Page 45 - Arabian Studies (I)

The Cultivation of Cereals in Mediaeval Yemen 31

was said to me in San‘a\ lasts manzilatain, i.e. two months, and
the 9th day of it in 1972 was 27 May. In 1964 at al-Qarah I was
however told that, ‘Al-ghubar yijl fi 'l-Jahr, shahr 'Alib. The
dust-storms come in al-Jahr, in the month of ‘Alib (12-24 July).’
The g/ntbdr must be identical with the g/iubrah of JJzan, a north
wind bearing dust and sand commencing about 22 June and abating
about mid-August. I endured the same wind in SubaihT territory
when stationed there in the hot months of July and August 1940.
Glaser considers al-Jahr would fall in late May, June and July. There
is a crop-season named after it (p. 50).
The Rum! months have, I think, been used in the Yemen from
pre-Islamic times. They arc mentioned by the ninth-century
HamdanT;31 distinguished authors like Nashwan b. Sa‘!d and
‘Abdullah b. As‘ad al-Yafi‘T have composed poems of a semi-didactic
type upon them. On two occasions KhazrajT32 refers to them, noting
rains falling in Aiyar and earlier, from the 1st of NIsan, in
795 H./1392 A.D., and heavy floods reaching the sea at ZabTd in
Tammuz 802 H./1400 A.D. For convenience I repeat these RumT
months:
Tishrln al-Awwal 14 October Naisan/NTsan 14 April
Tishrln al-Than! Aiyar or Mabkar
Kanun al-Awwal Hazfran
Kanun al-Than! Tammuz
Shubat Ab
Abhar Ailul
Haidarah’s Ta‘izz almanac expressly states that the 1st of Shubat
(14 March) is the opening of the 'am al-Rum al-zira 7yah (sic), which
1 take to mean the agricultural year of Rum! months.
Apart from the hijri calendar, two more systems may be
mentioned. Glaser describes a system which starts with a period
known as Lailat wa-la-sh (The Night of nothing) when the Sun and
the Pleiades are in conjunction, falling about 18 May, though the
period itself would appear to start some ten days earlier, and it lasts
three months — after this follow nine months of thirty days,
Tis‘at-‘ash, Sab‘at-‘ash, Khamst-‘ash, Thalat-‘ash, Had-‘ash, Tis‘, Sab‘,
Khams, Thalath. The other is the Himyarite months mentioned in
the Bughyah which Professor Beeston discusses on pp. 1 -4. A less
sophisticated type of reckoning I chanced upon is that, on the right
of the San‘a’-Sa‘dah road not far from Raidah, is a hillock called
Kawlat Na‘it, a sort of landmark. When at dawn the sun shines
(tishriq) halfway up or about the head of the kawlah (hill) this marks
the fa§l al-Saif and time for sowing millet (madhrat al-dhirah).3 3