Table Of ContentLost Maps of the Caliphs
Lost Maps of
the Caliphs
Drawing the World in
Eleventh-C entury Cairo
Yossef Rapoport and
Emilie Savage- Smith
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2018 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the
University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2018
Printed in the United States of America
27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 54088- 7 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 55340- 5 (e- book)
DOI: https:// doi .org /10 .7208 /chicago /9780226553405 .001 .0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rapoport, Yossef, 1968– author. | Savage-Smith, Emilie,
author.
Title: Lost maps of the caliphs : drawing the world in eleventh-
century Cairo / Yossef Rapoport and Emilie Savage-Smith.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: lccn 2018004554 | isbn 9780226540887 (cloth : alk.
paper) | isbn 9780226553405 (e-book)
Subjects: lcsh: Gharā’ib al-funūn wa-mulaḥ al-‘uyūn. |
Geography, Medieval—Egypt—Maps. | Astronomy,
Medieval—Egypt—Maps. | Islamic astrology—Early works
to 1800. | Cosmography—Early works to 1800.
Classification: lcc g93 .r37 2018 | ddc 526.0962/1609021—dc23
lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018004554
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 . A Discovery 7
Chapter 2 . Macrocosm to Microcosm:
Reading the Skies and Stars in Fatimid Egypt 29
Chapter 3 . The Rectangular World Map 75
Chapter 4 . The Nile, the Mountain of the Moon,
and the White Sand Dunes 101
Chapter 5 . The View from the Sea: Navigation and
Representation of Maritime Space 125
Chapter 6 . Ports, Gates, Palaces: Drawing Fatimid
Power on the Island- City Maps 155
Chapter 7 . The Fatimid Mediterranean 181
Chapter 8 . A Musk Road to China 197
Chapter 9 . Down the African Coast, from Aden to
the Island of the Crocodile 215
Chapter 10 . The Book of Curiosities and the Islamic
Geographical Tradition 229
Conclusion . Maps, Seas, and the Ismaʿili Mission 249
Appendix: A Technical Discourse on Star Lore and Astrology 255
Acknowledgments 271
Notes 275
References 307
Index 337
Introduction
About a millennium ago, sometime between 1020 and 1050, in Cairo, a large
illustrated book was completed. Its subject was nothing less than the entire
universe, or what was then known of it. In the course of ten chapters, the
author moved the reader from the outermost sphere of the stars through
the spheres of the five planets visible to the naked eye down to the sublu-
nary world of winds and comets. This was followed by twenty- five chapters
on the Earth, beginning with calculation of the Earth’s circumference, mov-
ing to overall views of the inhabited world, then to coastal lands and islands
of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, lakes of the world, the five
major rivers, and ending with strange plants, animals, and birds inhabiting
the Earth. In his treatise, the author assembled materials, including many
large maps and diagrams, “encompassing the principles of the Raised- Up
Roof [the Heavens] and the Laid- Down Bed [the Earth]”— a book, he
tells his patron, “that will reveal to you their intricate and difficult aspects.”1
The rhyming title that he (and it was surely a “he”) gave the book, Kitāb
Gharāʾib al- funūn wa- mulaḥ al-ʿ uyūn, loosely translates as “The book of cu-
riosities of the sciences and marvels for the eye.” For convenience, it will be
referred to simply as the Book of Curiosities.
We do not know the name of the author nor that of the patron, and the
treatise itself was unknown to modern scholars until a remarkable manu-
script copy of it surfaced in the year 2000. This highly illustrated copy was
probably made in Egypt around 1200, some hundred and fifty years after
the original was completed, and some eight hundred years later, in June of
2002, it was acquired by the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford.
The story of the “discovery” of this highly illustrated manuscript of the
Book of Curiosities, and the evidence for dating the copy as well as the com-
position of the treatise itself, will be discussed in the next chapter.
The manuscript evoked immense interest, particularly from historians of
cartography, for it contains a remarkable series of early maps and astronom-
2 Introduction
ical diagrams, most of which are unparalleled in any Greek, Latin, or Arabic
material. It was followed by the identification of later copies of the treatise
(lacking most of the illustrations) that had lain unnoticed in various librar-
ies among the thousands of unstudied Arabic manuscripts awaiting schol-
arly attention. In 2014 we published a critical edition along with a facsimile
and annotated translation of the maps and text (using all available copies).2
This had been preceded in 2007 by an electronic high- quality reproduction
of the Bodleian manuscript and its illustrations, linked by mouse- overs to
a modern Arabic edition (without full use of other copies) and a prelimi-
nary English translation. This preliminary edition and translation (no lon-
ger available at www .bodley .ox .ac .uk /bookofcuriosities) has now been su-
perseded by the printed critical edition and translation of 2014. Images of
all the folios of the manuscript are available through the Bodleian Library
for digital images (https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/).
While the recent critical edition makes the treatise and its maps available
for further study, it does not explain what they mean. In the 2014 publica-
tion, we limited ourselves to deciphering and translating the details of the
text, and left out the analysis of the treatise as a whole, whether within the
context of Fatimid Egyptian society and learning or within the traditions
of astrology, astronomy, geography, and cartography as they had developed
up to that time in the medieval Islamic world. In this book, we show what
the Book of Curiosities can teach us about eleventh- century Egyptian views
of the macrocosm and microcosm— that is, the celestial universe and the
diminutive world of humankind. By doing so, we will open a window into
the worldview of eleventh- century Islamic society and learning, its geo-
graphic horizons, and some of its scientific endeavors.
The image of the macrocosm and microcosm is essential for understand-
ing the structure and composition of the Book of Curiosities. The macro-
cosm is the entire celestial universe, while the microcosm is the earthly
realm of humans regarded as a miniature reflection of the universe. As-
tronomy, astrology, and star lore are the topics of the first half of the trea-
tise, “On the Heavens.” In the second chapter of the present volume, Emilie
Savage- Smith shows that the Book of Curiosities sheds considerable light
on the practice of astrology and the role of star lore in medieval Islam. The
second half of the Book of Curiosities, “On the Earth,” is discussed by Yossef
Rapoport in chapters 3 through 10, which are devoted to the enigmatic
maps, their geographical information, and the evidence for global trade and
mission networks found in this remarkable treatise. The depictions of both
the celestial sphere and of the terrestrial world reflect the Fatimid Egyptian
intellectual milieu in which the author operated and the Ismaʿili missionary
network of which he may have been a member.
Introduction 3
Fatimid Cairo, where this unique treatise was composed, was an excep-
tional intellectual and political center. The Fatimids had built the city of
Mahdia, in modern Tunisia, as their capital in 909– 12, and indeed the Book
of Curiosities has the earliest preserved depiction of the city (see fig. 2.4
and plate 9). From this North African base, the Fatimids came to occupy
Sicily and to undertake naval operations against the Byzantines. In 969 the
Fatimids entered Old Cairo (Fusṭāṭ) and built a new capital nearby— that
of New Cairo, known as “The Victorious” (al- Qāhirah). Uniquely among
Middle Eastern Islamic empires, the Fatimids made a strategic decision to
rely on maritime power rather than land armies, and they were to become
the most powerful Islamic empire in the Mediterranean at the time. From
their capital in Cairo, the Fatimids ruled over Egypt and Syria, and faced the
forces of the First Crusade in 1099. Greatly weakened in the twelfth century,
they were eventually overthrown by Saladin in 1187.
Unlike the majority of Sunni Islamic states, the Fatimids were an
Ismaʿili- Shiʿa dynasty that used a missionary network to propagate their
sect throughout the Islamic world. By virtue of claiming descent from the
Prophet’s daughter Fāṭimah and his cousin ʿAlī, the Fatimid caliph imams
saw themselves as the righteous leaders of the Muslims and the salvation
guide for humankind. To fulfil this divine promise, the Fatimids relied on
a clandestine missionary network, called daʿwah, established in the mid-
ninth century. It continued to operate following the foundation of the
Fatimid state in North Africa, and, after the conquest of Egypt, its head-
quarters were relocated to Cairo. The training of missionaries was some-
times associated with the House of Knowledge (Dār al- ʿIlm), founded by
the caliph al-Ḥ ākim in 1005, which became a focal point for encyclopedic
learning by missionaries as well as non- Ismaʿilis. As a result of caliphal
patronage and the missionary network, Fatimid Cairo attracted some the
most influential scientists, philosophers, and poets of the medieval Islamic
world.
The chapters that follow go beyond the analysis of the work of one indi-
vidual in one extraordinary capital of the Islamic world. We aim here to
offer a reconsideration of the development of astronomy, astrology, geog-
raphy, and cartography in the first four centuries of Islam. Through the
comprehensive and structured discussion of the skies in the Book of Curi-
osities, this book outlines the medieval Islamic understanding of the basic
structure of the cosmos and celestial phenomena, as they were understood
outside the circles of practicing astronomers and astrologers. Moreover, the
Book of Curiosities forcefully illustrates the pervasive assumptions about the
effects on life on Earth of almost any visible celestial phenomenon— be it
zodiacal or non- zodiacal constellations, the smaller star groups called lunar
