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The Contribution of Muslim Geographers in Geographical Science
The Contribution of Muslim Geographers in Geographical Science
Prompted by the sense of Islamic brotherhood, and the quest for knowledge
and piety, Muslim scholars engaged in many exploration and navigational
activities between the ninth and twelfth centuries (Nafis, 1972). The journeys
were not confined to the political boundaries of the Islamic empire but
extended to distant regions such as China, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa
The Muslim geographers' immense contribution in the field of geography,
oceanography, and related sciences paved the way for understanding of
geography and discovery and exploration of new parts of the earth. The
Muslim scholars were immensely motivated by the verses of holy Qur'an which
encourage men to travel in the world and make observations about
civilizations and nations to derive lessons and guidance from their stories.
In this regard, Yaqut al-Hamawi, the thirteenth century Muslim geographer
mentions the verses of holy Quran which inspires to travel and learn lessons in
his famous book Geographical Dictionary. Muslim geographers and scholars
have made a significant contribution to the evolution and development of the
science of geography from the earliest times.
THE STUDY OF GEOGRAPHY was held in high regard by early Muslim scholars.
Interest in the subject may be attributed to various influences: the Quran's
inspiration regarding geographical enquiry; the challenges presented by the
physical environment of traditional Arab homelands; the history of conquest of
and by the Arabs; the nomadic way of life, the pilgrimage to Mecca; and the
expansion over centuries of the vast Muslim empire with the consequent need
for geographical information and knowledge about new lands and ways of
reaching them. Muslim geographers' contributions to the subject have been
many and varied. It was they who were credited with the translation into
Arabic of important Greek geography texts which in turn provided them with
the foundation for the development of new concepts and insights (e.g. the
spheroid nature of the Earth and the importance of géomorphologie
processes) as well as methods of study (e.g. using advance mapping
techniques). They were responsible for the diffusion of scientific thought into
Europe,and for constructing a world map.
1. Al-Khwārizmī's (780-850) :
Al-Khwārizmī's was born in Baghdad, Iraq. His major work is
Kitāb şürat al-Ard (Arabic: is = Book on the أل رض ص ورة
appearance of the Earth" or "The image of the Earth.
Al-Khwārizmī corrected Ptolemy's gross overestimate for the
length of the Mediterranean Sea. Al -Khwārizmī depicted the
Atlantic and Indian Oceans as open bodies of water, not land-
locked seas as of Ptolemy.
2. Abdullah al-Mamun(786-833):
(September 14, 786 AD, Baghdad, Iraq.
August 9, 833 AD, Tarsus, Turkey)
He was the seventh caliphor rule of the Islamic Empire,
of the Abbasid dynasty.
He ordered geodetic measurements, to determine the
size of the earth, and the drawing of a large map of the world.
3. ibn-Haukal :
One of the earliest of the great Arab travellers was ibn-Haukal, who spent the
last 30 years of his life between 943 and 973 visiting some of the most remote
parts of Africa and Asia. On his voyage along the African east coast to a point
some 20 degrees south of the equator, he observed that considerable numbers
of people were living in those latitudes that the Greeks thought to be
uninhabitable. Yet the Greek theory persisted and keeps appearing in different
form again and again, even in modern times.
Ibn Hawqal based his great work of geography on a revision and augmentation
of the text called Masalik ul-Mamalik by Istakhi (951 AD), which itself was a
revised edition of the Suwar al-agalim by
Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi, (ca. 921 AD).[4]
However Ibn Hawqal was more than an
editor, he was travel writer writing in the
style followed later by Abu Ubaydallah al al-
Bakri in his Kitab al Masälik wa-al-Mamalik
("Book of Routes and Realms"), a literary
genre which uses reports Hawqal of
merchants and travelers. Ibn introduces 10th
century humour Into his account of Sicily
during the Kalbid-Fatimid dynasty. As a
primary source his medieval geography tends to exaggeration and his depiction
of the barbaric uncivilised Christians of Palermo, reflects the prevailing politics
of his time. Yet his gographic accounts of his personal travels were relied upon,
and found useful, by medieval Arab travellers.
The chapters on Al-Andalus Musim-held Spain, and particularly on Sicily,
describe the richly cultivated area of Fraxinet (La Garde-Freinet), and detail a
number of regional innovations practiced by Muslim farmers and fishermen.
The chapter on the Byzantine Empire - known in the Muslim as, and called by
the Byzantines world as themselves the "Lands of the Romans" nives his first-
hand observation of the: languages spoken in the Caucasus, with the the 360
Lingua Franca being Azeri and Persian across the region. With the description
of Kiev, he may have mentioned the route of the Volga Bulgars and the
Khazars, which was perhaps taken from Sviatoslav I of Kiev,[5] He also
published a cartographic map of Sindh together with accounts of the
geography and culture of Sindh and the Indus River.
4. Al-Balkhi 850-934 :
Abu Zayd Ahmed ibn Sahl Balkhi (Persian: Jal ) was a geogrpher,mathematician,
physician, psychologist and scientist. Born in 850 CE in Shamistiyan, in the
province of Balkh Khorasan (in modern of Afghanistan). he was a disciple of al
Kindi. He was also the founder of “ Balkhi school” of terrestrial mapping in
Bagdad.
His Figures of the Regions (Suwar al aqalim) consisted chiefly of geographical
maps. It led to him founding the "Balkhi school of terrestrial mapping in
Baghdad. The geographers of this school also wrote extensively of the peoples,
products, and customs of areas in the Muslim world, with little interest in the
non
In 921 al-Balkhi hered the observations of climate features made by Arab
travelers in the world's first climate atlas--the Kitab al-Ashkal. Al-Masudi, who
died about 956, had gone south as far
as modem-day Mozambique and wrote
a very npod description of the
monsoons. good described bed the He
evaporation of moisture from water
surfaces and the condensation of moisture in condensation of the the form of
clouds this, in the tenth century.
In 985 al-Maqdisi offered a new division of the world into 14 cimatic regions in
The Best Divisions for the Study Climate. He recognized that climate varied not
only by latitude but also by position east and west.
He also presented the idea that the Southern Hemisphere was mostly open
ocean and that most of the world's land area was in the Northem Hemisphere.
Mineralogy
Al-Biruni introduced scientific method intomineralogy in his Kitab Jawahir(Book
of Precious Stones)
14. Aḥmad ibn Abī Ya‘qūb ibn Ja'far ibn Wahb ibn Waḍīḥ al-Ya‘qūbī:
Aḥmad ibn Abī Ya‘qūb ibn Jafar ibn Wahb ibn Waḍīḥ al-Ya‘qūbī (died 897/8),
known as Ahmad aal-Yaqubi,or Ya'qubi (Arabic:
)اليعقوبي, was a Muslim geographer and perhaps the
first historian of world culture in the Abbasid
Caliphate.
15. Ibn Khordadbeh :
Abul Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh (Persian: ابوالقاسم عبیدهللا ابن
( )خرداذبهc. 820 – 912), better known as Ibn Khordadbeh or Ibn Khurradadhbih,
was a Persian geographer and bureaucrat of the 9th century.He is the author
of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography.