ABSTRACT
The most eloquent tribute to Zubaydah's pious work on the caravan road comes from the pen of Andalusian traveller Ibn Jubayr who performed the hajj during 1183-84. He was secretary to the Sultan of Granada and had many candid and generally true things to say about the historical situation in the Middle East at a time when Saladin was about to contain the Latin Kingdoms of Palestine seriously. He joined the Baghdad caravan in 1184 and travelled through ath-Thalabiya, an important station on the Darb Zubayda with a fortress and several cisterns. As the people were approaching the water, something terrible happened, he wrote, such as occurs during an attack on a town or a castle. The pilgrims maddened by thirst fought desperately for access to the water and in the resulting stampede seven people were crushed to
ANCIENT IRRIGATION AND WATER MANAGEMENT
Figure 1 Large cistern on the Darb Zubayda at station Talahat.
