From time immemorial the Bedouin and the Arabian horse, both part of an ecological system, have forged an intricate web of interdependence in which wild barley grass and scarcity of water in the arid desert climate have played a pivotal role. People first began to pick wild barley grass around 10,000 BC in Western Asia, possibly because of a climate change that made the world hotter and drier.

According to botanists, barley belongs to the order of green grasses. It is often considered as the only vegetation on the earth that can supply sole nutritional support from birth to old age.  In that role, barley has served as a food staple in most cultures. The use of barley for food and medicinal purposes dates back to antiquity. Agronomists place the cultivation of this ancient cereal grass as early as 7000 BC. 
 

DESCRIPTION:

Wild barley grass is an annual grass growing to about three feet; producing erect, hollow stems, lance-shaped leaves, and ears bearing two to six rows of seeds and long bristles.  Its parent, a four-rowed species, still grows wild in Arabia.  Further back, in the Paleolithic period, people made solid cakes from stone-crushed barley.

Today cultivated barley is descended from wild barley grass which can still be found in the Middle East. All variants of barley have fertile hybrids and are thus considered to belong to one and the same species today. 

The major difference between wild and domesticated barley is the brittle rachis of the former, which is conductive to self-propagation. The earliest finds of barley come from Epi-Paleolithic sites in the Middle East  The first domesticated barley has been found in the Neolithic layers of Tall Abuw Hureyra in Syria.
 
 

BARLEY GRASS IN ANTIQUITY:

In antiquity the Bedouins ate barley like wheat as a boiled porridge, or in soup. They also made barley bread. Barley was also an excellent staple food for animals. Arab nomads insisted that their horses were never allowed to eat from the ground, or even from a rack; but were always served wild barley for strength and stamina.  Being more tolerant of salts than wheat, this might explain the increase of barley cultivation in Mesopotamia from the 2nd Millennium BC onwards. 
 

NATURAL HISTORY:

Caius Plinius Secundus (23-79), a Roman officer and encyclopedist, better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient roman author and scientist .  He wrote Naturalis Historia, a  compendium of 37 books of all human knowledge of his time. 

In his encyclopedia, Natural History, he recalled a specific incident of which he had been an eyewitness while in serving in Syria (N.H 5.66), as a military tribune. Pliny the Elder briefly described a kind of wonder barley grass growing wildly, renown for its amazing medicinal properties among the Bedouin tribes.

Throughout time, these nomads used this wonder grass for a variety of therapeutic purposes.  Cool barley water was used in drinks for fevers and to soothe and heal upset stomachs, irritable bowels, dry coughs, diarrhea, sore throats, as well as an excellent wash for raw, itchy skin. Made into a poultice, wild barley was helpful in soothing and reducing inflammation in sores and swellings in both human and herd animals. Pliny highly recommended that Roman gladiators supplement their diet with barley for its amazing properties. 

Dioscorides, in the 1st century CE, recommended it "to weaken and restrain sharp and subtle humors and sore and ulcerated throats." 
 

WILD BARLEY GRASS IN ISLAM:

In Islam, barley was mentioned in at least twenty-one hadiyths.  The Prophet Muhammad (SA`ws) recommended it for the sick and grieving. He was quoted in (al-Bukhariy 7:71#593), as saying, “It gives rest to the heart of the patient and makes it active and relieves some of his sorrow and grief.”

After this exhaustive account, this wonder grass had yet another ace up its sleeve, which is the topic of our fourth riddle:
 

ETYMOLOGY:

The specific Arabic name of this grass was given to the Nomadic race who migrated from one source of water to another in search for the wild grass barley.  The same cognate term was also referred to by Pliny in his account of the Bedouin in Syria.

In Europe, during the Middle Ages, the Muslims in Spain made advances in botany far beyond the state in which it had been left by Dioscorides.  They further augmented the Greek knowledge of this science by leaps and bounds. 

This Arabic term, which was originally used to designate the wild grass barley, due to its prolific medicinal properties, came to represent  in the West  an important branch of the science of Botany. This development was mainly due to the influence and reputation of the Arab scientists and their followers in the Salerno School of Medicine in Italy. 

One of the great medical translators from Arabic into Latin was Constantine of Carthage (known as "The African"). In the middle of the 11th century CE., he came to teach at the medical school in Salerno(the first of its kind in Europe), bringing with him his vast library of Arabic medical, and botanic  works, including, no doubt, Ibn Siyna's (Avicenna) Canon of Medicine. Later on, the school presented the works of the Cordovan physician, Al-Ghafiqiy (D. 1165) a renowned botanist, who collected plants in Spain and Africa, and described them most accurately along with his compatriot `Abd Allah Ibn Ahmad Ibn al-Baytar.  Ibn al-Baytar was the greatest botanist and pharmacist of al-Andalus.  In fact, he was the greatest botanist of Mediaeval times. He roamed about in search of plants and collected herbs on the Mediterranean littoral, from Spain to Syria.  He described more than 1,400 medical drugs and compared them with the records of more than 150 ancient and Arab authors.  The collection of simple drugs composed by him is the most outstanding botanical work in Arabic.  In fact, this book was the most important of the whole period extending from Dioscorides down to the 16th century.
 
 

THE RIDDLE:

Can anyone name the Arabic term for this wonder grass that gave its name to the race of Bedouins in Arabia and evolved to designate a well known generic term used for grass in many European languages in the Middle Ages?

Just to avoid any misunderstanding, the Arabic term for wild barley grass is not sha`iyr  (the actual  Arabic name for the cultivated kind of barley), nor does it refer to marijuana.
 

IMPORTANT CLUE:

To find out the correct answer; remember the spelling of the Arabic term is perfectly preserved in the earliest form of the western term in the following languages: Mediaeval Latin, Old French , Old Spanish, Middle English etc. Make no mistake, the similarity is uncanny.
 

Therein lies the answer starring at you, hidden in the eye of the sun.

Ishinan

The winners of "The Wonder Grass" riddle will be announced next week).