Islamic Cartography

Maps were the coincidental locus of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II's most passionate interests: war and art. So far, the focus has been upon the famed conqueror (Fâtih) of Constantinople's interest in, and demand for, European maps without mention of his patronage of classical Islamic cartographic material. In this article, I expand the perspective on Mehmet's cartographical milieu by inserting into the historical picture consideration of a recension of cartographically illustrated manuscripts, those of al-Istakhri's Kitab al-Masalik wa-al-Mamalik [Book of Roads and Kingdoms], dating from 1474 onwards and made in post-conquest Ottoman Constantinople. I also set out the circumstances under which this ‘cluster’ of manuscripts may have been copied and, by focusing on the world maps in particular, suggest ways in which the maps can be interpreted as cultural artefacts. I conclude by indicating how this particular group of manuscripts provides insights into map audience, patronage and propaganda in fifteenth-century Anatolia.

ABSTRACT
Ways of Seeing.3: Scenarios of the World in the Medieval Islamic Cartographic Imagination
Karen C. Pinto

This dissertation concerns the stylized carto-ideographs—specifically representations of the world—that illustrate medieval Islamic geographical manuscripts. There are hundreds of cartographic images scattered throughout the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. Yet these maps have often been deliberately ignored on the grounds that they are not "mimetically" accurate representations of the world. What many failed to see is that these images are iconographic representations of the way in which the medieval Muslims perceived their world.
This dissertation explores the applicability of newer and more innovative techniques for approaching the visual record of Islamic history. My aim is to bring Middle Eastern maps into the orbit of modern and postmodern theoretical paradigms. I do this through a series of experimental scenarios that suggest alternate ways of viewing maps.
In chapter 1, " Fatih Revisited: A View through the Ottoman Cluster," I employ a Schamaesque approach to reading a set of classical Islamic mappamundi from the period of Mehmet II. Through them I construct an alternative view of “the Conqueror” and raise questions about patronage and propaganda.
In chapter 2, "’It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane. No, It’s a Hat!’ Iconography, Meta-Cartography, and the Hierophany of Encirclement," I analyze the world maps from the point of view of past and present iconographic theory. My contention is that all maps are composed of metascopic and microscopic cultural fragments that need to be taken apart and analyzed individually. I concentrate on one widespread metamotif: Bahr al-Muhit (the Encircling Ocean ).
In chapter 3, "Place in the Context of Time & Space: The Buja and the Capturing of Imagination," I view time and space in the maps via the prism of place. Due to limitations of space, every cartographer is faced with the choice of what to include and what to exclude. This necessary cartographic process of choice, omission, and distortion, presents us with a gold mine of information. Specifically, I examine the delineation of an obscure East African tribe, the Buja, and their deserts (Mafaza), in the Islamic mappamundi.

"Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration" (Chicago, 2016) is based on this. For the interests of the book as aimed towards a general public a great deal of material was cut out. In the dissertation you can find surprising additional material.

I invite readers to explore the original dissertation to consider ways in which this dissertation ended up becoming seminal because of all the books and articles on Islamic cartography other scholars that it spawned—sometimes generously cited, at other times noticeably uncited.

This paper explores the presence and development of large-scale geographic categories in premodern cartography (12th-16th centuries) in a combination of comparative and transcultural perspectives. Analysing Latin-Christian, Arabic-Islamic, and Chinese maps, we demonstrate the varying degrees of importance accorded to large-scale geographic structures. The choice of related as well as independent traditions allows the identification of specific emphases, which reflect the influence of the respective cultural backgrounds and strategies applied in the ordering of space. While the analysed Chinese material concentrates on a geographical space that was perceived to form an ideal political and cultural unity without representing the entire physical world, Latin-Christian and Arabic-Islamic traditions share the focus on the whole oecumene that they both inherited from antique models. However, only Latin-Christian maps consistently and explicitly present a tripartite world that resonates with Trinitarian structures in Christian thought.

Determining the direction to Qibla 5 times/day is crucial to the functioning of Islam. As Islam grew and spread rapidly to far flung parts of the world it became imperative to determine the correct direction of prayer and this spurred on the development of the means to determine the Qibla: hence the development of mathematics, astrolabes, mihrabs (Qibla-indicating niches) and Qibla maps. But what about the moment of the change of the Qibla from Jerusalem to Mecca? How did it happen? How did the nascent Muslim community respond and adapt to the change? Courtesy of the motivating question of this Mediterranean Seminar panel “How and at what moment were sacred spaces converted?” this talk explores when where and how the change of the Qibla occurred following the Hijra (Emigration to Mecca) in Year 1 of the Islamic calendar/ 622 Common Era and the unresolved dispute regarding the exact date of the change and the manner in which it took place.

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FRANCO SÁNCHEZ, Francisco. “Les deux chemins opposés de la cartographie arabo-islamique médiévale: la mappemonde «islamique» («L'école d’al-Balḫī», Xe siècle) ou le monde en sa diversité (al-Šarīf al Idrīsī, XIIe siècle)”. En: Parcourir le monde, les voyages d'Orient / études réunies par Dominique de Courcelles. Paris : École des Chartes, 2013, pp. 29-49; 191-199  | 
ISBN 978-2-35723-032-3  | 
Resumen: Las últimas aportaciones al conocimiento en el ámbito de la geografía árabe islámica medieval, presentadas bajo la óptica de una doble línea evolutiva: Por un lado se presentan los textos de geografía que suponen un desarrollo de la geografía griega y helenística, en especial desde las aportaciones de la geografía astronómica y cartografía propiciadas por Claudio Ptolomeo (s. II e.C.), desarrollados en la corte abbasí en los ss. VIII-X y cuyo cénit es el Mapamundi de al-Mamún. En parelelo, en el Iraq abbasí se gestó la que se ha dado en llamar por sus textos la “escuela de al-Baljî” y por su cartografía la “escuela del atlas del islam” en los ss. IX-X, estos textos y cartografía se desvelan como una clara manipulación tendente a la consecución de una “islamización de la geografía”. Como corolario, se presenta al gran al-Idrīsī (m. 1175 e.C.), ceutí que trabajó en la corte de Sicilia al servicio del rey normando Roger II como la última evolución de la geografía y cartografía científica de raíces helenísticas; esta grandeza fue marginada por los sabios musulmanes coetáneos por haber sido generada y puesta al servicio de un rey cristiano como Roger II. Es tan importante la obra que, tras el Corán, fue la segunda obra árabe que se tradujo en roma en el s. XVI.  |  Abstrct: The latest contributions to knowledge in the field of medieval Arab Islamic geography are presented from the perspective of a double evolutionary line: on the one hand, geography texts are presented which represent a development of Greek and Hellenistic geography, especially from the contributions of astronomical geography and cartography promoted by Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century BC), developed at the Abbasid court in the 8th-10th centuries and whose zenith is the Mapamundi of al-Mamun. At the same time, in Abbasid Iraq, what has come to be known as the "al-Baljî school" for its texts and the "Islamic Atlas school" for its cartography in the 9th-10th centuries, these texts and cartography reveal themselves to be a clear manipulation aimed at achieving an "Islamisation of geography". As a corollary, the great al-Idrīsī (d. 1175 CE), a Ceutan who worked at the court of Sicily in the service of the Norman king Roger II, is presented as the ultimate evolution of scientific geography and cartography with Hellenistic roots; this greatness was marginalised by contemporary Muslim scholars because it was generated and put at the service of a Christian king like Roger II. The work is so important that, after the Qur'an, it was the second Arabic work to be translated in Rome in the 16th century.  | 

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Every medieval Islamic cartograph of the world contains a curious anomaly. Consistently located on the eastern flank of Africa is a double-territorial ethnonym for an obscure East African tribe: the Buja (marked on Figure 1 with a red circle). Mention of them in medieval Middle Eastern historiography is rare and, at best, superficial, yet no Islamic mappamundi from the 11th to the 19th century leaves them out. Not only are the Buja privileged with a permanent berth on the Islamic world map, they are also the only place on the map signified with a double territorial marking. The question that I raise in this paper is, quite simply, who were the Buja? Why are they so absent in Islamic historiography, yet so present on the mappamundi? The answer emerges from a series of droll and puzzling references that hint at the oddest reasons for the emphasis; reasons which, in turn, cause us to question our notions of how and why places make it on to maps. The query reveals surprising answers that can be relegated to the Husserlian domain of "retentions," "reproductions," and "protentions."

Out of this questioning of medieval Islamic maps, it is the temporal imagination that emerges as the dominant architect of cartographic space. It presents itself as an imagination that is triggered as much by the extreme alterity of otherness as it is by the subtle reflection of self.

In the medieval world, geographical knowledge was influenced by religious ideas and beliefs. Whereas this point is well analysed for the Latin-Christian world, the religious character of the Arabic-Islamic geographic tradition has not yet been scrutinised in detail.

This volume addresses this desideratum and combines case studies from both traditions of geographic thinking. The contributions comprise in-depth analyses of individual geographical works as for example those of al-Idrisi or Lambert of Saint-Omer, different forms of presenting geographical knowledge such as TO-diagrams or globes as well as performative aspects of studying and meditating geographical knowledge.

Focussing on texts as well as on maps, the contributions open up a comparative perspective on how religious knowledge influenced the way the world and its geography were perceived and described int the medieval world.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

At first glance the typical medieval Islamic map of ‘the West’—Surat al-Maghrib— strikes us as nothing more than a quaint abstraction of circles, triangles, and oblong shapes ornately adorned with vivid pigments. Closer study presents a more complex image, however, of passion and conflict; of attraction and revulsion; of love and hate. Indeed the Maghrib map is by far the most dissonant image in the extant collection of medieval Arabic and Persian maps and, as such, one of the most engaging. Whereas all the other images have a veneer of harmony and balance, this one is—by deliberate design—passionately conflicted. It is the discord of desire inlaid within the Muslim pictographs of the Maghrib that is the focus of this chapter, the over-arching question being how did medieval Islamic cartographers settle on such a strange looking image as a representation of the Western Mediterranean— in particular, North Africa, Islamic Spain, and Sicily? Answering this question requires immersing ourselves in the map-image itself, and takes us through a series of subliminal messages ranging from intra-Islamic imperial ambitions to erotic and nostalgic Andalusian poetry.

In keeping with the theme of Treasures of the Sea, this article focuses on the sacrality embedded in the depiction of the seas in the medieval Islamic KMMS mapping tradition. Teasing apart the depictions, this article analyses the sacred dimensions of the five seas that make up the classical KMMS image of the world: Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ (the Encircling Ocean), the Baḥr Fāris (Persian Gulf-Indian Ocean-Red Sea), Baḥr al-Rūm (the Mediterranean), Baḥr al-Khazar (Caspian Sea),and Buḥayrat Khwārizm (Aral Sea).

Keywords Islamic cartography; History of Cartography; Illuminated manuscript; Encircling Ocean; Mediterranean; Indian Ocean; Persian Gulf; Sacred Relics of Prophet Muhammad.

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Ibn Khaldoun Muqaddimah's richness includes an interesting insight into an issue rarely discussed in the classical sources, that is pre‐ modern Muslim mariners ‐ notably those who are active in the Western Mediterranean. This field has been carried out by actors who are rarely concerned with writing down their expertise. The practice is not usually depicted in the realm of the elite. Yet Ibn Khaldoun took the time to discuss the life of these practioners, which contributed to the heart of his methodology, and helped build his theoretical views. It also gives us concrete information that supports the scattered cartographic and textual sources depicting the important role of the Maghribi medieval mariners in shaping Islamic maritime knowledge.

In this paper, I examine and deconstruct the “classical”
medieval Islamic conception of the Mediterranean as seen through colorful, miniature maps found in medieval Arabic and Persian geographical manuscripts from the 11th to 17th centuries. In his classic book “Mohammad and Charlemagne” (1939), the Belgian scholar Henri Pirenne set forth what has since come to be known as the Pirenne thesis, expressing the dominant European view that the sudden advent of Islam
on the “other” side of the Mediterranean disrupted the unity of the “Roman Lake” forever. “With Islam a new world was established on those Mediterranean shores, which had formerly known the syncretism of the Roman civilization. A complete break was made, which was to continue even to our own day. Henceforth two different and hostile civilizations existed on the shores of Mare Nostrum. The sea, which had hitherto been
the center of Christianity became its frontier”. A similarly antagonistic picture is presented by some scholars of the medieval Islamic approach to the Mediterranean. (See, for instance, André Miquel’s discussion of the subject in “La géographie humaine du monde musulman”). Do the detailed
maps of the Mediterranean and its surrounding littorals prepared by medieval Muslim geographers reinforce this traditional, polarized, oppositional view? If not, what kind of a vision of the sea do the maps present? What can the pictorial depictions of the sea be taken to signify? Did they mutate over time? The surprising, counter-intuitive responses to some of these questions form the core of this paper.

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to a hitherto unknown
source containing toponomastic and historical information on the borderlands
of the Ottoman Empire, for which Turkish documentation
is scarce. The source to be presented here is the military map of the Danube
Vilayet (T. ūnah Vilāyetī Harīt.ahsī) on scale 1:400,000, undated (published ca.
1875). A rare copy of this map is preserved in the collection of the author.

FRANCO SÁNCHEZ, Francisco. "Geografía y cartografía en la obra de Ibn Jaldūn". In: J.L Garrot & J. Marcos (coord.). Miradas españolas sobre Ibn Jaldún. Madrid : Ibersaf, 2008. ISBN 978-84-95803-61-0, pp. 195-217 |
Resumen: Partiendo del panorama general de la geografía árabe e islámica en los ss. XIV-XV, se analiza la geografía y cartografía que contienen las obras de Ibn Jaldūn, en especial el tratadito resumen de la geografía mundial que contiene la parte inicial de su Muqaddima. El propio autor afirma que toma geografía y cartografía de al-Idrīsī. Su finalidad es la de servir de parte introductoria a la historia, quedándose la geografía fuera del panorama de las ciencias que esboza el autor en su "Muqaddima". |  Abstract:  Starting from the general overview of Arab and Islamic geography in the 14th-15th centuries, the author analyses the geography and cartography contained in Ibn Khaldūn's works, especially the short summary treatise on world geography contained in the early part of his "Muqaddima". The author himself confirms that he takes geography and cartography from al-Idrīsī. Its purpose is to serve as an introductory part to history, geography being left out of the panorama of sciences outlined by the author in his "Muqaddima".  |   
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Searchin’ his eyes, lookin’ for traces: Piri Reis’ World Map of 1513 & its Islamic Iconographic Connections (A Reading through Baghdat 334 and Proust) Abstract ␣ The remnant of the 1513 world map of the Ottoman corsair (and later admiral) Muhiddin Piri, a.k.a. Piri Reis, with its focus on the Atlantic and the New World can be ranked as one of the most famous and controversial maps in the annals of the history of cartography. Following its discovery at Topkapı Palace in 1929, this early modern Ottoman map has raised baffling questions regarding its fons et origo. Some scholars posited ancient sea kings or aliens from outer space as the original creators; while the influence of Columbus’ own map and early Renaissance cartographers tantalized others. One question that remains unanswered is how Islamic cartography influenced Piri Reis’ work. This paper presents hitherto unnoticed iconographical connections between the classical Islamic map- ping tradition and the Piri Reis map. Keywords: Piri Reis, World Map of 1513, Ottoman Cartography, Islamic Cartogra- phy, Islamic Wondrous Tradition, Islamic Manuscript Illumination.

The purpose of this studyi st oe xamine whether al-Idrīsī used religious ideas as as tructuring element in his geographical, cartographic and descriptive work. Al-Idrīsī incidentallyi ntegrates ad escription of religious practices in his geographical work as adistinguishing feature of the populations he places on the oecumene, in proportion to the information receivedabout them.Inthat respect,al-Idrīsī never explains or shows the boundaries of the Muslim world, but he describes it by mentioningsome local cultsfor Africa, India and the Turcs,sometimes anachronistically, sometimes ethnographicallycorrect.Inside the Muslim world, the explicit mark of the Muslim devotion is limited to the description of Mecca and Medina, whereas Jerusalem is described as aC hristian city.The religious practices or beliefs seem to be secondary in ageographic description primarilycentred on towns and itineraries. However,w hen the non-Muslim cult is described, it is not reprobated but simply mentioned. As for the map, it is not marked by ar eligious structuringo fs pace nor does it show places specificallym arked by religious tradition.

The map of the world made by the 12th-century Islamic cartographer Al-Idrisi for Roger II of Sicily was a masterpiece of mapping which remained the most technically sophisticated world-map for three centuries after its production. Drawing on several centuries of Islamic cartographic research, Al-Idrisi produced both a book of 70 maps covering the surface of the known world, and a single, round map engraved onto a silver disk and set into a wooden table, with Mecca at its centre.

The silver disk is now lost, and the Entertainment for those wanting to discover the world (Nuzhat al-mushtāq fi'khtirāq al-āfāq), survives only through later copies. But in a groundbreaking project, Factum Foundation has undertaken to re-create Al-Idrisi’s fabled map. Neither facsimile nor copy, this re-creation nonetheless combines painstaking historical research with advanced digital techniques and the highest levels of craftsmanship, paying tribute to the lost original and offering yet another layer to add to the complexity of its transmission.
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Written by: Elizabeth Mitchell, PHD in Greco-Roman archaeology from Harvard
University
Published in: The Aura in the Age of Digital Materiality, edited by Adam Lowe, Elizabeth Mitchell, Nicolas Béliard, Giulia Fornaciari, Tess Tomassini, Blanca Nieto and Guendalina Damone, Silvana Editoriale, 2020

There exist hundreds—if not thousands—of cartographic images of the world and various regions, scattered throughout collections of medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts. The sheer number of these extant maps tells us that—at least from the thirteenth century onward, whence copies of these map-manuscripts begin to proliferate—that the world was a much-depicted place. It loomed large in the medieval Muslim imagination. It was pondered, discussed, and copied with minor and major variations again and again, with what seems to be a peculiar idiosyncrasy to modern eyes. The cartographers did not strive for mimesis (representation or imitation of the real world). They did not show irregular coastlines, for example, even though some of the geographers within whose work these maps are encased openly acknowledge that the landmasses and their coastlines are uneven. They present instead a deliberately schematic layout of the world and the regions that comprised the Islamic empire.

CARPETS dynasties to supply the needs of the courts and to produce carpets for export. At the same time, particularly in lactory production, the traditional process of designing carpets by combining units retrieved from the weavers' memories began to be replaced by a new process in which a designer, often the employee of the court or ofa merchant, prepared designs on paper for the artisans to execute in wool. By the mid-nineteenth century, a huge demand for "Oriental" carpets had developed in Europe, popularized by international exhibitions and the arts and crafts movement. While Anatolian production remained largely village based, in Iran, local entrepreneurs were increasingly suppianted by Europeans, who organized production in factories and cottages, supplying not only the designs but also the European yarns to produce carpets in standard sizes for the exoort market.

The 3.5 metre world map that Muhammad al-Idrīsī completed in or a little after 1154 is preserved only in later copies of his geographical treatise, the Nuzhat al-mushtāq. That work’s Introduction describes the 15 years he had spent gathering the information and gives details of the processes involved in creating the map, in up to four different forms. Using a Processual Approach, the contradictions in that purportedly authorial account have been tested against feasibility and common sense. A number of questions have been asked, perhaps for the first time, and some tentative revisions offered. It is considered unlikely, for example, that the small circular world map fronting the volume (but not mentioned in it) has any direct connection with al-Idrīsī. It is also proposed that the ‘silver disc’ is more likely to have been rectangular, so as to match the format of the wall-map, as was clearly and repeatedly specified.

Another arm of the Processual Approach is concerned with the circulation of cartographic information, which meshes well with this essay’s search for evidence of the subsequent dissemination of the idrisian geography. In seeking for any borrowing between the 1154 map and the portolan charts (broadly contemporary but significantly more realistic), it is clear that the authors of each of those must have been unaware of the other. Had al-Idrīsī seen a portolan chart, he would certainly have taken note of it. On the basis of that, the portolan chart’s origin can be confidently placed in the narrow period 1154-1210 – the latter being the most likely dating for the Liber de existencia riveriarum, whose direction and distance statements can only have come from a marine chart. [A long essay on the origin of the portolan chart is due to be published later this year.]

As for the dissemination of the large world map, it is unsurprising – given the lack of evidence that its 70 sections were ever joined up – that anyone effectively ‘saw’ it as a whole until the 20th century.

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Invited talk for "Macrocosms and Microcosms: From Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages," University of Cambridge, 24th - 26th September, 2021.

The map of the pre-modern world, Asia, Africa, and Europe, is drawn collectively in the shape of a bird and fits with the Islamic Neoplatonic conception of the bird as the ultimate mediator between God and his people in communication with the cosmos and God’s angels through the process of emanation. The meaning of the bird in the map is explained through the Neoplatonic doctrine of Emanation (fayd) and the way in which it creates a link between man and God: microcosm to macrocosm.

In Neoplatonic philosophy, the rational soul is symbolized as a bird. When deprived of its natural intellectual ability (symbolized by the ability to fly), the bird/soul falls captive to the instincts and passions of the lower faculties of the animal soul. Imprisoned by the physical demands of matter, it is condemned to endless exile among the desolate wastelands and meaningless signposts of microcosmic earthly existence. At a larger collective metaphoric level, the bird/dove/pigeon symbolizes the plight of the rational souls of all humanity and therefore it can be used as a metaphorical representation for the world.

But the bird can forget its nets and cages and learn to fly again. In this sense, the bird also symbolizes redemption and the possibility of return to the macrocosmic Universal Intellect. It is thus not surprising to find that the bird is an oft-repeated motif in Islamicate culture with a multitude of meanings related to the bird’s reflection of soul and its ability to be closer to the heavens and God.

In 2019, the Biblioteca Marciana started a project concerning a new philological edition of the Heart-shaped map of Hajji Ahmed, involving the memoranda of understanding between the Venetian institutes of IUAV University and the Academy of Fine Arts. In February 2019, Factum Foundation collaborated with the IUAV CIRCE Photogrammetry Lab to record the original cherry-wood printing blocks in high-resolution. The recording was part of an initiative led by ARCHiVe (Analysis and Recording of Cultural Heritage in Venice), and was framed as a comparative study designed to assess the merits of three recording techniques: photogrammetry, laser scanning, and the Lucida 3D Scanner.
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Written by: Guendalina Damone, University of Udine
Published in: The Aura in the Age of Digital Materiality, edited by Adam Lowe, Elizabeth Mitchell, Nicolas Béliard, Giulia Fornaciari, Tess Tomassini, Blanca Nieto and Guendalina Damone, Silvana Editoriale, 2020

FRANCO SÁNCHEZ, Francisco. "El Occidente musulmán en los mapas del Mediterráneo de la «escuela de al-Baljî»". In: Ana I. Planet & Fernando Ramos (eds.). Relaciones hispano-marroquíes : una vecindad en construcción. Madrid : Ediciones del Oriente y del Mediterráneo, 2006. ISBN 84-96327-17-5, pp. 35-62 |
Resumen: Las costas enfrentadas de al-Andalus y del Mágreb como una reinterpretación de un Mediterráneo musulmán en la cartografía de la conocida como "escuela de al-Baljī" y su reflejo en la descripción como "costas enfrentadas" en su obra _Al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik_ de al-Bakrī (s. XI)  |  Abstract: The confronted coasts of al-Andalus and the Maghreb as a reinterpretation of a Muslim Mediterranean in the cartography of the so-called "school of al-Baljī" and its reflection in the description as "confronted coasts" in his work _Al-Masālik wa-l-mamālik_ by al-Bakrī (11th century)  | 

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In the last decades, the study of map-making has been moving away from positivist assumptions about representational accuracy and objectivity. The critical cartography movement spearheaded by John B. Harley sought to integrate elements from post-structuralist textual analysis into the study of maps. 1 While these methodologies have remained rather marginal in the study of non-Western map-making, recently authors have made attempts to apply them to the Islamicate archive. 2 However, traditional taxonomies like East and West, Europe and Islam continue to be applied to map-making. Such dichotomies cannot adequately account for what is the most salient feature of the material we are concerned Kapitel 13

In the premodern world, geographical knowledge was influenced by religious ideas and beliefs. The conference seeks to analyse, how the religious character of geographic knowledge in the period from ca. 1150 to 1550 lingered on in classical as well as new forms of presenting geography. To open up a comparative perspective, case studies of Latin-Christian works are complemented by examples of the Arabic-Islamic geographic tradition. The focus lies on sources that combine texts with cartographic depictions, be it maps of the known world or of its parts or regions. This approach ties in with recent developments in the history of cartography, i.e. analysing maps not isolated from their manuscript context, but in close connection to it.
The contributions of the conference aim to show to what extent the religious framing and coining of geographical knowledge continued and changed since the twelfth century. Secondly, the comparative perspective is intended to capture traditional peculiarities as well as transcultural exchange processes between the Arab-Muslim and the Latin-Christian world. Thirdly, the uniformity/variety of forms of representation (text and image) and transmission (different variants) of a given case study is to be taken into account. On the basis of these premises, the conference is designed to bring together leading experts, to take up current perspectives of research, to deepen the understanding of the examples analysed and thus to provide strong impulses for further studies.

Maps described as 'Ottoman' often reflect external geographic knowledge, or are the work of foreigners. The article suggests defining maps as 'Ottoman' based on their use by Ottomans. Late Ottoman maps of Palestine show that Ottomans appropriated and naturalized European cartographic knowledge on a discerning basis according to particular ideological, administrative, civilian and military needs. These maps omit details that culturally or politically challenged the Ottomans' worldview, like the Judeo-Christian emphasis on biblical sites prevailing in the PEF source maps. Ottoman maps are, thus, hybrid in nature: they combine traits prevalent in Ottoman cartography, such as hand drawing and bilingualism, while also tending to highlight major topographical features, key inhabited places, roads, communications infrastructure, and administrative boundaries in answer to the Empire's post-Tanzimat necessities. Lastly, the maps themselves testify to the formation of 'Palestine' as an Ottoman space, amalgamating the Islamic connotations of Jund Filastīn with the European territorial demarcation of the Holy Land and frequently equating it with the Mutasarrifiyya of Jerusalem.
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Seas outline and order land masses and remind us that everything is but an island. Maps rely on seas to define land. Seas compete with deserts for crossings, imaginings, measurings, and depictions. Due to their vast aqueous nature the seas can never be fully grasped and retain through time and space the draw of mystery and awe that is manifested in wondrous imaginings of conquests attempted, but never fully realized. In key texts and images from the Middle East, the seas emerge as conflicted hierophanic spaces of good and evil. These extremes manifest themselves in aquatic representations of geography, cartography, and art. The presentations in this panel explore a variety of representational imaginings of the sea in carto-geographic artistry emanating out of the Middle East.

FRANCO- SÁNCHEZ, Francisco, «Anotaciones bibliográficas sobre geografía y cartografía de época medieval (II)». In "Al-Qanṭara", vol. 40, n. 2 (2019), pp. 455-475. ISSN 0211-3589 / 1988-2955 (Internet)  | 

[Bibliographic notes on medieval geography and cartography II)]
Resumen–Abstract: Análisis y comentario sobre las siguientes obras de geografía y cartografía árabe medievales. Analysis and commentary on the following works of medieval Arabic geography and cartography: 1. Ignacio Sánchez & James Montgomery: "Epistles of the Brethren of Purity. On Geography. An Arabic Critical Edition and English Translation of Epistle 4". Foreword by Nader El-Bizri. Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press–The Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014, XXIV + 165 + 67 (ár.) pp. ISBN: 978-0-19-872822-1  / 2. Emmanuelle Tixier du Mesnil: "Géographes d’Al-Andalus. De l’inventaire d’un territoire à la construction d’une mémoire". París: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2014, 458 pp., Col. Bibliothèque historique des Pays d’Islam, 4. ISBN: 978-2-85944-779-3 /  Karen C. Pinto: "Medieval Islamic Maps. An Exploration". Chicago–Londres: University of Chicago Press, 2016, 384 + 162 pp.  ISBN: 978-0-226-12696-8  |
Palabras clave: Cartografía medieval árabe, Geografía medieval árabe, al-Šarīf al-Idrīsī, Ḏikr bilād al-Andalus  | 
Key words: Medieval Arabic cartography, Medieval Arabic geography  |  al-Šarīf al-Idrīsī, Ḏikr bilād al-Andalus  | 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3989/alqantara.2019.v40.i2  | 
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Истахрийнинг «Китаб масалик ал-мамалик» асари қўлёзмаларидаги хариталари ҳақида айрим мулоҳазалар Равшан Турабович ХУДАЙБЕРГАНОВ Ўзбекистон Фанлар Академияси Шарқшунослик институти кичик илмий ходими Тошкент, Ўзбекистон [email protected] Аннотация Мақола Х аср географ олими Истахрийнинг «Китаб масалик ал-мамалик» асари ва асар асосида турган Дунё ва ўша даврдаги мусулмон оламининг йигирмага тақсимланган хариталари таҳлилига бағишланган. Хариталарни қиёслашда асарнинг турли даврларда кўчирилган қўлёзмалари жалб этилган. Калит сўзлар: Истахрий, «Китаб масалик ал-мамалик», тарихий хариталар, картография, тарихий география, қўлёзмалар. НЕКОТОРЫЕ РАССУЖДЕНИЯ О КАРТАХ В РУКОПИСЯХ «КИТАБ МАСАЛИК АЛ-МАМАЛИК» ИСТАХРИ Равшан Турабович ХУДАЙБЕРГАНОВ Институт востоковедения АН РУз, младший научный сотрудник Ташкент, Узбекистан [email protected] Аннотация Статья посвящена анализу труда географа Х века Истахри «Китаб масалик ал-мамалик» и послужившим основной для него карты мира и разделенных на двадцать частей карт мусульманского мира того времени. Для сравнения были привлечены ряд рукописей, сочинения, переписанные в разные времена. Ключевые слова: Истахри, «Китаб масалик ал-мамалик», исторические карты, картография, историческая география, рукописи. SOME VIEWS ABOUT MAPS IN THE MANUSCRIPTS OF ISTAKHRI'S "KITAB MASALIK AL-MAMALIK"

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Finalement, cette étude est une synthèse de
qualité sur les connaissances factuelles acquises et
permet de mettre en relation des cartes encore parfois
trop étudiées individuellement. Mais c’est aussi
ici la limite de l’exercice car la comparaison, pour
être optimale, nécessiterait de prendre en compte le
contexte socio-politique de la production des cartes,
car celles-ci sont toujours le reflet d’une vision du
monde issue d’une construction sociale.

Jadaliyya New Texts on Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration. Involves a self-book review, rationale for writing it, basis of interest, philosophy, methodology, findings, future plans, etc.
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