Key Pages:
Home
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
Al-Muqaddasi was a medieval Arab geographer (946-1000) who wrote "The Best Division for Knowledge of the Regions" Al-Muqaddasi was amongst the first geographers who traveled to the places he studies instead of only relying on sources. He laid down a systematic system with defined geographical terms and standardized units of measurement (farsakh.) He paid emphasis on a descriptive geography and ethnographic observation. He wrote about everything that he saw and experienced in the countries through which he traveled resulting in a rich account of the lands and the culture and the people that were found there. Al-Muqaddasi traveled only in the "realm of Islam" and thus marked a specific Muslim territory, giving rise to the idea of a "Mamlakat al-Islam" (Dar ul-Islam)
Posted at Mar 10/2011 07:57PM:
ian: well done