2020 - Once upon a time in Islamic Gibraltar
Notes:
World Map – The red square marks the area which I interpret as being the Straits of Gibraltar. (10th century – Al-Muqaddasi)
Although he is usually included as belonging to the Balkhi school, he was actually critical of it. He thought that scientific geography should be based on observation – and apparently Al-Balkhi’s wasn’t.
Two maps of the Mediterranean compared – Al-Balkhi’s on the left, Al-Muqaddasi’s on the right
Nevertheless, I can’t see too much of a difference between the work of the two geographers in the example shown above. Nor is there much to choose from between Al-Balkhi’s previous map and either map. Curiously, Algeciras is a constant but Muqaddasi also ignores Gibraltar.
Muqaddasi also used his extensive 20-year odd travelling experiences - and his expertise as a geographer - to write Ahsan al-taqasim fi maʿrifat al-aqalīm (The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions) where he describes many of the more important towns and areas of the Islamic world of the 10th century.
A small section of a plan showing the towns and areas that appear in Muqaddasi’s book relevant to parts of al-Andalus and northern Africa projected on to a modern map.
Nice to notice that he included Jabal Tariq (Yabal Tariq) although it seems he never actually visited al-Andalus. The towns listed are said to have been largely derived from another geographer, ibn Kkurradadhbih.