muslim+irrigation+during+the+golden+age

By: Henrik, Kyle toc
 * __Muslim Irrigation During the Golden Age__**

1. Water Wheel
The water wheel was already in existance during the Muslim golden age, however the muslims did perfect it. The water wheels were usually 20 meters or below in diameter. There were many types of industrial watermills used in among the muslims,such as, gristmills, hullers, paper mills, sawmills, ship mills, stamp mills, steel mills, sugar mills, and tide mills. All of these devices were powerd by the flowing water of rivers. Later on the muslims had engineered better ways to harness the waters energy, like the turbine which is an enclosed water wheel to maximize the power of the water. Lastly there were river dams, which were used to block most of the water flow and then all the funneled water would run directly past the water wheel making it spin faster.



2. Canals
Canals and rivers were built to carry water to towns and citys. The one pictured below is called an acequia and is flowing still today to Granada. These kinds of canals were created because of the need of water for crops. Also many of places were very dry so long irrigation canals were needed to carry water from one place to another. Furthermore, these systems of irrigation were brought to Spain then America and are still used in Texas. Another form of irrigation used to water crops, was the lifts with buckets on the end. It was a fairly simple design but highly effective. There where several rows of workers lifting buckets of water up to the top then despursed among crop fields. ==== ====

3. Economic Impact
During this time period, even though the empire made alot of money off trading, most people were still farmers or herders. The reason was that farming land wasn't very efficient and couldn't feed many people. Most people had to farm to be able to feed themselves. With the money the empire made from trading along the Silk Route they built canals and water wheels. The economic impact of irrigation was not very large to the empire as a whole, but after a while irrigation became a cheap process. This would have greatly increased the average income of farmers. With so much money to be made from farming it is possible to predict that many people would have become farmers. On the downside an inference can be made that the cost of upkeeping a system so large, which covered the Islamic Empire would be very costly. Also the caliph would have had a high tax on farmers. Most historians agree that the irrigation systems in Eastern Spain of muslim origin have worked well. This argument is supported by the fact that the Spanish irrigation systems had Arabic names.

4. Why?
Irrigation was amazingly important in the climate of the Islamic Empire. They lived in a desert climate and without water nothing can survive. Water was scarce and they had to rely on irrigation, which was a system of underground wells and canals. They needed to irrigate their land to be able to farm it. The irrigation allowed them to farm better on previosly poor farming lands,and allowed them to farm on land that previosly could not be farmed. Crops after irrigation gave as many as four harvests a year. Before the irrigation system was invented many people were forced to be farmers because the amount of crops produced by each farm was so small. Another reason for the irrigation was to produce drinking water. How could anyone survive without drinking water? The irrigated water was also used in the many fountains and baths in the Spanish capital. furthermore the wheel was also used for grains and other foods in the sense that they need to be ground up into finer powders.

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//to maintianing the old irrigation systems// ||
 * //This video shows how water is neccesary and how much care goes in//