Some Remarks on the Terminology of Irrigation Practices and Hydraulic Construction in the Eastern Arab and Iranian World in the 3rd–5th/9th–11th Centuries

The Arabs and Persians of the mediaeval Islamic period inevitably fell heirs to the extensive and complex irrigation systems of their various pre-Islamic predecessors. Not surprisingly, the language of Islamic times of the technical terminology of practices in these regions of highly-organised, irrigated agricultural exploitation goes back frequently to such more ancient tongues as Aramaic, Middle and Old Iranian, Akkadian, Sumerian and perhaps Elamitic. A considerable part of this terminology is known to us from certain early Islamic writers of the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries. The article examines this terminology, aiming to trace the etymology of the words.