‘raisins’ The agronomist and botanist Abu 'l-Khayr al-Ishbili was a contemporary of King al-Mu'tamid who reigned in Sevilla from 1069 to 1091. He was admired by Ibn al-Awwam who cited him in his own Kitab al-Filaha, including in his chapter on gardens. The italicised instructions on the cultivation of raisins drawn from ‘l-Khayr’s book (of which there is no extant complete copy), have been condensed in the poem. ‘the gardens’ Abu Zakariya ibn al-Awwam’s extensive and miraculously preserved treatise on agriculture, Kitab al-Filaha, is a compilation of advice and practice of Byzantine and Middle Eastern Arabic agronomists, as well as those from al-Andalus, while also drawing on his own experience as a farmer. Apart from what can be gleaned from his book, little is known of his life. He lived in Sevilla in the second part of the twelfth century and perhaps the beginning of the thirteenth century. ‘Tabula Rogeriana’ The geographer Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad al-Idrisi was born around 1100 in Sabta (present-day Ceuta in Morocco). He studied in Córdoba and travelled extensively in southern regions of the Iberian peninsula, North Africa and as far as Damascus. King Roger II of Sicily invited him to his court (around 1138) and commissioned al-Idrisi’s renowned book on geography which includes a detailed world map and extensive commentaries. ‘Hadith Bayad wa Riyad ’ The only surviving miniatures from al-Andalus itself that have come to light are from the Hadith Bayad wa Riyad, a love story probably written during the period of the Almohad dominion. Although purges by both Christians and Muslims meant that

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