Ibn al-ʿAwwām

▪ Islamic author

flourished 12th century, at Sevilla

      agriculturist who wrote the Arabic treatise on agriculture, Kitāb al-filā-ḥah, the outstanding medieval work on the subject. The Spanish translation, published in the early 1800s, consists of 35 chapters dealing with agronomy, cattle and poultry raising, and beekeeping. It deals with 585 plants; explains the cultivation of more than 50 fruit trees; and includes many valuable observations on soils, manures, plant grafting, and plant diseases. Much of the material was derived from Greek and Arabic literature, especially from the treatise on Nabatean agriculture of Ibn Waḥshiyah, but Ibn al-ʿAwwām made many additions to the accumulated knowledge and experience of his Moorish contemporaries.

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