Dear Patrick Nielsen Hayden,

Bill Allison's piece on the lack of mills in the Islamic heartland vis-a-vis Islamic cultural stagnation is, sadly, inaccurate.

Tidal mills in Basra; windmills all throughout the Iranian plateau; water mills throughout Anatolia and Syria -- unsurprising, since the first reference to a mill of any sort is from the 1st century BCE Greek. When Don Quixote tilts at the windmills of La Mancha, thinking in his madness they are giants, he is attacking machines that had been introduced by the Arabs. And you probably know the piece on Kronos Quartet's _Pieces of Africa_ entitled "Waterwheel", or Hamza-el-Din's original recording on the oud, from Egyptian Nubia.

(Allison also makes reference to that blasted horse collar myth, which is based on faulty research from 1910, and has been debunked for over a generation. Argh.)

As for labor-saving devices, Song dynasty China had both medieval Europe and the Islamic world beat. That's a long story, and not a happy one either.

... that should be "reference to a *water* mill of any sort", my bad. Why is it always the important word one leaves out?

Bill Allison, author of the original post in question, has a response to Carlos Yu's criticisms up on his own weblog, at http://ideofact.blogspot.com/2002_05_12_ideofact_archive.html#76520998.

He invites further argument and correction, and I'm inclined to suggest that his weblog is the place for it...