The contribution of Muslim

Geographers in Geographical Science

Geography is the study of the Earth’s surface as the space within which the
human population lives. The internal logic of this study has tended to split
modern geography into two parts: physical and human. Such a division was
inapplicable in the geography of the Middle Ages, the golden age of scientific
inquiry in Islamic civilization (Tozer, 1964). Nevertheless, if we confine the
meaning of science and technology to the natural and exact sciences, then a
survey of geography in Islam may be divided into three categories: exploration
and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical
geography.

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.

5. Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Masudi (896-

956):
He was an Abbasid-era Arab historian based in
Baghdad. He traveled the world journeying from
Persia, Central Asia, India, the Near East, Madagascar
and the China Sea.
Muruj adh-Dhahab (Meadows of gold)is a
compilation of his studies travel observations and
studies
6. Muhammad ibn Ahmad Shams al-Din Al-Muqaddasi (946-1000,
Jerusalem) :
He was author of: "Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma rifat il-
Aqalim" (The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the
Regions)
His book gives a systematic account of all the places
and regions he had visited. Al-Muqaddasi was the first
geographer to produce maps in natural colors.
The Arab-Muslim maps point upwards to the South,
the North downwards. The maritime voyages
necessitated the tables of Latitude and Longitude as well as the use of the
astrolabe and other nautical instruments.

7. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973-1048, Kath [Uzbekistan]:

He is famous for
a) Cartography
b) Geodesy
c) Mineralogy
Cartography
By the age of 22, Biruni had written several short works, including a study of
map projections, Cartography, which included a method for projecting a
hemisphere on a plane.
Geodesy
Al-Biruni is regarded as the father of geodesy. He was the first known writer to
identify certain geological facts, such as The formation of sedimentary rock.
The great geological changes that happened in the past.

Mineralogy
Al-Biruni introduced scientific method intomineralogy in his Kitab Jawahir(Book
of Precious Stones)

8. Abū 'Ubayd 'Abd Allāh al-Bakri (1014-1094):

He was a Spanish_x0002_Ar ab geographer. He wrote about Europe, North
Africa, and the Arabian peninsula
His primary work was:
a) Kitāb al-Masālik wa al-
Mamālik("Book of Highways and
of Kingdoms"
b) Mu'jam Al-Bakri work was
based on literature and the of
reports merchants and travellers. Al-Bakri arranged place names
alphabetically, and lists the names of villages, towns, wadis, and monuments
which he culled from the Hadith and from histories.

9. Al Idrisi's (1099-1166, Ceuta -Spain):

His book: Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq,'
(The Delight of Him Who Desires to Journey
Through the Climates)is a geographical
encyclopedia. In 1166 Al-Idrisi, built alarge global
map. He meticulously recorded onit the seven
continentswith trade routes, lakesand rivers,
major cities and plains and mountains.
Al-Idrisi's books were translated geography for
three centuries, both in the east into Latin and
became the standard books on and west.

10. Ibn Battuta(1304-1368, Tangier Morocco):

He was the only medieval traveller who is known tohave visited the lands
ofevery Muslim ruler of histime. Ibn
Battuta lived by themotto - 'never, if
possible, cover any road a second time'.
"Rihla - My Travels". Is thestory of Ibn
Battuta'stravels. It is a valuablerecord of
places. As a young man, he would have
studied at a Sunni Maliki madh'hab
(Islamic jurisprudence school), the
dominant form of education in North
Africa at that time. In June 1325, at the
age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or
pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would ordinarily take sixteen months. He
would not see Morocco again for twenty-four years.

11. Ibn Majid (1430-1500, Julfar [UAE] ) :

He invented the compass in the field of geography. Ibn Majid wrote
severalbooks on marine science and themovements of ships,which helped
people of the Persian Gulf toreach the coasts of India, East Africa and other
destinations. Ibn Majid's most important work was:Kitab al-Fawa'id fi
Usul'llmal-Bahr wall Qawa'id(Book of Useful
Information on the Principles and Rules of
Navigation) written in 1490.

Ibn Majid's Hawiyat, a poem of some 1,082

verses, is a genuine treasury of navigational
theory. Another important book named al
Urdjuza covering the same subject.
Ibn Majid's rich contribution to the affairs of the
sea benefited thesciences of geography and oceanography, especially in the
Indian Ocean. In 1498, Vasco Da Gama, while sailing up the east coast of Africa
met Ibn Majid. His guidance to Vasco Da Gama, led to the downfall of Arab sea
power in the Indian Ocean.

12. Ibn Khaldun:

Ibn Khaldun ('tben kæl duni; ‫أبو زيد عبد ال رحمن بن‬
‫ محمد‬: Arabic Abu Zayd Abd ‫ ابن خل دون الحض رمي‬ar-
Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun al-Hadrami;
27 May 1332 - 17 March 1406) was a leading
Tunisian Arab historiographer and historian.[7] He
is widely considered as a forerunner of the
modern disciplines of historiography, sociology,
economics, and demography. In 1377, when he was 45, he completed a
voluminous introduction to his world history-known as the Muqaddimah. This
work begins with a discussion of man's physical environment and its influence
and with man's characteristics that are related to his culture or way of living
rather than to the environment. He suggests that the sedentary city dweller is
dependent on luxuries and becomes morally soft. Ibn Khaldun discusses cities
and their proper location.

13. Al-Kindi (Alkindus, 801-873):

Alkindus ( 801–873 AD) was an Arab. Muslim philosopher, polymath,

mathematician, physician and musician. Al-Kindi was the first of the Islamic
peripatetic philosophers, and is hailed as the "father of Arab philosophy".
Al-Kindi was born in Kufa and educated in Baghdad.He
became a prominent figure in the House of Wisdom, and
a number of Abbasid Caliphs appointed him to oversee
the translation of Greek scientific and philosophical texts
into the Arabic language. This contact with "the
philosophy of the ancients" (as Hellenistic philosophy
was often referred to by Muslim scholars) had a
profound effect on him, as he synthesized, adapted and
promoted Hellenistic and Peripatetic philosophy in the
Muslim world. He subsequently wrote hundreds of
original treatises of his own on a range of subjects ranging from metaphysics,
ethics, logic and psychology, to medicine, pharmacology,mathematics,
astronomy, astrology and optics, and further afield to more practical topics like
perfumes, swords, jewels, glass, dyes, zoology, tides, mirrors, meteorology and
earthquakes.

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.