Ibn Hawqal
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Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in
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,
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; was a 10th-century
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Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
writer, geographer, and chronicler who travelled from AD 943 to 969. Ludwig W. Adamec (2009), ''Historical Dictionary of Islam'', p.137. Scarecrow Press. . His famous work, written in 977, is called '' Surat Al-Ard'' (; "The face of the Earth"). The date of his death, known from his writings, was after AH 368/ AD 978.


Biography

Details known of Ibn Hawqal's life are extrapolated from his book. He spent the last 30 years of his life traveling to remote parts of
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
and
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
, and writing about different things he saw during his journey. One journey brought him 20° south of the equator along the
East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...
n coast where he discovered large populations in regions the
ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
writers had deemed uninhabitable.


Ṣūrat al-’Arḍ

Ibn Hawqal based his great work of geography on a revision and augmentation of the text called ''Masālik ul-Mamālik'' by Istakhri (AD 951), which itself was a revised edition of the ''Ṣuwar al-aqālīm'' by Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi, (ca. AD 921). However Ibn Hawqal was more than an editor, he was a travel writer writing in the style followed later by Abu Ubaydallah al-Bakri in his ''Kitab al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik'', a literary genre which uses reports of merchants and travellers. Ibn Hawqal introduces 10th century humour into his account of
Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...
during the Kalbid-Fatimid dynasty. As a primary source his medieval geography tends to exaggeration, depicting the "barbaric and uncivilised" Christians of
Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...
, reflecting the prevailing politics and attitudes of his time. Yet his geographic accounts of his personal travels were relied upon, and found useful, by medieval Arab travellers. The chapters on
al-Andalus Al-Andalus () was the Muslim-ruled area of the Iberian Peninsula. The name refers to the different Muslim states that controlled these territories at various times between 711 and 1492. At its greatest geographical extent, it occupied most o ...
, Sicily, and the richly cultivated area of Fraxinet (
La Garde-Freinet La Garde-Freinet (; Provençal: ''La Gàrdia Frainet'') is a commune in the Var department in the Côte d'Azur area in southeastern France. Location La Garde-Freinet is a medieval French mountain village, located in the Massif des Maures, 1 ...
) describes in detail a number of regional innovations practiced by Muslim farmers and fishermen. The chapter on the
Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...
—known in the Muslim world as, and called by the Byzantines themselves, the "Lands of the Romans"—gives his first-hand observation of the 360 languages spoken in the
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, with the
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being Arabic and Persian across the region. With the description of
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, he may have mentioned the route of the
Volga Bulgars Volga Bulgaria or Volga–Kama Bulgaria (sometimes referred to as the Volga Bulgar Emirate) was a historical Bulgar state that existed between the 9th and 13th centuries around the confluence of the Volga and Kama River, in what is now Europea ...
and the
Khazar The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, an ...
s, which was perhaps taken from Sviatoslav I of Kiev.Encyclopedia of Ukraine
/ref> He also published a cartographic map of
Sindh Sindh ( ; ; , ; abbr. SD, historically romanized as Sind (caliphal province), Sind or Scinde) is a Administrative units of Pakistan, province of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, southeastern region of the country, Sindh is t ...
together with accounts of the geography and culture of Sindh and the
Indus River The Indus ( ) is a transboundary river of Asia and a trans-Himalayas, Himalayan river of South Asia, South and Central Asia. The river rises in mountain springs northeast of Mount Kailash in the Western Tibet region of China, flows northw ...
.


Editions

An anonymous epitome of the book was written in AD 1233. In the 1870s, the famous Dutch orientalist Michael Jan de Goeje edited a selection of manuscript texts by Arab geographers, which was published by Brill,
Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...
in the eight-volume series ''Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum''. Ibn Haukal's text was the second volume published in 1873 under the Latin title ''Viae et Regna, descriptio ditionis Moslemicae auctore Abu'l-Kásim Ibn Haukal'' - "Routes and Realms, a description of Muslim territories by the author Abu'l-Kásim Ibn Haukal".


See also

*
Al-Maqdisi Shams al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr, commonly known by the ''Nisba (onomastics), nisba'' al-Maqdisi or al-Muqaddasī, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of ''The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions'' and '' ...
* Ibn al-Faqih * Qudama ibn Ja'far *
Ibn Khordadbeh Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh (; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking bureaucrat and geographer of Persian descent in the Abbasid Caliphate. He is the aut ...
* Ibn Rustah * Al-Ya'qubi *
Al-Masudi al-Masʿūdī (full name , ), –956, was a historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus of the Arabs". A polymath and prolific author of over twenty works on theology, history (Islamic and universal), geo ...
*
Muslim scholars Lists of Islamic scholars include: Lists * List of contemporary Islamic scholars * List of female Islamic scholars * List of Muslim historians * List of Islamic jurists * List of Muslim philosophers * List of Muslim astronomers * List of ...


References


Further reading

* James, Preston Everett. ''All Possible Worlds: A History of Geography''. New York: Wiley, 1981. * * * * * *


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Hawqal Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown 10th-century geographers 10th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate 10th-century writers 10th-century Arab people Balkhi school Travel writers of the medieval Islamic world Writers from Baghdad 10th-century travelers 10th-century cartographers Medieval travel writers