Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to describe the major ways land is used and how each way meets what people need and want. The curriculum asks about land use in Ontario, including conservation and recreation; the museum links two examples, one of land kept for grazing and one of farmland, so your class will add the other land uses of Ontario. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.5 describe major types of land use […] and how they address human needs and wants […]
2 The lesson
What is this land for, and who is it for?
Look at the expectation: it pairs a type of land use with a human need or want. For each land use you meet, name the need it meets and say whether it is a need or a want.
Go deeper
In Ibn Hisham's biography, when the people of Jurash embraced Islam, the Prophet ﷺ reserved for them a hima around their village, marked by known signs, for the horse, the riding camel and the plough-ox 2. The record defines a hima as land that the ruler reserves, so that none may graze it except those for whom it has been reserved 2. Al-Maraghi presents agriculture as the oldest livelihood, and says Islam urges it as the source of food for man and beast 3 4. He adds that whoever revives dead land has the best claim to it 5.
Think about it
A hima was kept for the horses, camels and plough-oxen of one village. When land is kept for one group, who gains, and who might lose the chance to use it, and why?
Into the museum
- Hima: land that the ruler reserves for those for whom it has been reserved.
- Agriculture in Islam: what al-Maraghi says about farming and dead land.
- Shirb, water rights: how the Kuwaiti encyclopaedia treats turns at water between neighbouring fields.
Try this
Read the records on Hima (protected reserve) and Agriculture in Islam. Make a chart with two rows, one for each, and name for each the land use, the need it meets and who is allowed to use it. Then add a row for a land use near your school.
3 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Hima (protected reserve) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Pasture kept for a village. In Ibn Hisham's biography, when the people of Jurash embraced Islam, the Prophet reserved for them a hima around their village, marked by known signs, for the horse, the riding camel and the plough-ox. What need does land kept for one purpose meet?
In your own words: what does Agriculture in Islam have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Farmland and food. Al-Maraghi presents agriculture as the oldest livelihood and says Islam urges it as the source of food for people and animals. Which of people's needs does farmland meet?
I can now
Notes
- 1. The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 (2023)
- 2. al-Sira al-Nabawiyya — Ibn Hisham, al-Saqqa edition (1355/1936), 4/234
- 3. Issues of Work and Wealth in Islam — Abu al-Wafa al-Maraghi, p. 27
- 4. Issues of Work and Wealth in Islam — Abu al-Wafa al-Maraghi, p. 28
- 5. Issues of Work and Wealth in Islam — Abu al-Wafa al-Maraghi, p. 29