Page 47 - Arabian Studies (I)

The Cultivation of Cereals in Mediaeval Yemen 33

MananiT (Bam Hushaish) in Wadi" Rijam heaped a generous gift of
grapes upon us, saying it would be shameful Caib) to take money for
them. Saiyid Muhammad 4Abd al-Quddus tells me the word sabuh is
the term especially applied to the first fruit gift of grapes.
Abu Makhramah36 alludes to the ripe dates and heads (of dhurah
probably) given to the poor at harvest-time in Hadramawt, and the
Shafi‘Ts even laid down what it is fitting to say at the time of the first
fruits.3 7

Bread
Bread, its ingredients, types, methods of preparation in south­
western Arabia could in itself be the subject of a separate
monograph. Hamdani’s38 brief remarks on the bread used in
northern Yemen about 900 A.D. have an historical interest for us.
‘The people of Saif a”, he says, ‘have ruqaq [thin rounds of bread)
which is in no [other] town, so thin, wide and white, because of the
way in which the firm consistency of the wheat comes into play. The
wheats [abrar] of the Yemen are ‘Arab! talld [perhaps by tafid he
means the ‘Arab! variety introduced to and grown in Yemen], Nusul
[and] V//tfs-wheat [burr], this latter being the nicest of them as bread
and lightest [in consistency]. In SanT the round (irag hif) of bread is
not broken, but folded over and rolled up like a scroll.’ San‘a\ he
adds, has many sorts of bread, and this one can remark at the present
day in the old markets of the town. Of the types of grain HamdanT39
says, though his text is not always easy to understand, there are burr
‘Arabl which is not hintah (wheat), MaisanT, Nusul and Halba’.
Either Halba’, or the three last-named, the text being dubious at this
point, is/arc only to be found in Najran. Two other varieties he
mentions appear to be a smooth black and white kind, and a coarse
red type. There is Tahaf, and white, yellow, red, and dust-coloured
(ghabra*) millet (clhurah). Sesame, he says, is of a quality un­ I
approached (elsewhere), notably that of Ma’rib and the Jawf which is
pure and shining. With these may be sown chick peas, broad beans,
cummin, etc.
A pattern of grain consumption is perhaps suggested for the first
half of the sixteenth century by Ba Makhramah,40 though it is not
certain how far the /afwa-decision he gives represents actual
contemporary conditions. It seems to imply that wheat and barley
might each be eaten for two months of the year, millet for three or
four, and kinib for four - I imagine this refers to the ratio of the I
available supply of these cereals. Despite the large imports of foreign
flour into present-day Yemen one might find districts where the ratio
of consumption of local cereals could be studied.