the Scythians as having a negative impact on the fertility of their civilization. Hippocrates argues that due to their bloated stomachs and “extremely soft and cold lower bellies” Scythian men are not eager for intercourse and due to this condition, “highly unlikely to be able to satisfy his lusts.” He further argues that the behavior of the Scythian men and their horseback riding customs also affected their fertility because the “constant bouncing on horseback has rendered Scythian men unfit for sex” and made them infertile. Women, according to Hippocrates are also infertile because of their physical condition and because they are fat and bloated. Hippocrates claims that due to their physique, women have wombs that are too wet and “incapable of absorbing a man’s seed.” This he explains, affects their fertility and their reproduction as well as causes other problems in the function of their reproductive system, for example “their monthly purge is also not as it should be, but is infrequent as scanty.” Due to their fat, their wombs are clogged which blocks male seed. All of these conditions and traits are evidence that supports his claim that the Scythian race is infertile and acts as an example of how the concept of enviornmental determinism manifests. Writers in the medieval Middle East also produced theories of environmental determinism. The Afro-Arab writer al-Jahiz argued that the skin color of people and livestock were determined by the water, soil, and heat of their environments. He compared the color of black basalt in the northern Najd to the skin color of the peoples living there to support his theory. Ibn Khaldun, the Arab sociologist and polymath, similarly linked skin color to environmental factors. In his Muqaddimah (1377), he wrote that black skin was due to the hot climate of sub-Saharan Africa and not due to African lineage. He thereby challenged Hamitic theories of race that held that the sons of Ham (son of Noah) were cursed with black skin. Many writings of Ibn Khaldun were translated during the colonial era in order to advance the colonial propaganda machine. Ibn Khaldun believed that the physical environment influenced non-physical factors in addition to skin color. He argued that soil, climate, and food determined whether people were nomadic or sedentary, and what customs and ceremonies they held. His writings may have influenced the later writings of Montesquieu during the 18th century through the traveller Jean