A Quarterly Newsletter for Social Studies Educators
Vol. III, No. 1 1993
Published by AWAIR:
Arab World And Islamic Resources and School Services
Berkeley, CA USA
awair@igc.apc.org
CONTENTS:
- GEOGRAPHY AND GEOGRAPHERS: Arab Geographers of the Middle Ages
- Muslim Sea Traders, Merchants and Explorers- Adding to
the Store of Geographic Knowledge
- Resources for History Day 1994 - "Geography in History:
People, Places, and Time"
- Lesson Plans
- Resources for Further Study
- About AWAIR
==ARAB GEOGRAPHERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES==
AL-IDRISI (1100 - 1166)
In the 12th century, Sicily in particular was a meeting ground for Muslim and Christian civilizations, having been under Muslim rule until the end of the 11th century. Like Muslim Spain, it was a beacon of prosperity to a Latin Christian Europe caught in the economic and intellectual slow-down we call the Dark Ages. In Sicily the Arabs built dams, irrigation systems, reservoirs and water towers, introduced new crops - oranges and lemons, cotton, dates and rice - and made good use of the island's mines and fishing grounds. Early in the 11th century a band of Norman adventurers, the Hautevilles, arrived in southern Italy to wrest it from the Byzantine Greeks and their allies, the Muslims, and in 1101 Count Roger de'Hauteville capped his career by conquering Sicily. Four years later he passed the territory on to his son, Roger, crowned as King Roger II. Roger II, educated by Greek and Arab tutors, was an intellectual who had a zest for scientific inquiry, and relished the company of Muslim scholars, of whom Al-Idrisi was one of the most celebrated.
Al-Idrisi (full name: Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Abdallah Ibn Idris Al-Hammudi Al-Hasani) was born in Morocco, the son of a noble family which claimed direct descendency from the Prophet Muhammad. He was educated in Cordoba and was a poet, a student of medicine and an avid traveler, visiting such places as the Canary Islands, Al-Andalus (the region now known as Spain and Portugal), North Africa, and the region that is present day Turkey.
Al-Idrisi, at Roger's invitation, finally settled in Palermo, Sicily where he was employed by the Norman King to write a systematic geography of the world. The result was <Kitab Ar- Rujari> (Roger's Book), which shows the world divided into seven regions, gives distances between major cities, and describes the customs, people, products and climate of the entire known world.
Al-Idrisi engraved his information of the known world on a spherical globe as well as on a silver disk-shaped map. The great disk, almost 80 inches in diameter and weighing over 300 pounds, was fabricated out of silver, chosen for its malleability and permanence. Al-Idrisi explained that the disk merely symbolized the shape of the world: "The earth is round like a sphere, and the waters adhere to it and are maintained on it through natural equilibrium which suffers no variation ... All creatures are stable on the surface of the earth, the air attracting what is light, the earth attracts what is heavy, as the magnet attracts iron."
Using maps such as these, Al-Idrisi showed the earth to be round (elsewhere, other Muslim scholars had computed the circumference of the earth). This was more than three centuries before Columbus made the idea famous.
Al-Idrisi's disk-shaped map became one of the wonders of the age. On it the continents join at Suez and are bounded by oceans. Rivers like the Danube, Niger, Nile, Volga, Ganges and Yangtze all flow from their correctly marked sources to the sea, and mountain ranges are clearly marked in Arabic, including "The Mountains of the Moon, source of the Nile" in present-day Uganda. (Englishmen of the 19th century were still looking for the source of the Nile.) Among other names in Arabic on Al- Idrisi's map are: India ("Al-Hind"), Tibet ("At-Tibet"), China ("Al-Aseen"), Ghana ("Bilad Ghana"), France ("Al-Franziah"), and Germany ("Almaniah"). The details of eastern Asia are quite exact - two centuries before Marco Polo.
Al-Idrisi, on one of the 142 maps contained in Roger's Book, has even curiously marked the site of the 1066 Battle of Hastings.
In 1160, Sicilian barons rose in rebellion against William, the son of King Roger, and during the disorders, looted the palace. In a great fire in the courtyard, they burned government records, books and documents - including a new Latin edition of Roger's Book which Al-Idrisi had presented to William. At the same time, the silver map and celestial sphere disappeared, apparently cut up and melted down.
Since the barons had attacked the Muslims of Sicily with particular ferocity, Al-Idrisi fled to North Africa where, six years later, he died. But as he brought the Arabic text with him, his great work lived on, winning widespread fame and serving as a model for Muslim geographers and historians for centuries. It provided the great Muslim historian, Ibn Khaldun, with practically all of his geographical knowledge.
It was not, however, available in Europe. Although the Arabic text of Roger's Book was published in Rome by the Medici press in 1592, it was not again available to Europeans in Latin until the 17th century. In the 1400s, therefore, Christopher Columbus had to rely on other sources of information. Using a globe prepared by a German cartographer named Martin Behaim (based on Ptolemy's miscalculations), Columbus also added in Marco Polo's equally misleading estimates of distances and concluded, incorrectly, that by sailing west from Spain he could reach Japan or India after no more than a 4,000 mile voyage. It is a curious thought that had Columbus been aware of the true distance - from Al-Idrisi's estimates - he might have hesitated to undertake his voyage.
IBN BATTUTA (1301 - 1369)
Born in Fez, Morocco, Ibn Battuta was the greatest tourist of his age. His love of travel began at age 21, when he went on the pilgrimage to Makkah in order to fulfill one of the five "pillars of Islam." From there he traveled to Iraq, Iran and Yemen. During his life his travels took him to North Africa, Syria, Medina, Iraq, Yemen, the Nile, the Red Sea, Asia Minor, the Black Sea, the Crimea, Constantinople, Afghanistan, India, China, and ending in Granada, where he died at the age of 68. His motto was "Never, so far as possible, cover any road a second time."
Ibn Battuta's accounts of his trips are often the only record we have of what different people in the 14th century were like. His accounts are full of such descriptions as: how the city of Delhi managed the rice granaries in time of famine; the fine bazaars and wide streets of the Ottoman capital of Bursa; the silk uniforms of the court pages in China, and so forth. Ibn Battuta became chief judge of Delhi, India in 1333, and a year later he served as the Moroccan Ambassador to the Mongol emperor of China. Ibn Battuta was able to travel so far because the Islamic world at the time was far reaching, centrally governed and peaceful, with Arabic as the universal language. He could stop and work as a judge wherever he went because Islamic law was practiced in most of the places he visited.
He was more than just a geographer and mapmaker. His lasting fame comes from the carefully recorded observations he made of the politics, administration, social conditions, and economies of the lands he visited (75,000 miles in thirty years, across the entire hemisphere). Especially fascinating are his historical accounts of west Africa and Muslim India. Ibn Battuta also wrote about women, and took special interest in religious leaders, saints and theologians, thereby recording the religious life of the 14th century.
HASSAN AL WAZZAN (1488 - ?)
Hassan Al-Wazzan was born in Granada, shortly before its surrender to Ferdinand and Isabella, marking the end of the glorious history of Al-Andalus. His family, like other Muslim and Jewish families, was forced into exile by the ensuing Inquisition. Like many Andalusian exiles, his family settled in Fez, Morocco, where Al-Wazzan spent his childhood. He traveled first across the Atlas Mountains with his uncle, emissary to the Sultan of Fez. On subsequent journeys East, Al- Wazzan traveled as a merchant, later going to the court at Constantinople and performing the pilgrimage to Makkah.
It was on a voyage homewards by sea that he was taken prisoner by a Sicilian pirate, enslaved, and offered as a gift to Pope Leo X who baptized him as a member of his family, offering him his own name "Johannes Leo Medici." It is by the name Leo, (later "Leo Africanus") that Al-Wazzan became known to European historians. Toward the end of his life he returned to North Africa where he once again embraced Islam.
It is against the backdrop of the 16th century Mediterranean world - the fall of Granada in 1492 - the Ottoman conquest of Egypt - Rome under the Medicis - that Al-Wazzan lived, keeping an account of his travels, <Descriptions of Africa>, which he himself translated in 1526 from Arabic to Italian.
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==THE MUSLIMS WERE FAR RANGING SEA TRADERS -
Merchants/explorers whose travels added to the store of geographic knowledge.==
One of the oldest known desctiptions in the West =of China= is an Arab merchant's eyewitness account of his travels there in the 9th century - 400 years before Marco Polo.
And many of the oldest known descriptions by outsiders of the New World (the Americas and the Carribbean) are those of:
* Abu Bakr Ibn Umar Al-Qutiyya relates the story of Ibn Farrukh who landed in February 999 in Gando (Great Canary Island), visited King Guanariga, continuing his journey westward till he found islands he called Capraria and Pluitana and regurning to Arab Spain in May.
* Al Idrisi himself (see previous section) reported in his extensive work <The Geography of Al-Idrisi>, in the 12th century, on the journey of a group of North African seamen who reached the Americas. Al-Idrisi wrote: "A group of seafarers sailed into the sea of Darkness and Fog [the Atlantic Ocean] from Lisbon in order to discover what was in it and to what extent were its limit. They were a party of eight and they took a boat which was loaded with supplies to last them for months ... They finally reached an island that had people and cultivation but they were captured and chained for three days. On the fourth day a translator came speaking the Arabic language! He translated for the King and asked them about their mission. They informed him about themselves, then they were returned to their confinement. When the westerly wind began to blow, they were put in a canoe, blindfolded and brought to land after three days' sailing. They were left on the shore with their hands tied behind their backs. When the next day came, another tribe appeared, freeing them and informing them that between them and their lands was a journey of two months." This astonishing historical report not only clearly describes contact between Muslim seamen and the indigenous people of the Caribbean islands, but it confirms the fact that the contact between the two worlds had been so involved that the native people had Arabic speakers among them.
* Al-Umari in his <Masalik al Absar fi Mamalik al Amsar> reports of Mansa Musa describing to scholars in Cairo, on his famous pilgrimage to Makkah in 1324, how his predessor in the West African Islamic Empire of Mali "would not believe that it was impossible to discover the limits of the neighboring sea [Atlantic Ocean]. He wanted to find out and persisted in his plan. He had two hundred ships equipped and filled them with men, and others in the same number filled with gold, water and supplied in sufficient quantity to last for years. He told those who commanded them: 'Return only when you have reached the extremity of the ocean, or when you have exhausted your food and water.' They went away; their absense was long before any of them returned. We asked the captain about their adventures. 'Prince,' he replied, 'we sailed for a long time, up to the moment when we encountered in mid-ocean something like a river with a violent current. My ship was last, the others sailed on, and gradually as each one entered this place, they disappeared and did not come back. We did not know what had happened to them. As for me, I returned to where I was and did not enter the current.' But the emperor did not want to believe him. He equipped two thousand vessels, a thousand for himself and the men who accompanied him and a thousand for water and supplies. He conferred power on me[Mansa Musa] and left with his companions on the ocean. This was the last time that I saw him and the others, and I remain absolute master of the empire."
This report reveals that the Manding [sometimes "Mandingo"] monarch made great preparation for the journey and had confidence in its success. His captain, who reported the violent river mid-ocean, must have encountered a mid-ocean current. But considerable evidence establishes that other Manding contact was successful. The Manding made contact with the closest land mass to the West African coast, Brazil. They appear to have used it as a base for exploration of the Americas, traveling along rivers in the dense jungles of South American and overland till they reached North America. The African Muslims of Honduras called themselves "Almamys" prior to the coming of the Spaniards. They may have been related to the Africans of northern Honduras seen by Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher Columbus. In the Manding language "Almamy" was used for Al Imamu (Arabic for "prayer leader").
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==RESOURCES FOR HISTORY DAY 1994==
"Geography in History: People, Places and Time"
AWAIR will be presenting awards to students participating in History Day 1994. The special catagory of our award is Arab or Islamic History. Awards will be presented at the state level of competition in California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Texas - as well as at the National Level.
History Day is a highly regarded national program involving now 500,000 students and over 50,000 teachers from the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Designed for students in grades six through twelve, the program culminates in a national contest after a series of competitions at local and state levels. Students compete in a program that encourages young people to conduct extensive research and to explore historical subjects related to an annual theme. Contest catagories include: project, performance, media presentation, and paper. If your school does not now participate in History Day, find out how you can become participants by writing to: National History Day, University of Maryland, 0121 Caroline Hall, College Park, MD 20742.
In this issue of AWAIR's Middle East Resources, we bring to students' attention some of the topics they may wish to explore in working toward an AWAIR award. The topics presented here are not meant to be exhaustive of the possibilities, but to whet student appetite for further investigation:
* The Fantastic Maps and Globes of Al-Idrisi
* Ibn-Battuta: 14th Century Geographer and Explorer
* Mansa Musa's Incredible Pilgrimage from Mali to Makkah
* Muslim Merchants of the Middle Ages: Spreading Goods, Ideas and Islam
* Geographers of the Sky: Arab Astronomers Map the Heavens
* Forced Migration: The Muslims and Jews of Spain
* The Life of the Wandering Sufis: The Mediterranean in Medieval Times
* Leo Africanus: Muslim Geographer Extraordinaire
* The Function of the Nomadic Society
* Immigrants from Arab Lands: Arab-American Daughters -
from Paula Abdul to Christa McAuliffe and Donna Shalala
1. Have students chart, using two different colors, medieval Italian and Muslim trade routes.
2. Compare these trade routes (perhaps with overlays) with the spread of the bubonic plague (Black Death), with the realization that it affected everyone along these trade routes, not just Europeans.
3. Have students chart the travels of Marco Polo and those of Ibn Battuta.
4. Have students wrestle with the task of redoing the world history textbook maps that traditionally show the routes traveled by the Christian Crusaders on their way to the Holy Land, so that they reflect these routes from the point of view of the Arabs.
For Discussion and Research:
1. Have a student demonstrate to the class how an astrolabe works, and why it was crucial to sailing on the open seas.
2. Indonesia was the farthest eastern extension of Islam. Today it is the country with the largest Muslim population in the world. Have students research how Islam was successfully carried more than 6,000 miles to Indonesia.
3. Islamic civilization at its height in the 12th century, represented the largest territorial empire in history. Have students discuss the statement: "Islam was carried largely in ships' holds, on the backs, and in the hearts, of merchants and traders."
4. Suppose a European scholar (outside of Spain) had traveled through Christian Europe in 1300 the way Ibn Battuta traveled through the Muslim world. What obstacles would they probably have met?
5. Why was Ibn Battuta able to travel so far and to find work wherever he went? How did these same factors encourage Islamic world trade?
==RESOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY==
- Dunn, Ross E., <The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century> Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989. $14.00
- Gies, Frances-Carney, "Al-Idrisi and 'Roger's Book'", in <Aramco World Magazine> July-August 1977. (Reprint of article $1.50)
- Gies, Frances-Carney, "To Travel the Earth: Ibn Battuta" in <Aramco World Magazine> Jan-Feb 1978. (Reprint of article $1.50)
- Hayes, John R., editor, <The Genius of Arab Civilization: Source of Renaissance> Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983. $15.95
- Maalouf, Amin, <Leo the African> translated by Peter Sluglett, London: Quartet Books, 1986. The story of Hassan Al-Wazzan. hardbound, $19.95
Works cited above are available from AWAIR, to order: Individuals send check or money order.
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AWAIR represents a long-term effort by Audrey Shabbas and colleagues who share a commitment to quality materials and services for educators teaching about the Arab World and Islam at the pre-college level. AWAIR is a non-profit educational organization with 501(C)(3) tax-deductible status. AWAIR'S work is supported by foundation grants, private donations and the sale of curriculum materials. AWAIR's Advisory Board includes distinguished academics from across disciplines and at all levels of education who share the goals of the organization.
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Copyright AWAIR 1993
Sophia Husain, Editor
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