Ibn Bassal
Died on 1085
Ibn Bassal;
(Arabic: ابن بصال1085 C.E.) was an Andalusian Arab botanist and agronomist in Toledo and Seville, Spain who wrote about horticulture and arboriculture. He is best known for his book on agronomy, the Dīwān al-filāha (An Anthology of Husbandry).
Abu Abdullah Muhamed Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Bassal worked in the court of Al-Mutamid, for whom he created the Hā’īṭ al-Sulṭān botanical garden in Seville. He travelled (on pilgrimage) to the Hejaz, visiting Egypt, Sicily, Syria and seemingly also countries from Abyssinia and Yemen to Iraq, Persia and India. He returned with knowledge of the cultivation of cotton, and he may well have brought seeds and plants with him for the Toledo botanical garden. He is best known for his book on agronomy, the Dīwān al-filāha. He also wrote the treatise The Classification of Soils which divided soil fertility into ten classifications.
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