Al-Qasd wa-l-bayan

Al-Qasd wa-l-bayan is a practical sixteen-chapter abridgement of Ibn Bassal's Diwan al-filaha. Our read witness is the Filaha project's revised online Arabic based on Tetuan1955, not a manuscript image or everything contained in the larger compendium ^{3 4}.

The contents begin with water, land, manures and land preparation, followed by tree planting, propagation, tree care and grafting. Garden crops, spices, root/leaf vegetables and flowers follow, ending with water, wells and fruit preservation. This connects plant, place and work, rather than merely listing plant names ³.

Chapters1–2 directly document the linked land/water/crop assessment: four water sources and ten practical land types, with pores, movement, season and cultivation. Observation accompanies hot/cold/dry/moist explanations. Old vocabulary is not converted into chemical values, nor every recommendation into current farming advice ⁵.

The land names mix colour, texture and condition. Surface can differ from subsurface, and practical examination matters. Other plant detail is known here through contents/synopsis and chapter10's opening, not independent reading of each chapter. The synopsis identifies the absence of animal husbandry from this abridgement ^{6 7}.

Ozel connects the larger compendium with al-Mamun of Toledo and dates it before the patron's1075 death, not every observation or the abridgement to an exact day. Later quotations absent from the abridgement warn against equating the available text with all readers knew of the compendium ⁸.

The project discusses Rabat, Tetuan, Paris and Madrid witnesses, some incomplete or late, and a thirteenth-century Castilian translation containing the first twelve chapters with content differences. Gaps concern cereal treatment and chapters absent from particular witnesses. These are attributed manuscript reports, not copies we inspected or gaps filled from memory ⁹.

Millas Vallicrosa and Muhammad Aziman published Arabic with Spanish translation in1955; a1995 republication added study and indexes. The project discusses the first edition's single-manuscript basis and need for broader critical editing. Other attributed texts/projects must retain differing attribution status, not automatically merge into one book ⁹.

Direct Arabic reading covers contents, complete water/land chapters and chapter10's opening, alongside biography, synopsis and reception accounts. Page numbers are cited where actually rendered; no manuscript collation or reading of the lost complete compendium is claimed. The project credits Simon Fitzwilliam-Hall for translating synopsis material from the1955 introduction,21–29. A chapter synopsis is not the chapter's text ^{1 10}.

The book witnesses organization of agronomic knowledge, not current waste-handling, drinking-water or medicinal-plant guidance. The method record's image is independent modern context, not a surviving page of this work ⁵.