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Ibn Wahshiyya: Filahat al- Nabatiyyah
(Nabatean agriculture) (904) Kufa in Iraq

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The enigmatic and complex Al-filaḥah al-nabaṭiyah or book of Nabataean Agriculture is, the earliest agricultural treatise translated in Arabic. The authorship, history, and original language are issues still not unanimously resolved. The work itself claims to be a translation by Ibn Waḥshiyah (AD930–1) from Ancient Syriac into Arabic, made in the year 903-04 and dictated to his scribe al-Zayat in 930-31. The Syriac original was, according to the text, itself based on earlier works by a number of authors belonging to the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia. What is mentioned about East Africa in the text is of little importance.

 

Taken from: -The last pagans of Iraq: Ibn Wahshiyya and his Nabatean agriculture by Jaakko Hameen-Anttila, Ahmad ibn Ali Ibn Wahshiyah.

 

The page shows the entry on ebony لابنوس from the abreviated version made by Ibn al Raqqam

 

In the land of al-Bakiyan (1) there is a tree which Illuminates its surroundings like a lamp, so that the nocturnal traveler does not need any additional lights. In the neighborhood there is a major island, like the islands of Ceylon, Kalah (11), az-Zanj and other such large islands (p355)

 

Taken from: Al Waraq

p45

As the river Nile of Egypt runs from Abyssinia to Egypt, coming out of the mountains behind the country of Sudan, who are called the Mountains of the Moon,

p182

As for the climats, which tells about the people they grow certain things do not grow in other than Earth, such as the al-balsam plant in the land of Egypt and the plants of Ebony in the land of alwaqwaq (12) and the plants of wood called al-Zanjy (Negro) in the country of Zinj and banana trees and cactus in the land of the Arabs and the other …

P577

…… especially, so it is different in weight and lightness, ……. Though heavy, light and cold, ebony, olives, walnuts, ……

P649

And fruits in trees that we do not know

We do not grow like them.

As well as in the Serenadeb (2) and in the islands in the sea

And other countries.

We are informed that the Bal-zang

All of it and also Kashmir

Trees are planted bearing

Fruits describe to us as we have known

But we do not know what it looks like on the other hand

 

And unknown regions that are not talked about like China at the end, India and Sindh (13) and Kathar (14) and Bulgarians and Sakhar (3) and Alagafjan and Sarat and Qumr (4) and the country Al Takrur (5) and Abyssinia and Nubia and Al Bejah (6) and Zinj and to Aswan (7), Hadramout (8), Bahrain and so on.

 

Taken from: Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science: Technology, alchemy ..., Volume 3 By Rushdi Rashid,

 

The orach (sarmaq): horticultural and wild (qataf): description; properties; widespread in Ethiopia, Nubia and Sudan; consumed by the Negroes despite its bad smell.

 

 

Ibn Wahshiya; Kitab as-sumum (Book of Poison) (900AD)

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Taken from: Medieval Arabic toxicology: The book on poisons of Ibn Wahshiya and its ... By Aḥmad ibn ʻAli Ibn Wahshiyah,

Martin Levey

 

Preparation of Necklaces like Stone. When a Man sees it he dies on the Spot

 

…………………Knead them well and make of it a half sphere, one side flat and the other surface convex. Smooth it well and

polish it until it appears like the best smooth stone. Since some of the blood which was used in this operation is left over and

will not be needed again, it is dried, pounded, and mixed well with the remedies. Make the stone in the shape that I described

to you. Leave it to dry as I ordered.When it is dry and wholly fashioned, take a little each of minium, and reboudia microcarpa

coss., and mix them well with the urine of a camel. Put vine leaf on your palm; on it put the hemisphere. Spot it with a quill

pen until it is. Moisten it with the quill pen which has been wetted with camel’s urine. On the flat side, draw a figure of a cross;

in each angle formed by the cross, put three spots. Leave it exposed to the air until the spots on it are well dried. Put on it any

leaf and a sheet of paper made in the country of Sacad. Take four ratls (9) of a man’s urine which has been weighed on a

balance. Pour the urine in an earthenware container which has been smeared with sesame oil three times.

Take equal amounts of verdigris, table salt, ashes of walnut rinds pounded reed charcoal, saruq which is bat urine, dove

[droppings], dung of sheep, bovine manure, and hairs of Negroes, two dirhams (10) each of tamarisk fruit, pepper seed, camel

dung, gum ammoniac, and seeds of the mahaleb and black pepper, white pottery ………

(1) al-Bakiyan: land of the deceased.

(2) Serenadeb: Serendib in Sumatra

(3) Sakhar (sugar country)

(4) Qumr: or Kmer (Vietnam) or Qamar(Madagascar)

(5) Al Takrur: at the border between Senegal and Mauretania. Already mentioned by al Bakri in 1067

(6) Bejah:  Beja people from Sudan. The Egyptians leaving from Aswan;  the southern border town on the Nile; have to cross their territory to reach the harbors on the Red Sea.

(7) Aswan: southern border of Egypt.

(8) Hadramout: Eastern part of Yemen.

(9) Ratls; Ratl-weight: standard ratl of 440 grams in Umayyad Egypt.

(10) dirhams: silver coin of the Arab world (3 gr of silver).

(11) Kalah: Kaleh: very important harbour in Malaysia in those days.

(12) in the books three different places are called Waqwaq: in South-East Africa; in Indonesia; around Japan.

(13) Sindh: now in Pakistan

(14) should be Khazar; Semi nomadic people from south Russia, south Ukraine, Crimea, Kazakhstan.