Hey y’all Pete here. In Pakistan they use the Moslem water principles at the local level in order to allocate and distribute water to agricultural users. They still use the British Canal and Drainage Act of 1873 as a rule of law when it comes to the governmental level, where water management is a provincial matter, in three of the four provinces. This is one of the world’s oldest and largest irrigation systems and it has been suffering from decay for the past 50-80 years. Salinity is damaging crop production to thousands of acres of land every year. The main problem they have is at the farm level there is improper management and also lack of coordination between the provinces.
If I could rewind time, traveling back to the past to advise Middle Eastern leaders about water resources, here is what I would advise them to do. I would tell them that they need to create a better administrative system which would be comprised of tribunals of irrigators in each irrigation community, like that of Valencia, Spain. This would help to narrow and pinpoint the decision making when it came to deciding on what should be done about water allocation and distribution. The meetings and decisions of these tribunals should be public and verbal, with the decisions being made being written down and recorded in a record book. This would make the system simple and equal. The problem of inequality and social classes battling against the actual people who need the irrigation would almost cease to exist and the change would help to prevent it from happening in the future. I would keep the water structures, such as the qanats and waterways, the same because they already go to where they need to, but I would add some norias, or water wheels, along with more tanks so that when a drought came, some water would be stored for future use.
I believe these leaders would think that these ideas would be worth implementing because they are simple, they bring more equality to the irrigation community, which would result in greater efficiency and production, and it would create a much better system since the people who use the water would actually be in charge of it. They know how much water they need and how to disperse it across the land better than the ruling elite, so it makes a lot of sense to hand them the power that they deserve.
The first piece of information that I would need from the past in order to write a formal research paper about my recommendations is who the exact ruler(s) were during the time period that I choose. The second piece of information that I would need is what time period I would be researching. The third piece of information that I would need is some of the actual laws that were written and implemented during that time period and by those rulers. I would look for this information on the past either a) the Academic Search Premier, b) Albertson’s or Boise Public Library, or c) A credible internet source such as an article that is scholarly or peer-reviewed.
Pete
Concept Map Assignment
Hey y’all. I thought I would dive deeper into what I noticed between Hagia Sophia and Japan’s Ise Grand Shrine. Hagia Sophia was built as a Christian Orthodox church 3 times. The cultural beliefs were to have mosaics, paintings, beautiful architecture, etc. for this structure. It was habit to build from marble, brick, and long-lasting materials so the structure would last a very long time, or at least that was the intent. As a mosque the structure was also changed so that it incorporated the beliefs and habits of the Muslims such as Minarets, Mihrab, medrese, Imaret, Sadirvan, etc. There was no belief of renewing the structure though, because it was built to last each time it was built. These two religions valued superb Byzantine architecture, the mosaics, the paintings, the structure as a place of worship (church and later mosque), and the great minds that built these structures. At one time this structure was the largest cathedral in the world for over a 1,000 years.
On the other hand we have Japan’s Ise Grand Shrine. Japan had a different take when it came to one of their most sacred shrines. Somewhere in the 680’s A.D. Emperor Tenmu established the Sengu ceremony tradition of rebuilding the shrine every 20 years in order to make the shrine last “forever”. The cultural beliefs were to preserve and hand down traditional skills and crafts to the succeeding generations and convey the roots of Japanese culture. The cultural habits were to rebuild the shrine with wood, thatch, etc., simple materials that could be reused and renewed for many generations to come. Sacred treasures were moved to the new shrines and they would worship in these shrines for another 20 years until it was time to renew them. Some of the values from the Japanese were the crafts and skills of carpenters and other artisans to be passed down to the next generations, renewing their structure so it would last “forever”, and to continue their culture through this practice from generation to generation.
Pete Cook
4.1 Hagia Sophia
Hey y’all Pete here. The purpose of this post is to tell you a little about the architectural features of Hagia Sophia. These features were added onto the structure during it’s time as a Mosque from 1453-1935.
Prior to 1481 a small minaret was built above the stair tower on the southwest corner of the building. Later, another minaret at the northeast corner of the building was built by the succeeding sultan, Bayezid ll (1481-1512). After the Earthquake of 1509, one of the minarets collapsed and near the middle of the 16th century two diagonally opposite minarets were built at the east and west corners of the building in place of the old ones. The first minaret by the southwest corner was built from red brick while the other three were built from white limestone and sandstone. The two larger minarets were built by Sultan Selim ll and designed by Mimar Sinan, the famous Ottoman architect. During the 16th century, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent returned to the structure with two massive candlesticks from his conquest of Hungary. They placed these on either side of the mihrab. In 1740 under Sultan Ahmed lll, a Sidirvan, fountain for ritual ablutions, was added to the structure. A new mihrab was also added at this time. During the Renovation of 1847 the minbar and mihrab were renovated and the two minarets were also set to equal heights.