Abū Abdallāh Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Abdallāh

ibn Idrīs al-sharif al-Idrīsī

BACKGROUND
 Well known as al-Idrisi.
 Born in Sabtah, Morocco (now known as Ceuta), around 1100 C.E and died 1165/66
in Sicily.
 Attended the university in Cordoba, Spain, and travelled throughout North Africa,
Europe’s Mediterranean region, and Spain.
 In 1145 C.E., al-Idrisi became an advisor to King Roger II of Sicily. Roger II hired al-
Idrisi to create an updated world map.
 Al-Idrisi sent travellers and geographers around the world to gather knowledge for
this updated map and others.
 Al-Idrisi traced his descent through a long line of princes, caliphs, and holy men to
the Prophet Muhammad. His immediate forebears, the Ḥammūdids of the short-lived
caliphate (1016–58) in Spain and North Africa, were an offshoot of
the Idrīsids of Morocco (789–985), a dynasty descended from Muhammad’s eldest
grandson, al-Hasan ibn Ali.
 He spent much of his early life travelling in North Africa and Spain and seems to have
acquired detailed and accurate information on both regions.

ACHIEVEMENT
 Some Western scholars have suggested that al-Idrisi may have been regarded as
a renegade by other Muslims for entering the service of a Christian king and praising
him lavishly in his writings.
 Al-Idrisi’s service in Sicily resulted in the completion of three major geographic
works:
(1) a silver planisphere on which was depicted a map of the world,
(2) a world map consisting of 70 sections formed by dividing the Earth north
of the Equator into 7 climatic zones of equal width, each of which was
subdivided into 10 equal parts by lines of longitude, and
(3) a geographic text intended as a key to the planisphere.
 Work of descriptive geography, known as Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-
āfāq also known as Kitā Rujār, or Al-Kitāb ar-Rujārī  (“The Book of Roger”).
 Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq or The Excursion of One Who is Eager to
Traverse the Regions of the World, was completed in 1154 C.E., shortly before the
king’s death. The finished product included a text illustrating the geographic findings
and a collection of 70 maps that included the world north of the equator.
 Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq represents a serious attempt to combine descriptive and
astronomical geography.
 Several other geographic works are attributed to al-Idrisi, including one (now lost)
written for William I, Roger’s son and successor who reigned from 1154 to 1166, as
well as several critical revisions and abridgments. The Medici press in Rome
published an abridgment of Kitāb nuzhat al-mushtāq  in 1592; a Latin translation was
published under the title Geographia Nubiensis. The only complete translation of the
work in any language is P.A. Jaubert’s two-volume Géographie d’Édrisi (1836–40);
it is unreliable, however, because it was based on faulty manuscripts. Al-Idrīsī’s
scientific interests embraced medical matters as well, and his Kitāb al-adwiya al-
mufradah (“Book of Simple Drugs”), in which he lists the names of drugs in as many
as 12 languages, demonstrates the range of his linguistic abilities.