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Legado
The new arrivals, expert farmers, improved the irrigation system of the Roman
epoch and began to put large zones of al-Àndalus under intensive exploitation.
They introduced important innovations in the field of irrigation:
- the capture of the
aquifers and their posterior canalisation (the qanats),
- the multiplication
of the irrigation channels, and
- the generalisation
in the use of water wheels
They also introduced
new cultivations of cereals, fruits and vegetables: rice, saffron, sugar cane, orange,
lemon trees, the mulberry, cotton, aubergines, watermelon ("Moorish melon")
and spinach. The most important crops of dryland farming were wheat, oats, the vine,
linen and esparto, while the olive and the fig took on prime importance. We should
also highlight livestock, above all cattle and sheep, as well as horses and pigs.
The Muslim concept of the community favoured a markedly urban civilisation, a factor
that was translated into notable mercantile activity. In the souks of Andalusian
towns all kinds of products could be found, some unknown until then, such as ivory,
mercury, incense, camphor, sandalwood, myrrh, cloves and pepper.
The contact of Islam with ancient civilisations (China, Persia, Greece, etc.) meant
that a whole series of innovations arrived in al-Àndalus, techniques and disciplines
that were even to be improved upon: paper, books, glazed ceramics, the compass, gunpowder,
textile industries, like silk and cotton, and the latest advances in medicine, mathematics
and astronomy.
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