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Islamic and Middle Eastern Travellers and Geographers

Critical Concepts in Islamic Thought

Edited by Ian Netton

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About the Book

The area of Middle Eastern geography and travel has attracted large numbers of scholars over the last fifty years. This new collection from Routledge features key articles from the field to create a major and continuing resource for scholars and students alike.

The first volume concentrates on the Islamic geographers who mapped and made navigable the routes followed by later travellers. While travel, and in particular the rihla (or ‘travel to Mecca’) did not depend for its impetus on formal geography, both were highlighted in the travellers’ diaries and travelogues which helped to make known and illuminate the boundaries of an expanding empire. Links between geography and the pilgrim routes to Mecca and Medina are particularly significant.

Because of their huge significance in illuminating the medieval world of Islam, a very large number if articles deal with the travels of Ibn Jubayr (1145–1217) (Volume II) and Ibn Battuta (1304–368/9 or 1377) (Volume III), while Volume IV covers the post-medieval and early modern period.

Table of Contents

Volume I: Medieval Geographers and Travellers

1. X. De Planhol, ‘The Geographical Setting’, in P. M. Holt, Anne K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis (eds.), The Cambridge History of Islam, Vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1970), pp. 443–68
2. S. Maqbul Ahmad and Fr. Taeschner, ‘Djughrafiya’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn., Vol. 2 (Leiden: E. J. Brill/London: Luzac, 1965), pp. 575–90
3. Salah Salim Ali, ‘Arabic Reference to Plato’s Lost Atlantis’, Islamic Quarterly, Vol. 43: 4 (1999), pp. 259–78
4. David W. Tschanz, ‘Journeys of Faith, Roads of Civilization’, Saudi Aromco World, Vol. 55: 1 (Jan.–Feb. 2004), pp. 2–11
5. V. Minorsky, ‘Tamín ibn Bahr’s Journey to the Uighurs’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, no. XII (1948), pp. 275–305
6. James E. Montgomery, ‘Ibn Rusta’s Lack of "Eloquence" the Rús, and Samanid Cosmography’, Edebiyat, Vol. 12: 1 (2001), pp. 73–93
7. Judith Gabriel, ‘Among the Norse Tribes: The Remarkable Account of Ibn Fadlan’, Aramco World, Vol. 50: 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1999), pp. 36–42
8. Maria Kowalska, ‘Ibn Fadlan’s Account of His Journey to the State of the Bulgars’, Folia Orientalia, Vol. 14 (1972–3), pp. 219–30
9. James E. Montgomery, ‘Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, Vol. 3 (2000), pp 1–25
10. Robert P. Blake and Richard N. Frye, ‘Noted on the Risala of Ibn Fadlan’, Byzantina Metabyzantina, Vol. 1: 2 (1949), pp. 7–37
11. James V. Parry, ‘Mapping Arabia’, Saudi Aramco World, Vol. 55: 1 (Jan.–Feb. 2004), pp. 20–37
12. Ahmed S. Maqbul, ‘Al-Mas ‘údí’s Contribution to Medieval Arab Geography’, Islamic Culture, Vol. 27 (1953), pp. 61–77; Vol. 28 (1953), pp. 61–77; Vol. 28 (1954), pp. 275–86
13. G Ferrand, Relations de Voyages et texts géographiques arabes, persans et turcs relatifs à l’extrème-orient des VIIIe au XVIIIe siècles, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1913), pp. 89–90, 208–31
14. J. C. Garcin, ‘Ibn Hawqal, l’Orient et le Maghreb’, Revue de l’Occident Musulman et de la Mediterraneé, Vol. 35 (1983), pp. 77–91
15. F. Gabrielo, ‘Ibn Hawqal e gli Arabi di Sicilia’, Rivista Studi Orientali, Vol. XXXV (1961), pp. 245–53
16. D. M. Dunlop, ‘The British Isles According to Medieval Arabic Authors’, Islamic Quarterly, Vol. 4 (1957), pp. 11–28
17. A. F. L. Beeston, ‘Idrisi’s Account of the British Isles’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 13 (1950), pp. 265–80
18. J. S. Trimingham, ‘The Arab Geographers and the East African Coast’, in H. N. Chittick and R. I. Rotberg (eds.), East Africa and the Orient (New York, 1975), pp. 115–46
19. Raphael Israeli, ‘Medieval Muslim Travellers to China’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 20: 2 (2000), pp. 313–21
20. Alauddin Samarrai, ‘Beyond Belief and Reverence: Medieval Mythological Ethnography in the Near East and Europe’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Vol. 23: 1 (1993), pp. 19–42

Volume II: The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (AD 1145–1217)

21. Ian Richard Netton, ‘Rihla’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), Vol. VIII, p. 328
22. A. J. Wensinck et al., ‘Hadjdj’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), Vol. III, pp. 31–8
23. Sir Hamilton A. R. Gibb, ‘The Rise of Saladin 1169–1189’, in Kenneth M. Setton (gen. ed.), A History of the Crusades: Volume One: The First Hundred Years, ed. Marshall W. Baldwin (Madison, Milwaukee and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), pp. 563–89
24. H. A. R. Gibb, ‘The Achievement of Saladin’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Vol. 35: 1 (1952), pp. 44–60; repr. in Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Studies on the Civilization of Islam, eds. Stanford J. Shaw and William R. Polk (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1962), pp. 91–107
25. R. Blachère and H. Darmaun, Géographes arabes, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1957), pp. 318–48.
26. Ian Richard Netton, ‘Ibn Jubayr: Penitent Pilgrim and Observant Traveller’, Seek Knowledge: Thought and Travel in the House of Islam (Richmond: Curzon, 1996), pp. 95–101
27. R. J. C. Broadhurst (trans.), The Travels of Ibn Jubayr (London: Jonathan Cape, 1952), pp. 69–157, 196–222
28. S. A. Bonebakker, ‘Three Manuscripts of Ibn Jubayrs’s Rihla’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali (1972), pp. 235–45
29. A. Gateau, ‘Quelques observations sur l’Intéret du Voyage d’Ibn Jubayr’, Hesperis, Vol. 36: 3–4 (1949), pp. 289–312
30. Ian Richard Netton, ‘Basic Structures and Signs of Alienation in the Rihla of Ibn Jubayr’, Seek Knowledge: Thought and Travel in the House of Islam (Richmond: Curzon, 1996), pp. 127–44
31. G. Peyronnet, ‘Coexistence islamo-chrétienne en Sicile et Moyen-Orient à travers le récit de voyage d’ibn Jubayr voyageur andalou et pèlerin musulman’, Islamochristiana, Vol. 19 (1993), pp. 55–73
32. Claude Cahen, ‘Ibn Jubayr et les Maghrébins de Syrie’, Revue de l’Occident Musulman et de la Mediterranée, Vol. 13–14 (1973), pp. 207–9
33. S. Sauneron, ‘Le Temple d’Akhmim Décrit par Ibn Jobair’, Bulletin de l’Institut Français d’Archaeologie Orientale, Vol. 51 (1952), pp. 123–35
34. Elka Weber, ‘Construction of Identity in Twelfth Century Andalusia: The Case of Travel Writing’, Journal of North African Studies, Vol. 5: 2 (2000), pp. 1–8
35. J. N. Mattock, ‘The Travel Writings of Ibn Jubair and Ibn Batuta’, Glasgow Oriental Society Transactions, Vol. 21 (1965–6), pp. 35–46
36. J. N. Mattock, ‘Ibn Battuta’s Use of Ibn Jubayr’s Rihla’, in Rudolph Peters (ed.), Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union Européene des Arabisants et Islamisants, Publication of the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo, no. 4 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), pp. 209–18
37. Ian Richard Netton, ‘Tourist Adab and Cairene Architecture: The Medieval Paradigm of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battutah’, in Mustansir Mir (ed.), Literary Heritage of Classical Islam (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1993), pp. 275–84; repr. in Ian Richard Netton, Seek Knowledge: Thought and Travel in the House of Islam (Richmond: Curzon, 1996), pp. 145–53
38. Giovanna Calasso, ‘Les tâches du voyageur: décrire, mesurer. Compter chez Ibn Jubayr, Naser-e Khosrow et Ibn Battuta’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali, Vol. 73: i–iv, (1999), pp. 69–104

Volume III: The Travels of Ibn Battuta (AD 1304–1368/9 or 1377)

39. H. A. R. Gibb, ‘Introduction’, in Gibb (trans.), Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1929; repr. 1969), pp. 1–40
40. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, ‘Foreword’, The Travels of Ibn Battutah (London: Macmillan, 2002), pp. vii–xxi (inc. 2 maps)
41. Tim Mackintosh-Smith, ‘Morocco: One End of the World’, Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah (London: John Murray, 2001), pp. 14–47
42. Charles Beckingham, ‘In Search of Ibn Battuta’, Asian Affairs, Vol. 8 (1977), pp. 263–77
43. Ross E. Dunn, ‘International Migration of Literate Muslims in the Later Middle Period: The Case of Ibn Battuta’, in Ian Richard Netton (ed.), Golden Roads: Migration, Pilgrimage and Travel in Mediaeval and Modern Islam (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1993), pp. 75–85
44. François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar and Bertrand Hirsch, ‘Voyage aux Frontières du Monde: Topologie, narration et jeux de miroir dans la Rihla de Ibn Battuta’, Afrique et Histoire, no. 1 (Sept. 2003), pp. 75–122
45. Ian Richard Netton, ‘Arabia and the Pilgrim Paradigm of Ibn Battuta: A Braudelian Approach’, Seek Knowledge: Thought and Travel in the