The Complex Story Behind Al-Idrīsī’s Iconic World Map

It’s 1154 CE and King Roger II of Sicily is dying. He had an incredibly accomplished reign, having successfully united the Italian principalities into a centralised authority. He also recognised the social and religious diversity of his kingdom; Sicily, for instance, had a considerable Muslim and Latin Christian presence. His acceptance of this diversity allowed Sicily to grow into a region with rich scholarly exchange between communities, second only to the Iberian Peninsula.¹

Roger II had Greek, Arabic and Sanskrit texts translated into Latin, and invited scholars from across continents to visit him in order to bask in their knowledge. Present at his funeral was one Muhammad Sharif al- al-Idrīsī (d.1165 AD) of Cordoba, famous geographer and close confidant of the King. In his possession was his royal friend’s dying wish – a world map that would preserve the King’s lifelong passion for knowledge and a book entitled Entertainment for He Who Longs to Travel the World.² In true royal fashion, this world map was engraved onto a giant silver disc that has since been lost. However, this beautiful circular display is survived by the work of copyists throughout the centuries.

While the image itself has become recognisable, few realise just how accurate it is as a map of the world, and fewer still understand the thought process behind it. Al-Idrīsī’s world map is a unique blend of artistic flair and mathematical accuracy that combines the knowledge of Greek and Islamic schools of cartography.

For modern audiences to understand this map, first we must turn it upside-down so the little umbrella-shaped mountains face south. Oriented thus, the Mediterranean is now spread across the North African coastline. Al-Idrīsī’s map is deliberately ‘upside down’ and was influenced by his Persian predecessors, the likes of Zayd al-Balkhi (d.934 CE) and al-Iṣṭakhrī’s (d.957 CE), who lived north of Mecca and emphasised this by deliberately orientating their maps with south at the top.³ Historians debate whether this was out of religious reverence, since the earliest Muslim world maps carried very limited religious iconography.

The continent of Europe points north and stretches from England to Central Asia; the rough array of triangular zig-zags represent the Himalayas, with the brown spiral (top right) symbolising the people of Gog and Magog (mentioned in the Qur’an) – separated from humanity by an imposing mountain range.⁴ The larger jellyfish shaped mountain represents the river Nile, a symbol that is derived from the Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy (d.170 CE) who believed the source of the Nile came from the “Mountain of the Moon”.⁵ Whilst no such mountain actually exists, it did not stop Muslim cartographers from incorporating the symbol into their world maps.

Further Ptolemaic influence lies in the faint red lines that bisect the map from east-to-west. Known as “clime lines” or iqlim in Arabic, they were estimations longitude and latitude based on a region’s vertical distance from the equator. This was first implemented in the Muslim world by al-Khwarizmi (d.850 AD), also known as the ‘Father of algebra’, in the ninth century and later by his student Suhrab. Though this cartographical school of thought had only a brief life, it had lasting mathematical influence on later maps through the clime system. We will call this short-lived Greek influenced arithmetic tradition the “Khwarizmi-Ptolemaic school of cartography”.

Later Muslim cartographers like Zayd al-Balkhi (d.934 CE) and al-Iṣṭakhrīs (d.957 CE) favoured stylisation and abstraction in their maps over mathematical accuracy, a method dubbed by historians as the “Balkhi  School of Cartography”. It has produced some of the most diagrammatic maps in history that typically focus specifically on the Muslim world – with non-Muslim lands relegated to the background, if shown at all. Geographical accuracy is not usually a priority; Muslim lands are often represented as circular or as rough rectangles, squashed together to exaggerate their interconnectedness. They also often depict ”The Encompassing Sea” – a body of water that Muslim geopgrahers believed encircled the known world.

It is theorised that this move away from mathematical accuracy and towards abstraction was deliberate and represented a desire to depict an interconnected Muslim world at a time when the Abbasid Caliphate had become politically fractured around Syria.⁶ Cartographers like al-Iṣṭakhrī’ and Ibn Hawqal sought to plaster over this fracture by reminding the Muslim world how culturally connected they still were through creed and trade. Hence a diagram of symbols was used to depict the Muslim world, making easier both reproduction and recognition (much like the colourful Tube maps of the London Underground).⁷

The greater the ease with which a map can be copied, the greater the chances it will be used for a longer period, thereby influencing later cartographers. The abstraction of al-Idrīsī’s famous world map (that depicts the “Encompassing Sea” and makes use of a vibrant colour pallette) can be attributed to this rich history of geometric abstraction in medieval cartography.⁸

Inspired by both the Greeks and the Persians through the Khwarizmi-Ptolemaic and Balkhi schools, we would naturally turn to al-Idrīsī’s book Entertainment to get the author’s own thoughts on his iconic circular world map. Surprisingly, however, al-Idrīsī’never explicitly mentions this map anywhere in his treatise, but rather he includes 70 regional maps that zoom in on different areas of his circular world map. These regional maps, al-Idrīsī’s says, are a result of a large “disc-map” (presumably the silver disc world map commissioned by King Roger II) being divided into seven climes, with each clime having ten regions. From France to the Gulf of Aden, these sectional maps contain detailed commentaries along with distances between towns and information of political, economic or cultural significance about major cities.⁹

Al-Idrīsī’s goal was to map out the known inhabited world, which meant he left out central and southern Africa (of which he presumambly had no knowlege), but also meant non-Muslim lands were given as much geographic focus as Muslim majority regions. In this way, unlike the Balkhi school, al-Idrīsī was more ambitious in his cartographical curiosity, which reflected his Sicilian upbringing in a multifaith, trilingual scholarly elite.¹⁰

We are still left with a question that needs answering: if the circular world map does not appear anywhere in al-Idrīsī’s Entertainment, how has the image been preserved by copyists?

The reality is that though the circular map has captivated copyists throughout the centuries, maps were not always replicated accurately. Since the original was not preserved, it cannot be said with certainty that the iconic image we associate with al-Idrīsī‘ is an accurate representation of his original work.

It is possible that the map attributed to al- Idrīsī’ is a replica of the giant silver disc commissioned by King Roger II, though if that is the case, it is still unclear why he chose to leave it out of his book, scattering the known world into 70 regional maps instead.

Another source of contention has led some to question if the circular world map can even be attributed to al-Idrīsī‘. A Fatimid treatise called the Book of Curiosities was discovered in 2002. Written in the 11th century, the treatise is a 13th century copy of the book. The same circular map was found within its pages. The debate is whether this map was copied directly from the original 11th century manuscript, thereby predating al-Idrīsī‘ entirely, or if the copyist took the liberty to include it in the 13th copy of the Book of Curiosities, having taken it from al-Idrīsī‘’s 12th century work. Due to the absence of the original maps and our over-reliance on copies (typical with medieval maps), either scenario is plausible.

Yossef Rapoport argues that since the map in the Book of Curiosities is of a different colour palette to the other maps contained in the collection, it is likely a copy of al-Idrīsī‘’s work.¹¹ Ironically, the strength of the map as a work of art (i.e., its aesthetic clarity), contributes to its downfall as a historical source. It became so legible and copied so profusely that historians simply cannot pinpoint its origin with absolute certainty.

In 1928 a German historian named Konrad Miller created a composite rectangular map consisting of the 70 regional maps from al-Idrīsī‘’s Entertainment. Putting the individual maps together like a jigsaw puzzle, it bore a striking resemblance to the circular map that has been preserved by copyists throughout the centuries.¹²

Though the absence of the world map in al-Idrīsī’’s treatise is frustrating, he had a clear purpose in dividing the world up into separate regional maps. As he explains in his Entertainment, they were intended to be studied individually,

“[So] that the one who observes it can see that which is hidden from his sight, or not known to him, or would not be able to reach himself due to the difficulty of the roads and the differences between nations. But through observation of these maps, he is able to grasp this knowledge accurately.”¹³

Even without the iconic circular world map, no one can doubt the creativity and ambition of al-Idrīsī’s work and his lasting contribution to cartography.

Footnotes