The Muslim Beginning of
Modern Geography
By David W. Tschanz
Early geography and cartography
were more art than science. Although astronomers, through their study of the
universe, were able to theorize about such general geographical concepts like
the shape of the earth, early geography was, for the most part, a product of the
imagination: a collection of wondrous fables and marvelous tales of faraway
places. In the Twelfth Century, however, an Arab geographer and cartographer
named Abu Abdullah Mohammed bin Mohammed 'Abdullah bin Idris al-Hammudi
al-Hassani started the revolution that ultimately led to modern geography.
Al-Idrisi was born in 1100 in Ceuta, Morocco, to a noble family, the Hammudites.
A direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed, he was entitled to use the title ash-Sharif
(the Noble). During his youth he studied in Cordoba, then the capital of Islamic
Spain. A poet, student of medicine and an avid traveler, he was an accomplished
genius of the first order.
During his travels he retraced the path of Islamic conquest. The warrior
horsemen who had swept across the Mediterranean spreading the new faith, had
vowed that only the ocean waves at al-Maghreb (West) would stop their horses.
Al-Idrisi's adventurous spirit was equal to theirs. He voyaged westward to
Madeira and the Canary Islands, stopped only by the immensity of the Atlantic
Ocean.
Al-Idrisi's reputation for learning, and his fame as a traveler, eventually
earned him an invitation from Roger II, the Norman ruler of Sicily, to visit the
island. Received with high honors, al-Idrisi found in Roger a kindred spirit
with an intellectual curiosity that matched his own. The monarch's insatiable
fascination with geography occupied all the time he did not spend administering
his tiny kingdom.
Prior to Roger's death in 1154, al-Idrisi completed construction if a celestial
sphere and a disk shaped map of the known world (a planisphere), both of solid
silver. The map was based on the encyclopedic work al-Idrisi completed under
Roger's patronage: the Kitab Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ilkhtiraq al-Afaq,
sometimes called the Kitab ar-Rujari (The Book of Roger). It was not
until 1592 that the manuscript made its first European appearance in an abridged
edition printed in Rome. It was translated into Latin in 1619 but it has yet to
be rendered into English in its entirety. Other information was obtained from
persons sent specifically for the purpose of gathering information.
Al-Idrisi stayed on at the court in Palermo after Roger's death and wrote
another geographical treatise, The Garden of Civilization and the Amusement
of the Soul.