Environmental Issues in the Middle Islamic Period (ca. CE 915-1517)

This study presents succinctly medieval Arabic accounts of landscape, water supply, nature and natural hazards. This data enables us to reconstruct humanity’s efforts to make use of natural resources and its reaction to calamities. The sources cast light on governors’ engineering efforts in support of farming, as well as their reaction in periods of shortages. The political implications of famines encouraged them to carry out a moral economy. Affluence enhanced their image as virtuous rulers. Reports on constructions of granaries and supply of cereals illuminate these political dimensions of rudimentary environmental policy. Contemporary Muslim thinkers and politicians often highlight these historical accounts in order to support arguments about an Islamic ecological agenda. Their suggestion can serve as a starting point to an emic discourse regarding modern times climate challenges.