Al-Idrīsī's world map, 1152

A century before the Hereford Mappa Mundi the Arab scholar Idrīsī (ca. 1100-1166) composed this map for the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II, whose courts was a famous meeting ground between Christian and Islamic culture. In general form, this map (Image 1) might seem to conforms to the O-T tradition of Isadore of Seville. But in this case south, rather than east, is at the top; and although this much smaller map lacks the encyclopaedic information packed into the Hereford masterpiece, when this map is rotated 180 degree (Image 2) it can be seen to contain a far more accurate description os Europe, the Black and Caspian Seas as well as the the Red Sea and Persian Gulf. The 'Book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands', or 'Book of Roger' (here in a 16th-century copy dated 1553 AD), contains the complete text of al-Idrisi's medieval Arabic geography, describing the known world from the equator to the latitude of the Baltic Sea, and from the Atlantic to Siberia.

This manuscript, dated 1553, was copied in Cairo and was bought by the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in 1692 from the widow of Edward Pococke. Pococke was the foremost Arabist of his time and was the first incumbent of the Chair of Arabic set up at Oxford University by Archbishop Laud. It is not known where or how Pococke acquired this manuscript.

Britain, al-Idrisi wrote, 'is set in the Sea of Darkness. It is a considerable island, whose shape is that of the head of an ostrich, and where there are flourishing towns, high mountains, great rivers and plains. This country is most fertile; its inhabitants are brave, active and enterprising, but all is in the grip of perpetual winter.'

Further resources. A useful conspectus of this tradition of Islamic cartography can be found in Cem Nizamoglu and Khaleel Shaikh, ‘When the World was Upside Down: Maps from Muslim Civilisation’ (2017), Muslim Heritage, available here.

Commentary. Howard Hotson (May 2021)