Sharq Al Andalus, people of the land
Do not abandon your land
keep in mind your destiny.
The flowering branch withers
if its roots are cut off.Ibn Jubayr
When we think of the rural legacy in the Iberian Peninsula coastal area, we ask ourselves: what is not Arab? As historians explain the first agricultural techniques arrived during the Neolithic. In the Mediterranean region, Iberian, Roman and Greek peoples gradually developed the agriculture that came from present-day Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Turkey and Iraq. But it was between the 8th and 10th centuries, when Amazigh and Arab tribes initiated a green revolution in our land. Later, Aragonese, Catalans, Valencians, Balearic and Murcians would inherit the Andalusian knowledge and continue to develop it to this day. The legacy of countless generations has made the Valencian horta, the largest and most active historical irrigated area of the Mediterranean in the 21st century.
Nowadays, there is clear knowledge in the scientific community. And, in their own way, also in the peasants culture itself. Many farmers in Valencia possess a vague awareness of the fact that a substantial part of their culture comes “from the time of the Moors.” Anyone who lives in villages like Alboraia, Burjassot or Benimaclet is surrounded by Arab roots: artichokes, aubergines, tiger nuts and pumpkins, watered by ditches and canals, among orange, fig and apricot trees. But despite the irrefutable evidence, this reality has been hidden from our society for centuries. During the Franco dictatorship, an attempt was made to impose that the traditional orchards were of Roman origin. Today, however, the imperial thesis has become obsolete in academia. Recent research confirms historical studies through hydraulic archaeology: the Valencia vegetable garden was the creation of Arab and Amazigh farming communities. The orchards were born from the initiative of the peasants themselves, in a self-managed way. The book that explains it is ‘The builders of the horta of València’ (Publications of the University of Valencia, 2018), by the doctor in History Ferran Esquilache. This investigation has been validated by the leading medieval historians. The research, which has lasted more than a decade, delves into two main topics: the origin of the vegetable garden and the rural Andalusian social system. But how did the first Islamic farming communities lived?
A new civilization is born
The arrival of Arabs and Amazighs throughout the eighth century occurred in a post-apocalyptic scenario. The Roman empire had collapsed and Germanic tribes had established in Europe and the Maghrib. In the Iberian Peninsula this lead to the Visigothic civil wars: in the midst of a declining society, ravaged by plagues, divided between factions and in full persecution against dissident Christians and Jews. That is why Amazigh and Arab warriors defeated the Visigoth warlords and nobles in a stunning few years. A new civilization would gradually emerge, made up of the Christian Ibero-Roman majority, the Arab-Amazigh leading Islamic minority, and the small Jewish communities.
It is necessary to explain that the origin of the Iberian Jewish population is ancient, of Roman time. Historian Thomas F. Glick raised the possibility that later, Amazigh Jews also arrived from north Africa. This is because the Amazigh native people had also experienced Romanization and conversions to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. One point where historians often agree is in highlighting the role of Jews in the Islamic victory over the Visigothic kingdoms. That was because some Christian Unitarian and Jewish groups received the Muslim fighters as liberators. Therefore, the term Sepharad should not be confused with the future Catholic crowns of Aragon and Castile, or modern Spain, which persecuted and expelled the Jews. Sepharad is how they called the Iberian Peninsula and Al Andalus, where they experienced their golden cultural century. Theses Jewish communities, like the rest of Andalusians, spoke and wrote primarily in Arabic.
Perhaps the least known point is that the new Andalusian social structure developed profound changes for women. Thus, the right to property, education, and even divorce for women was established. Unlike the problematic and negative relationship of Catholicism with sexuality, in Islam and Judaism, it is not considered a sin but a source of baraka. In the fields, women worked alongside with men as the economy was clan-organized. Five centuries later, the Feudal conquest would abolish, scandalized, those rights. The invention of the figure of the witch is linked to the existence of strong rural women who resisted the new order of the Church.
The land belongs to whoever revives it
Arabs and Amazighs arrived with a revolutionary flag: the land belongs to those who revive it. It was established that the community which sowed a field and built its own villages, or alqueries, would remain a free owner of them. Which peasant would then accept being a servant of a Visigoth lord, being able to be a independent farmer? Under this premise, most of the large estates were dismantled. In this alternative society that was born, animal abuse and hunting for pleasure were banned, as all in Islam all creatures are considered to form communities and nations like humans. It was also established that the death of an animal should be ritual and with the least possible suffering. The prophetic tradition stated: The earth is your mother, therefore take care of your mother. In a profound change, the meaning of life became to preserve the land and plough it. With the added obligation of the search for knowledge. As a result, science, philosophy, and art developed again. As a result of this revolution, the farming communities repopulated the plain of the Turia River. And they did it with the new irrigation techniques: opening ditches to channel and distribute the water. And establishing waterwheels, dams and hydraulic mills. Water that was considered sacred and communal property, to the point of establishing that under no conditions, not even in war, could a well, a tusk or a river be contaminated. The American historian Thomas F. Glick wrote that in Valencia, “Only the community has the right to utilize the water of its canal for irrigation, and they themselves regulate the affairs of the canal. Farmers set their shifts, and none of them can erect a mill or even erect a bridge over the ditch without everyone’s consent.” The last water lawsuit found in Arabic dates back to 1222. Miraculously the Water Court has continued functioning, with many changes and evolutions, to this day. And it is recognized as World Humanity Heritage by the United Nations organism, UNESCO.
The Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano wrote: “The fairest court in the world is not constituted of jurists. Which is also the oldest in Europe.” He reminds us that “justice does not come from above, nor from outside: the judges are farmers who cultivate their own lands, and among them, they resolve the disputes over the water of the eight canals that irrigate the orchards of Valencia.” Canals that still bear the names of the founding Muslim tribes: Favara by the Amazigh Hauara, Mestalla by the Mexdala or the Benager by the Beni Ager. It is profoundly significant that after the collapse of the Caliphate of Cordoba, two canal administrators, Mubarak and Mudhafar, established a first independent state in Valencia in 1009. With the progressive development of the population and the production, the farmers established rural markets where they offered their surpluses. They held exchange meetings between farmers, ranchers and artisans. Ferran Esquilache explains: “The law of supply and demand does not work, as its sole function is the exchange between peasant groups that live close to each other.” However, gradually, the city generated its own central market where the mostassaf checked the quality and prices of the produce. “That is why the cities were founded in the middle of a rural area that was already organized and in operation, which could feed the urban population. Put differently, the cities were founded by the orchards and not the other way around.” The historian reveals that it was thanks to the constellation of farmhouses and productive fields, which were enriching and strengthening it, that Valentia was reborn as Balansiya. A village that, over time, became known as Madinat at-Turab. An old village of dust, evolved to the city of the land, of fertile soil.
Alqaria, aljama and muwallad
Gradually, the Arab and Amazigh clans mixed with the local natives through the Muwallad alliance system. Thus was born a new European culture: the Andalusian civilization, made-up by the sum of Iberians, Romans, Visigoths, Jews, Arabs and Amazighs peoples. The historian and Hispanist Pierre Guichard defined this society as “non-feudal”, due to the “absence of income-extracting landlords.” The ownership of the land and the means of production were almost entirely of the people. The structure of the new peasant society was based on two pillars: the organization in alqueries, and self-management in aljames or clan assemblies. Alqueria, or alqaria in Arabic, refers to the village, the set of houses, fields, animals and people. The aljama communal assembly was chosen by the sheikhs, the men representing the community in front of other communities and urban authorities. The alqueries were initially organized and allied with each other by qabiles and qaums (clans) in order to share collective barns, pastures and forests. And also to construct and maintain the essential hydraulic works. The famous Valencian Beni (meaning sons of, or the tribal name) that still today name many of the villages are one of the signs of its popular foundation. It was the sons and daughters of the Arab-Amazigh clans and the Ibero-Roman mawalis who revived the land and produced an emerging nation. Ferran Esquilache explains that within the Andalusian rural communities “the prominent landowners did not exist” and “the poor do not seem to either.” And he adds, “In fact, the difference between those who owned more land and those who had less was not excessively large.” Researchers have established that family and community ownership of farmhouses had always been significantly superior to the private or state owned. The daies and rafals (rural private properties) of the rich minority existed, but somehow constituted a minority. A singular fact that the Catholic Feudal armies would seek to eliminate forever.
Roots of soil, water and fire
The Conquest in the 13th century meant the imposition of a different system organized by the monarchy, the church and the feudal lords. The city of Balansiya was occupied, and the lands were divided between bishops, aristocrats and foreign armies. The conquerors expelled the native people from the cities and the best fields. Cornered in the mountains, they would create new orchards and irrigation systems. In the coastal villages, a few locals were left, who were forced to live in moreries and jueries (Urban ghettos for Jews and Muslims). The attempt to erase popular culture was so extreme as to try to replace traditional cuisine with olive oil with that of pork fat. Though they failed. One of the natives signs to the newcomers from the north was the love they had for vegetables, legumes and fruits. And also the love of water, which they used to cleanse and purify themselves. In times of the worst persecution, Moorish peasant uprisings erupted one after another. Rural aljames fought on multiple revolts. As in the Espadà rebellion, led by the farmer and irrigation trustee Garbau, who used Selim Almansur as nom-de guerre. Relentlessly, the monarchy sent armed expeditions to quell the resistance. In 1492 all the native Jewish population was deported by order of the catholic kings. Most of them become refugees in the Islamic lands of the Maghrib and the Ottoman Empire. In 1567 King Philip II banned the Arabic language, culture and music. And finally, in 1609 King Philip III ordered the expulsion of all the remaining native population: the so-called Moors. It should be noted that at that time more than half of the peninsular Muslim natives were based in the Crown of Aragon. A territory that almost coincided with that of the ancient Sharq Al Andalus. Today it has been forgotten, but the Valencian lands comprised the most significant concentration of Moorish population in the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, in blood and fire, the Arab-Andalusian civilization was erased. The people of the land were expelled from their own land.
In the 21st century, it is worth reflecting on why we know practically nothing about who we are and where we come from. Why there are no films and TV-series, and why it has never been taught in schools. Nevertheless, it has remained in the deepest collective memory. Century after century, generation after generation, folk stories of sorrow, endurance and tragedy have been . Old peasants in the orchards and traditional artists have been the transmitters of the forbidden history. We’ve heard it in poems and songs. In the chronicles of Bernat Capó, in the fables and verses collected by Enric Valor and Josep Piera. In the music of Josep Gimeno el Botifarra, Ahmed Touzani, Al Mayurqa, Al Tall, Maria del Mar Bonet, Carles Dénia, Quico el Célio, Capella de Ministrers, Jordi Savall or L’Ham de Foc. Because the history of the Valencian green revolution is also the history of the orchards of Lleida, Tortosa, Mallorca, Castelló, Xàtiva, Alacant and Murcia. And if there is scientific evidence today it is thanks to the courage and perseverance of academics such as Mikel de Epalza, Manuel Sanchis Guarner, Pierre Guichard, Thomas F. Glick, Dolors Bramon, Ana Labarta, Carmen Barceló, Josefina Veglison, Enric Guinot, Víctor Algarra, Manuel Ruzafa or Ferran Esquilache.
Thanks to all of them today we know what happened. And we no longer perceive it just with our heart, but also with the rigour of science and reason. We perceived this, because the spirit of the forgotten civilization of the land is still alive in our villages, fields, and flavours. Present-day farmers are their heirs. Eight hundred years ago, King James I The Conqueror established in the laws of the kingdom of Valencia, that the management of the irrigation of the orchards would remain “as in the time of the Saracens.” He could not imagine how prophetic his words would be.
Comparing today the vast human movements of history, it is significant to know that there are inhabitants of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia today who are descendants of the peninsular Iberian natives. Conversely, some of today’s peninsular Europeans may be descendent of Amazighs, Jews and Arabs. However, many deny it ashamed and upset. They claim the past was completely erased and buried forever. And as such it has to be. But this is a conceptual framing mistake, because buildings can be demolished, books burned and people killed or expelled, but spirit and culture are capable of surviving fire, blood and time. So much so, that those who work in the orchard can nowadays hear the Bon dia of the Valencian farmers and again the Salam of the Maghrib day labourers. And whoever is present enough, feels that every farmhouse, every canal and every fruit speaks to him with the language of the land.
The orchard is over a millennium old. That it persists another thousand years, depends on each one of us. Because the Valencian vegetable garden is much more than agriculture, it is much more than local and traditional culture. The Horta represents the living memory that reminds humanity that it is possible to live in balance with the land. The Horta teaches us that perhaps tradition is not the past, but that what does not pass.
She is the homeland I love
before which I am humble.Al Russafí
David Segarra. Albufera, spring 2020.
Translated to English in the 2021 summer.
A more brief and revised version by Patricia Dopazo was published in Spanish in issue 37 of the magazine Soberanía Alimentaria. You can read it here.
You can access the original Valencian-Catalan text here.
