In God’s Eyes: The Sacrality of the Seas in the Islamic Cartographic Vision · A través de los ojos de Dios: la sacralidad de los mares en la visión cartográfica islámica (original) (raw)
Related papers
Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration
Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration, 2016
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo17703325.html Hundreds of exceptional cartographic images are scattered throughout medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. The plethora of copies created around the Islamic world over the course of eight centuries testifies to the enduring importance of these medieval visions for the Muslim cartographic imagination. With Medieval Islamic Maps, historian Karen C. Pinto brings us the first in-depth exploration of medieval Islamic cartography from the mid-tenth to the nineteenth century. Pinto focuses on the distinct tradition of maps known collectively as the Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, or KMMS), examining them from three distinct angles—iconography, context, and patronage. She untangles the history of the KMMS maps, traces their inception and evolution, and analyzes them to reveal the identities of their creators, painters, and patrons, as well as the vivid realities of the social and physical world they depicted. In doing so, Pinto develops innovative techniques for approaching the visual record of Islamic history, explores how medieval Muslims perceived themselves and their world, and brings Middle Eastern maps into the forefront of the study of the history of cartography.
Al-Muqaddasī's tenth-century maritime landscapes of the Arabian Red Sea
The Archaeology of Knowledge Traditions of the Indian Ocean World , 2021
The Arabian Red Sea coast, lying at a crossroads between Africa and Asia, was known as a commercial hub for the trade of frankincense, gold and slaves in Antiquity, after which it emerged under the Romans and the Ptolemies (3rd c BCE to 3rd c CE) as an important focal point for the India trade; it continued to do so in Medieval Islam and for many centuries thereafter, serving as a pilgrim-trade route until the last days of sail. Historical Greek, Latin and Arabic texts are our primary sources, the underlying structure for our understanding of the past; however, other benefits are resourced here: from archaeological finds and oral history which I describe as the surface structure for interpreting the texts, enabling a wider view of what was described by the classical and medieval authors. Social scientists today may be cognizant of the Greek and Latin texts dealing with the Red Sea and the Western Indian Ocean but less familiar with Islamic texts and so largely unaware of their importance in understanding Late Antiquity and what they offer to researchers studying the maritime landscapes of Early Medieval Islam. As a model for studying these maritime landscapes in coordination with archaeological investigation and oral history, I have chosen al-Muqaddasī (d. after 378/988), a geographer-traveller whose work is considered to be the foundation of physical and human geography, not only for its content but for the systematic inquiry which he applied when recording details of the land and sea.
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.
Southeast Asia in Classical Islamic Cartography
Isaac DONOSO (ed). More Islamic than we admit. Philippine Islamic Cultural History, 2018
FRANCO SÁNCHEZ, Francisco: «Southeast Asia in Classical Islamic Cartography». In Isaac Donoso (ed). More Islamic than we admit. Philippine Islamic Cultural History. Quezon City (Philippines): Vibal Foundation (Col. Academica Filipina), 2018, pp. 49-61. | ISBN: 978-971-97-0684-7 | Resumen: En este libro se analizan en un sentido amplio los elementos esenciales que fundamentan el conocimiento de una identidad islámica en las islas Filipinas, con el fin de tener una sinopsis que pueda reconciliar el Islam filipino con la historia de la civilización islámica. En este capítulo se revisan varios mapas y descripciones geográficas árabes medievales sobre la región marítima en la que debe situarse Filipinas, a fin de obtener información sobre el conocimiento árabe o persa medieval de esta región | Abstract: This book analyses in a broad sense the essential elements that are the base of the knowledge of an Islamic identity in the Philippine Islands, in order to have a synopsis that can reconcile Philippine Islam within the history of Islamic civilization. In this chapter several Maps and medieval Arabic Geographical descrptions about the maritime region in which must be situated the Philippines are revised, in order to obtain information about medieval arabic or persian knowing of this area | Palabras clave: Geografía medieval árabe, Cartografía medieval árabe, Sudeste asiático, Islam en Filipinas | Key words: Medieval Arabic Geography, Medieval Arabic Cartography, Southeast Asia, Islam in Philippines | Link for downloading: http://hdl.handle.net/10045/110144
in Knowledge in Translation edited by Patrick Manning and Abigail Owen, 2018
Translation is a two-way street. Or so the maps that I harness for the purposes of this chapter intimate: one a medieval European T-O map labeled in Arabic and the other a medieval Islamic geographical atlas made in Norman Sicily. One was interpreted by a famous eleventh-century Andalusi Muslim geographical scholar of Arab descent and the other illustrated by a Siculo-Arab cartographic artist may have had an influence on the childhood psyche of the emperor, Frederick II, who went on to be called Stupor Mundi (Wonder of the world). One ended up influencing the composition of an Arabic geographical text and the other had an impact on a segment of the Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik (Book of routes and realms) KMMS Islamic mapping tradition. Each speaks to crucial sides of translation: interpretation, intention, and impact. These are the sides that I focus on in this chapter. This analysis provides us with an opportunity to explore the question of Islamo-Christian cartographic connections. Did medieval European maps influence the Islamic ones or vice versa? Or were they mutually exclusive? It is one of the major unresolved debates in the history of cartography. Scholars fall on both sides of the divide. A definitive answer to the question has been hampered by the lack of extant examples demonstrating Islamo-Christian cartographic connections. A decade ago a medieval European T-O map labeled in Arabic came back into the limelight after a forty-year hiatus and recently I identified a KMMS geographic atlas as having been produced in the late twelfth century Norman court of Sicily. Taken together these new identifications make it possible to update the discourse on the question of Islamo-Christian cartographic connections. After years of noticing, collecting, and researching cartographic connections between the Muslim and Christian worlds, I am convinced that ideas of medieval map construction did indeed diffuse across the Mediterranean and that these cartographic ideas diffused multidirectionally in a series of back-and-forth iterations that ultimately informed and enriched the cartographic traditions of both cultures.
Osmanlı Arastırmaları/The Journal of Ottoman Studies, 2012
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.