BGA
Introduction
The online Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum is the digital version of a series of critical editions of classic geographical texts, written by several of the most famous Arab geographers who lived in the period from the 9th–11th centuries CE. All original editions, including the indices and glossaries, were produced by Michael Jan de Goeje (d. 1909), Professor of Oriental languages in Leiden, between 1870 and 1894 and published by Brill.
This online edition of the BGA presents each of the geographical texts by author. The indices, glossaria and addenda that were spread over the various volumes of the print version have been attached directly to the corresponding texts. The updated editions of Muqaddasī's Kitāb aḥsan al-taqāsīm by De Goeje and J.H. Kramers’ re-edition of Ibn Ḥawqal’s Kitāb al-masālik wa-l-mamālik can be read parallel with the prior editions of these works.
Abū Isḥāq al-Iṣṭakhrī
The Kitāb al-Masālik wa l-mamālik was written towards the end of the first half of the 10th century CE, by a certain Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Iṣṭakhrī. The work built on the earlier concept of the “atlas of Islam”, which it developed further. The climates (iqlīm) it describes are no longer those of Ptolemean geography, but, reflecting the Iranian tradition, refer to geographical entities or “countries”. Also reflecting the author’s background—whose most common nisba is al-Fārisī—Iran holds a favoured position on this work. Published in 1870, the present edition by M.J. de Goeje was the first volume in the first series of the Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum. In addition to the critical edition of the Kitāb al-Masālik wa l-mamālik, the online version contains the Praefatio, Addenda et emendanda, and the Indices and Glossarium that in the print version appeared in BGA volumes 1-2 and 1-4.
Abū l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal
The journeys of Abū l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal, who might have been a merchant, took him to North Africa, Spain and the southern edge of the Sahara (947-51), Egypt, Armenia and Azerbaijan (c. 955), the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Khuzistan, and Iran (961-69), Khwarazm and Transoxania (c. 969), and Sicily (973). By about 988 CE the final version of Ibn Ḥawqal’s Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ was ready. It is effectively both a continuation and an update of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Kitāb al-Masālik wa l-mamālik and is also known under that same title.
Ibn Ḥawqal transformed what was meant as a commentary on a series of maps, also included in the online edition, into a work in its own right, which also included remarks on various countries or peoples bordering on the Islamic world, e.g. the Turks, the Khazars, the towns of southern Italy, the Sudanese and the Nubians. Although he owed much to al-Iṣṭakhrī’s work, Ibn Ḥawqal aimed to place the text firmly within his own period. He took great care to depict a region precisely in the state and at the date that he himself had seen it, with occasional references to the distant or more recent past. This is particularly true of the notes on economic matters, which form a complete break with convention. Ibn Ḥawqal was the only Arab geographer of the period who really sketched a vivid picture of production.
This online version contains both the first BGA edition by de Goeje which was published in 1873, and the second edition by J.H. Kramers published in 1938-39.
al-Masʿūdī
The journeys of Abū l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal, who might have been a merchant, took him to North Africa, Spain and the southern edge of the Sahara (947-51), Egypt, Armenia and Azerbaijan (c. 955), the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Khuzistan, and Iran (961-69), Khwarazm and Transoxania (c. 969), and Sicily (973). By about 988 CE the final version of Ibn Ḥawqal’s Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ was ready. It is effectively both a continuation and an update of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Kitāb al-Masālik wa l-mamālik and is also known under that same title.
Ibn Ḥawqal transformed what was meant as a commentary on a series of maps, also included in the online edition, into a work in its own right, which also included remarks on various countries or peoples bordering on the Islamic world, e.g. the Turks, the Khazars, the towns of southern Italy, the Sudanese and the Nubians. Although he owed much to al-Iṣṭakhrī’s work, Ibn Ḥawqal aimed to place the text firmly within his own period. He took great care to depict a region precisely in the state and at the date that he himself had seen it, with occasional references to the distant or more recent past. This is particularly true of the notes on economic matters, which form a complete break with convention. Ibn Ḥawqal was the only Arab geographer of the period who really sketched a vivid picture of production.
This online version contains both the first BGA edition by de Goeje which was published in 1873, and the second edition by J.H. Kramers published in 1938-39.
al-Muqaddasī
This online version of the Arabic text of al-Muqaddasī’s Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm contains both editions by M.J. de Goeje: the first edition, published in 1877, and the second edition from 1906. It also presents the additional material (Praefatio, Glossarium, Addenda, and Indices) that appeared in the other BGA volumes.
Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr al-Bannāʾ al-Shāmī al-Muqaddasī is one of the most prominent representatives of Arabic geography in the second half of the 10th century CE. Building on the tradition of the “atlas of Islam” of which al-Iṣṭakhrī and Ibn Ḥawqal were also representatives, al-Muqaddasī was the first to systematize the subject into a proper science of geography of Islam for the benefit of both merchants and the cultivated man. Al-Muqaddasī’s Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (“the best division for the knowledge of the provinces”) was the first work of its kind to be accepted as a form of literature. The treatment of each “province” (iqlīm) begins with the division of its districts and towns, followed by their description. Then a general chapter of the province tends to discuss the following aspects: climate, products and specialties, waters, mines, mountains, holy places, money, taxes, weights and measures, customs, marvels, calendar, political power, factions, schools and Qurʾānic readings, and routes. Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm by al-Muqaddasī covers North Africa (including Iberia), Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Greater Syria, Iraq and Upper Mesopotamia, as well as eight non-Arab provinces including Iran and Afghanistan.
al-Yaʿqūbī
The Kitāb al-buldān (‘The book of countries’) by al-Yaʿqūbī (d. c. 905 CE) is an administrative geography based in part on the author’s extensive travels, which also contains valuable historical data. For instance, it provides the earliest information about the political history and state-building of the Sudan west of the Nile.
Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī
Ibn al-Faqīh was the Iranian author of a geography in Arabic entitled Kitāb al-buldan written around the year 903. The original work is lost, but the abridged version, possibly composed around 1022, has survived in a handful of manuscripts. Only three manuscripts were known during De Goeje’s life and he used them all for his edition, which was originally published in 1885. Its introduction includes a summary of Ibn Faqīh’s life on the basis of the classical sources by De Goeje. Ibn al-Faqīh’s Kitāb al-buldan offers geographical and historical details not found in other sources, and it was in itself an important source for later works, for example by Muqaddasī and Yāqūt.
Ibn Khurradādhbih
Abu ’l-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Khurradādhbih (d. c. 911 CE) is one of the earliest geographical writers in Arabic whose writings have survived more or less in their original form. The Kitāb al-Masālik wa l-mamālik (‘The book of itineraries and kingdoms’) made his reputation. This edition offers the annotated Arabic text along with a French translation, which can be read together online. Also available are the glossarium and the two indices to this work.
Ibn Rusta
Abu ʿAlī Aḥmad b. ʿUmar Ibn Rusta was born in Isfahan at an unknown date and he flourished in the first decade of the 10th century CE. Only the seventh volume of his Kitāb al-Aʿlāq al-nafīsa has survived. The work deals with mathematical, descriptive and human geography and a variety of historical and other subjects. One of his sources seems to have been a more complete version of Ibn Khurradādhbih, which has not survived. The Kitāb al-Aʿlāq al-nafīsa, which has been characterized as an encyclopedia of geographical knowledge, is a rich source on the kinds of subjects that interested the cultivated classes of ʿAbbāsid society.
Qudāma ibn Jaʿfar
The Kitāb al-Kharāj by Qudāma Ibn Jaʿfar is a geographical work that relied on the same sources as Ibn Khurradādhbih. Qudāma b. Jaʿfar was a prominent philologist and historian who died between 940 and 948 CE. This edition contains part of his Kitāb al-Kharāj along with a French translation of the Arabic text.