ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Arabic texts and their contents, but similarities with Iran and Afghanistan. The most general Arabic term for dung, especially as used for fertilizer, is zibl, sometimes vowelled as zubl, which is not specific to any animal. Within the Arabic texts and throughout the Arabic-speaking region there has long been a variety of materials incorporated as part of a manure mixture or as compost, including fresh and dried vegetation, household waste and ashes. The chapter examines the information provided in the corpus of Arabic agricultural texts on the use of dung, animal, human and composed of plant materials and/or ashes, as fertilizer. It explores the prescriptive information in the texts in light of recorded observations, which are scarce, on the use of manure in the region. The chapter also focuses on agricultural treatises and lexical references.
