The Nabataean Agriculture (Arabic: كتاب الفلاحة النبطية, romanized: Kitāb al-Filāḥa al-Nabaṭiyya, lit. 'Book of the Nabataean Agriculture'), also written The Nabatean Agriculture, is a 10th-century text on agronomy by Ibn Wahshiyya (born in Qussīn, present-day Iraq; died c. 930). It contains information on plants and agriculture, as well as on magic and astrology. It was frequently cited by later Arabic writers on these topics. The Nabataean Agriculture was the first book written in Arabic about agriculture, as well as the most influential. Ibn Wahshiyya claimed that he translated it from a 20,000-year-old Mesopotamian text. Though some doubts remain, modern scholars believe that the work may be translated from a Syriac original of the 5th or 6th century. In any case, the work is ultimately based on Greek and Latin agricultural writings, heavily supplemented with local material. The work consists of some 1500 manuscript pages, principally concerned with agriculture but also containing lengthy digressions on religion, philosophy, magic, astrology, and folklore. Some of the most valuable material on agriculture deals with vineyards, arboriculture, irrigation and soil science. This agricultural information became well known throughout the Arabic-Islamic world from Yemen to Spain. The non-agricultural material in The Nabataean Agriculture paints a vivid picture of rural life in 10th-century Iraq. It describes a pagan religion with connections to ancient Mesopotamian religion tempered by Hellenistic influences. Some of this non-agricultural material was cited by the Andalusian magician and alchemist Maslama al-Qurtubi (died 964) in his Ghayat al-Hakim ("The Goal of the Wise", Latin: Picatrix), while other parts were discussed by the Jewish philosopher Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190). The French Orientalist Étienne Marc Quatremère introduced the work to the European scholarly community in 1835. Most 19th-century scholars dismissed it as a forgery, but from the 1960s onward several researchers have shown increased interest in its authenticity and impact.
'Nabataean'
The word 'Nabataean' (Arabic: Nabaṭī) in the title of the work does not refer to the ancient Nabataeans, the northern Arab people who established a kingdom at Petra during the late Hellenistic period (c. 150 BCE – 106 AD). Rather, 'Nabataean' is a term used by Arabic authors of the early Islamic period to designate the non-Arabic speaking, rural population of various conquered territories. Thus, we hear of "Nabataean" Kurds and Armenians, as well as of "Nabataeans of the Levant" (the term apparently used by Arabic authors for the ancient Nabataeans of Petra) and "Nabataeans of Iraq". Generally speaking, the term 'Nabataean' was strongly associated with a rural, sedentary way of life, which was perceived as backwards and as thoroughly opposed to the noble, nomadic lifestyle of the Arabs. The term 'Nabataeans of Iraq' was used to refer to the rural, Aramaic-speaking, native inhabitants of the Sawād, now central and southern Iraq. However, it was also used by scholars like Ibn Wahshiyya (died c. 930) and the historian al-Mas'udi (died 956) to refer to the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia. These scholars believed that the ancient Mesopotamians had spoken Syriac, a prestige form of Eastern Aramaic during the 10th century which in reality goes back no further than the first century AD, and that this supposedly Syriac-speaking people had ruled over Mesopotamia from the legendary times of Nimrod until the advent of the Sasanian Empire in the 3rd century. Unlike the term 'Nabataeans of the Levant' then, the term 'Nabataeans of Iraq' did not refer to a historical people, but to an 'Aramaized' understanding of the Mesopotamian heritage. Given the perceived antiquity of the 'Nabataean' culture of Iraq, Ibn Wahshiyya believed all human knowledge to go back on 'Nabataean' foundations. This idea itself was not exactly a new one: already in the Hellenistic period a secret knowledge was often attributed to the ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia, referred to in Greek as "Chaldaeans" (compare, for example, the Chaldaean Oracles), a term used (Arabic: Kaldānī) more or less as a synonym of 'Nabataean' by Ibn Wahshiyya and al-Mas'udi. However, in contrast to both earlier Hellenic authors and later Arabic authors such as Sa'id al-Andalusi (1029–1070), Ibn Wahshiyya was in direct contact with a living Mesopotamian tradition, making his "Chaldaeans" or "Nabataeans" more firmly rooted in empirical reality. Ibn Wahshiyya took great pride in his 'Nabataeans', as well as in the nobility of peasants more generally. Written at a time when ancient Mesopotamian culture was in danger of disappearing due to the Arab conquests, his work can be interpreted as part of the shuʽubiyya, a movement by non-Arab Muslims to reassert their local identities. In this view it is an attempt to celebrate and preserve the 'Nabataean' heritage of Mesopotamia.
Composition
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