate version of the agricultural star calendar republished by  me
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