To look at the palm as a plant is to miss the most important thing about it: that it was a complete system of production. Almost nothing in it went to waste.
The trunk went into the roofs of mud houses. The fronds were woven into baskets, mats and fans. The fibre made rope. The stones were fodder. And the dates were food stored for a full year.
Dates as currency
Dates entered the dowry, the labourer’s wage, the zakat and hospitality. That is, they performed the function of currency before currency spread: a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a standard.
Owning a palm
It is striking that ownership of a palm could be separated from ownership of the ground: one man owned the land and another owned palms standing in it. That small detail reveals a flexibility in the conception of property that modern law does not have.
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