Böcker av Daniel Martin Varisco

This book is the first in English to survey indigenous knowledge of seasonal, astronomical, and agricultural information in Arab Gulf almanacs. It provides an extensive analysis of the traditional information available, based on local almanacs, Arabic texts and poetry by Gulf individuals, ethnographic interviews, and online forums. A major feature of the book is tracing the history of terms and concepts in the local seasonal knowledge of the Gulf, including an important genre about weather stars, stemming back to the ninth century CE. Also covered are pearl diving, fishing, seafaring, and pastoral activities. This book will be of interest to scholars who study the entire Arab region, since much of the lore was shared and continues through the present. It will also be of value to scholars who work on the Indian Ocean and Red Sea Trade Network, as well as the history of folk astronomy in the Arab World.

Ethnographers have observed Muslims nearly everywhere Islam is practiced. Varisco's analysis goes beyond the rhetoric over what Islam is to the information from ethnographic research about what Muslims say they do and actually are observed to do.

The author's talents spanned many disciplines and this is a collection of works on agriculture, animals, astrology, astronomy, biography, calendars, crops, genealogies, geography, grammar, lexicography, mathematics, medicine, taxes, timekeeping, warfare and weapons.

This work employs a mixture of ethnographic fieldwork and the study of medieval Arabic scripts on folk astronomy and agriculture to explore the concept of "lunar stations" in pre-Islamic Arabia, their significance for agricultual society, and the traditional Yemeni agricultural practices.