''Ṣifāt Jazīrat al-'Arab'' (
Arabic
Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
: صفة جزيرة العرب, ''Characteristics Of The Arabian Peninsula'') is a book written by the 10th-century chemist, geographer and historian,
Abu Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdani
Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Hamdānī (, 279/280-333/334 A.H.; 947;) was an Arab Muslim geographer, chemist, poet, grammarian, historian, and astronomer, from the tribe of Banu Hamdan, western 'Amran, Yemen. He was ...
. The book describes the state of the
Arabian Peninsula
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
during the life of al-Hamdani, including detailed descriptions of various flora and fauna and tribes present in the peninsula.
History
After the discovery of its manuscripts, the Ṣifāt Jazīrat al-'Arab was reprinted and then published in
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 year 1884 by
Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers () is a Dutch international academic publisher of books, academic journals, and Bibliographic database, databases founded in 1683, making it one of the oldest publishing houses in the Netherlands. Founded in the South ...
with editing and annotations by
orientalist scholar
David Heinrich Müller
David Heinrich Müller (born 6 July 1846 in Buczacz, Galicia; died 21 December 1912 in Vienna, Austria) was a Jewish Austrian orientalist.
Biography
He was educated in Vienna, Leipzig, Strassburg, and Berlin; became professor of Semitic philolo ...
.
It was later reprinted in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...
in 1953 before the historian
Ismail bin Ali al-Akwa further edited and annotated the work in 1974, publishing the revised version in 1990.
Dar Al Afaq Al Arabiya published another version of the 1990 edition in 2000.
The Ṣifāt Jazīrat al-'Arab is also regarded as one of al-Hamdani's most referenced works.
Content
The book provides detailed descriptions of the Arabian Peninsula in the 10th century. In the book, al-Hamdani also quotes from prior geographers like
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...
as well as the ''
Kitāb Hirmis al-ḥakīm (The Book of Hermes the Wise)''.
Flora and fauna of the Arabian Peninsula are described in great detail, while the tribes al-Hamdani interacted with are also listed down.
Towards the end of the book, there are poems as well as supplications (du'a).
Sites described by al-Hamdani in the book include the historical and archeological site of
Thaj, now in present-day
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in West Asia. Located in the centre of the Middle East, it covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries ...
. He also describes where gold and silver can be found in the Arabian Peninsula.
Discrepancies
According to al-Akwa, editor of the 1990 version, there were several discrepancies in the original forms of the manuscripts.
For example, al-Hamdani did not describe the
Abyan Governorate
Abyan ( ) is a governorates of Yemen, governorate of Yemen. The Abyan region was historically part of the Fadhli Sultanate. It was a base to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army militant group. Its Capital (political), capital is the city of Zinjibar. ...
despite explicitly saying that he had already described it.
He also did not describe
Oman
Oman, officially the Sultanate of Oman, is a country located on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in West Asia and the Middle East. It shares land borders with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Oman’s coastline ...
, instead giving a few lines of commentary on it, which was unusual as his main aim of writing the book was to describe every region of the Arabian Peninsula with adequate detail.
See also
*
Al-Iklil
''Kitāb al-Iklīl'' (Arabic: كتاب الإكليل) fully known as the ''Kitāb al-Iklīl min akhbār al-Yaman wa-ansāb Ḥimyar'' (''Crowns from the Accounts of the Yemen and the genealogies of Ḥimyar''), is a book on the ancient history o ...
, a book by al-Hamdani about Yemeni history
Notes
References
{{reflist
Geographical works of the medieval Islamic world
History of the Arabs
History of the Arabian Peninsula
History of South Arabia