We know very little about Khayr al-Dīn and his agricultural treatise entitled Falāḥ al-fallāḥ. According to the Library of Congress he was born in 1675/6 and died in 1715, but Ṣāliḥīyya (1984) says that he was alive in the year 1134 of the Hijri calendar, that is, the year 1721/2 of the Gregorian calendar. In the Riyadh manuscript the author writes his own name as Khayr al-Dīn ibn Tāj al-Dīn Ilyās [or al-Yāsi] Zādah. He is known also as Khayr al-Dīn ibn Tāj al-Dīn ibn Ilyās or Ilyās-zāde and Khayr al-Dīn ibn Tāj al-Dīn Ilyās al-Madanī in the sources, which names shed some light on his origin and life. The name Ilyāszāde (given in Brockelmann’s Geschichte and in Ṣāliḥīyya, 1984) points to a Turkish origin, and indeed Brockelmann treats this author in the chapter Rumelien und Anatolien (Rumelia and Anatolia, both in today’s Turkey) of his Geschichte der arabischen Literatur, though he doesn’t specify any location in particular (Geschichte, Supplement I, p. 488 and Supl. II, p. 667). Khayr al-Dīn’s nisba al-Madanī (given by Brockelmann and Ziriklī), however, must refer to the city of Madinah, now in Saudi Arabia, and this connection is confirmed by the fact that in his manuscripts Khayr al-Dīn’s name is accompanied by the title of imām and khaṭīb of al-Masjid al-Nabawī al-Sharīf, that is, the renowned Mosque of the Prophet in Madinah. We may therefore conclude with some certainty that Khayr al-Dīn’s family was of Turkish origin and that he lived in Madinah, where he attained the highest position amongst scholars and preachers.
Chapter One: Methods for discovering groundwater
Chapter Two: Digging wells
Chapter Three: Increasing the supply of water in wells
Chapter Four: Constructing irrigation canals (qanawāt) and water reservoirs (aḥwāḍ), and matters relating to machines for raising water (sawāni)
Chapter Five: Identifying fertile and infertile lands
Chapters Six and Seven: Changes in the wind and signs of rain
Chapter Eight: Seasons for crops
Chapter Nine: Protecting crops against disease
Chapter Ten: Cultivating tree crops and vegetables
Chapter Eleven: The proper times for sowing, planting and cultivating, including some astronomical matters relating to agriculture and what the farmer needs to know concerning stars and making prognostications based on arithmetical calculations
Chapter Twelve: Repelling pests
Chapter Thirteen: What the farmer sorely needs concerning protective supplications (ruqan) and medicines for combating toxins and poisons in general – and Allah knows best
Chapter Fourteen: Cucumbers, fruits, and removing stains from clothes
Chapter Fifteen: Farmers’ songs and chants to encourage the camels used for drawing water