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