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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Al-Maqdisi, the geographer |
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| amatullah |
| 01/20/04 at 01:24:10 |
| Al-Maqdisi was a native of Palestine, born in Jerusalem in 947 AD. HIs fame as a geographer is widely recognised in the West. Maqdisi was a traveller and visited al parts of the Islamic world except India and Spain. In his writings he reveals himself as a very close observer of life and professions and seems to have a great insight into the literature of the lands which he visited. He wrote 'Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Maarifat al Aqalim' (The best of divisions for the knowledge of the differnt climates) in Shiraz in 985 AD. According to Maqdisi, geography had recieved scant attention from the scientific writers who had preceded him, and, therefore, he took upon himself the task of collecting data from all parts of the Islamic world based upon personal travel and observation, and presented them in a coherent form for the proper understanding of the life, manners, and needs of people. Among the geographers whom Maqdisi had consulted were Khurdadhbih, Jaihana, Balkhi, Hamadani and Jahiz. He discusses their merits and drawbacks very frankly. Accompanying his description of the lands of Islam, which he divided into 14 provinces, Maqdisi prepared seperate maps for each province and in these maps he used symbols and methods of representation of relief etc for their proper comprehension by all. In his maps routes were coloured red; the golden sands, yellow; the salt seas, green; the well known rivers, blue; and the principal mountains; brown. He considered the earth to be nearly spherical in shape, and divided into two equal parts by the equator, and having 360 degrees of circumference, wth 90 degrees from the equator to each pole. He conceived of the southern hemisphere as mostly consisting of water and the northern as having the larger concentration of land. In connection with the description of 'climatic' zones he gives numerous details of physical and human geography. On the whole, his descriptions of places, of manners and customs, of products and manufacturers, and his brief geographical accounts of individual provinces are some of the finest pages in the whole range of medieval Arab literature. Two copies of his work are available: one in Istanbul and the other in Berlin. [Ahmad, Muslim contributions to geography, pp 33-5 abridged] May Allah have mercy and help us appreciate the great heritage of the scholars of the past, ameen. |
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board |