Abstract
Wheat has been cultivated and eaten for a long time in Islamic world as well as in European world. In both worlds flour mills spread widely. But the two worlds were very different in the development of the use of hydraulic power. While European world made the best use of it and took the course to industrialization, Islamic world utilized it only for flour-milling. What caused this great difference?There were two types in flour mills: vertical mills and horizontal mills. Although the latter was used only for flour milling, the former could be used for a variety of industries. In Europe from about 10th century feudal lords gradually acquired peasant-owned mills, monopolized milling and obliged peasant to mill at the lords' mills. The lords also built mills. Then vertical mills were often adopted because they were able to be large size. Therefore they spread over Europe and the industrialization advanced. On the other hand, it is assumed that horizontal mills were dominant in Islamic world becsuse they were suited for the lands of little rainfall. There is, however, no certain evidence of which type of mills was dominant there.It is certain that which type of mills was selected decided fate of both worlds, but the selection was affected not only by geographic factors but also by political and social ones. Therefore in this paper the author dealt with four collections of fatwas, and analyzed the situation of flour mills in Islamic world, mainly in al-Andalus about 12th century. As a result, it is concluded that monopoly of flour mills and the large-scale change from horizontal mills to vertical mills never occurred in al-Andalus owing to the Islamic water law.
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