The Making of a Mediterranean Emirate. Ramzi Rouighi
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of farms and gardens (basātīn), which, in the case of Bijāya, extended for twelve miles.5 Using water from rivers and wells, farmers planted a variety of vegetables and legumes.6 Some of these gardens were in fact large parks designed for the rest and entertainment of Ḥafṣid emirs.7 In their midst, there often stood functioning towers (abrāj, sing. burj) from which lookouts watched for intruders. Not far from these gardens, it was common to find palm, olive, and fig trees. These fruit groves (ghābāt, sing. ghāba) were located at the outskirts of cities. Lands in this first belt, near the cities, tended to be privately owned. Their owners hired laborers to work them or rented them out to individuals who lived on or near the land.
In the second belt, there were larger estates in which dry farming prevailed. To work the land, tenants or sharecroppers lived in small clusters of about ten to twenty houses or in small villages. In addition to vegetables and legumes, they planted cereals such as oats, barley, and wheat and usually kept sheep, cows, and goats. In spite of their distance from urban centers, which could be quite significant, these estates are best thought of in association with the cities, because they were mostly owned by urbanites, the ruling family foremost among them.
Beyond the first and second belts were “Bedouin” lands (bādiya). Less fertile and usually less well watered, these were generally farther from the Mediterranean coast toward the Sahara. Pastoralist nomads who lived in tents traveled across these lands in search of pastures. They were not alone, however, as a number of small villages survived on a mix of dry farming and animal husbandry. Given the regularity of droughts and the poor quality of their land, they often suffered famines and other hardships. The lot of these Bedouins was very similar to that of people who lived off the land in the mountains southeast of Bijāya and Qasanṭīna, for example. They were poor, and supplemented their diet by raising cattle, hunting wild animals, and harvesting nuts and other products of the forests.
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