Islamic Maps from the Collection of Karen Pinto
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Classic KMMS world map, “Ṣūrat al-Arḍ” (Picture of the World), from an abbreviated copy of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik (Book of Routes and Realms). Gouache and ink on paper. Diameter 37.5 cm. Cod. Or. 3101, fols. 4–5. Firmly dated through colophon to 589 AH/ 1193 CE. Location: Leiden University Libraries.
Late Siculo-Norman product as identified by Karen Pinto on the basis of a
For more on this map and other world maps in the KMMS tradition, please refer to: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo17703325.html
Suleymaniye AS-2971a World n4000 cropped
KMMS World map from Ottoman Cluster. 878 AH / 1473 CE. Ottoman. Light-blue gouache and red and black ink on paper. Diameter 19.5 cm. Courtesy: Sülemaniye Camii Kütüphanesi, Istanbul. Aya Sofya 2971a, fol. 3a. Photo: Karen Pinto.
16th century World Map in KMMS ms at the British Library
For more on this map and other world maps in the KMMS tradition, please refer to: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo17703325.html
Leiden UBLOHS Or 3101 p032-33
Map of the Mediterranean with Jabal al-Qilāl (red square) from an abbreviated copy of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik ( Book of Routes and Realms) with a symbol for the mythical pillars of Hercules that
guard the mouth of the Mediterranean in all KMMS maps. This version is decorated with dark-red inverted crescents. 589/1193. Mediterranean. Gouache and ink on paper. 34 × 26 cm. Courtesy: Leiden University Libraries. Cod. Or. 3101, fol. 33.
For further information see: Karen C. Pinto “Surat Bahr al-Rum” (Picture of the Sea of Byzantium): Possible Meanings Underlying the Forms”
And, Pinto’s forthcoming book on “The Mediterranean in the Islamic Cartographic Imagination.”
Places on medieval Islamic map of the Mediterranean laid as laid out on a modern map. Medieval Islamic maps of the Mediterranean are the subject of Pinto's forthcoming book on "The Mediterranean in the Islamic Cartographic Imagination" that the University of Chicago Press is interested in publishing as her second book. Pinto is urgently seeking subvention support for the publication of this book. DEAR WEALTHY DONORS: FINANCIAL HELP URGENTLY NEEDED TO SUPPORT KAREN PINTO's CONTINUED SEMINAL WORK ON MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC MAPS! Thank you
KMMS Maghrib Map
This is from a manuscript of late 11th Siculo-Norman provenance that may have been owned and consulted by the future Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and major European conqueror during his childhood and teenage years in Sicily.
For more information on this map see detailed article by Karen Pinto, “Interpretation, Intention, and Impact: Andalusi Arab and Norman Sicilian Examples of Islamo-Christian Cartographic Translation”: https://www.academia.edu/37439184/Interpretation_Intention_and_Impact_Andalusi_Arab_and_Norman_Sicilian_Examples_of_Islamo_Christian_Cartographic_Translation
Found on a small, unbaked clay tablet, 122 by 82 millimeters in size, this Babylonian inscription circa 600 BCE contains the earliest-known map of the world. Centered on Babylon with the Euphrates River running north to south, it shows the lands of Assyria and Armenia in close proximity. An encircling ocean surrounds the Babylonian world, and dotted triangular islands serve, according to text surrounding the image, as cosmographic symbols. A closer look reveals the swamps of Basra and the hooked form of the Arabian Gulf. PHOTO : World History Archive / Alamy
Entering the UNESCO World Heritage site of Qusayr ‘Amra (723–743 CE)—famous for some of the earliest examples of Islamic art and the earliest-extant Ptolemaic star chart (left)—visitors are greeted by a painting that could be the earliest-extant portrait of the moon. It shows an ovoid, globular form with a brown marking being delivered by an angel to the Umayyad prince al-Walid ibn Yazid (706– 744 CE), eventually caliph al-Walid II. This image precedes European efforts to depict the moon by at least seven centuries. Analysis by a georeference comparison with an image of the moon from the desert of Wadi Rum in southern Jordan shows striking parallels with the fresco. MAI N PHO T O AN D INSE T : Karen C. Pinto; G E O EF ER EN C E SE Q UE N C E (6 ) : Kathleen M. Baker, W. E. Upjohn Center for the Study of Geographical Change at Western Michigan University
This start chart is located in the dome of the caldarium (hot bath) in which the future Umayyad Caliph al-Walid II regularly dipped. Well known among historians of science, it was first studied in 1932 and is comparable in importance to the Farnese Atlas. Detailed work has determined how the constellations depicted in it match up with other star charts of the ancient and medieval periods. As a result, it has been revealed that the artist made mistakes in the positioning of the constellations because s/he was trying to accommodate the sky-lights of the bathhouse.
For further details see: https://www.academia.edu/38578646/Fit_for_an_Umayyad_Prince_An_Eighth_century_Map_or_the_Earliest_Mimetic_Painting_of_the_Moon_
The earliest-surviving Arabic manuscript containing maps is a copy of al-Khwarizmi’s 1037 CE Kitab surat al- ‘ard (Book of a picture of the earth). Composed of zij tables containing longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, it includes four maps. The map of the Nile shows its famous cataracts as the river emerges from the mythical Mountains of the Moon, crosses the equator and heads north past the lands of Nubia, Aswan and the Beja, toward Fustat (medieval Cairo) and the Delta near Dumyat (Damietta), where it empties into the Mediterranean Sea. P H O T O : Karen C. Pinto / Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire, Strasbourg
The earliest Turkic-Arabic dictionary, al-Kashgari’s late-11th-century CE Diwan Lughat al-Turk (Compendium of the Turkic Dialects), contains this intriguing world map. Centered on Inner and Central Asia, it shows the locations of Turkic tribes according to linguistic variations. This is the only extant copy, and it dates from 1266 CE. Its illustrative style reveals cartographic influences used on Islamic world maps. Red lines demarcate boundaries, dark-green copper for seas and slate gray for rivers, all encased in an encircling band symbolizing the Bahr al-Muhit (Encircling Ocean), with a keyhole form for the Caspian Sea. The grid of lands in the Islamic world, laid out at the bottom of the map, resembles the grid-like structure of al-Biruni’s world maps but different in that it is orientated with north to the left. P H O T O : Daniyar Nietullaev / Millet Yazma Eser Kütüphanesi Ali Emiri Arapça Koleksiyona
The rarest set of Arabic maps of the Mediterranean was produced in Kitab surat al-ard (Book of a picture of the earth) by 10th-century CE geographer Ibn Hawqal. Dating from 1086 CE, this copy, made in Iraq, is rare for its emphasis on the Mediterranean, as it included both a one-folio macroview of the sea as well as a three-folio spread of it (above). Ibn Hawqal’s map shows
the lands encircling the Mediterranean in detail unprecedented for the time: the Iberian Peninsula, the Calabrian Peninsula, the Peloponnese, Constantinople and the Bosporus, southeastern Anatolia, the Levant, Egypt and North Africa. Key cities, mountains and rivers, along with the major islands of the Mediterranean, including Sicily, Crete, Cyprus and Sardinia, add additional layers. P H O T O : Karen C. Pinto / Topkapı Saray Museum
In 2002 the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford acquired the Book of Curiosities manuscript, dating from the 12th–13th centuries CE. The manuscript contains a medley of hybrid maps, some unique and others that show the influence of the “Atlas of Islam” tradition, many maps of rivers and a heavily illustrated cosmographical section. Pictured is a 12th-century CE map of Sicily showing the island’s cities: Palermo, Messina, Syracuse and Trapani. It even depicts Sicily’s famous volcano, Mount Etna. P H O T O : Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
From the late 12th century onward, maps related to Hajj began to appear. This scroll housed in the British Library was given in confirmation of a pilgrimage performed by Maymanah, daughter of Muhammad al-Zardili, dating from 1433. Elaborately illuminated in gold, scrolls such as these were used to certify the holder’s completion of Hajj through visits to the holy sites of Arabia. Pictured here are Hajj vignettes of Makkah (right) and Madinah (left). The scope of the images in these pilgrimage scrolls expands into an illustrated Hajj manuscript series called Futuh al-haramayn (Conquests of the holy sites) and the Dala’il al-khayrat (Ways of edification) prayer book that became popular in the 18th century. P H O T O : The British Library Board / The Image Works
August
Exceptionally large at 30 by 42 centimeters and composed of high-quality artwork, this abbreviated copy of al-Istakhri’s Kitab al-masalik wa al-mamalik (Book of routes and realms) from 1193 CE declares royalty as its intended audience. The manuscript and its 18 maps are decorated with elaborate gold calligraphy and illuminated with madder red scallops and intricate wave-designs for the seas. Of Arabo-Norman Sicilian provenance, these folios were likely prepared as a wedding gift for Constance, the daughter of Norman King Roger II. There is a good chance that Constance’s son, who went on to be the first Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick II, and was known to love travel, learned about world geography through this Arabic manuscript. Pictured are the maps of Sindh (now southeastern Pakistan) and the Caspian Sea. PHOTO: KarenC.Pinto/ LeidenUniversityLibraries
Ferghana Valley of Central Asia. Copy made in Cairo in 1553 (approximate date only; carbon-dating urgently needed as illumination style suggests copy to be 18th or 19th century). Ms. housed at Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
During the second half of the 12th century CE, Norman King Roger II commissioned al-Sharif al-Din al-Idrisi, possibly the most-famous Arab cartographer, to produce an illustrated geography of the world: Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi’kh tiraq al-afaq (The book of pleasant journeys into faraway lands). The 70 individual maps that accompany the copies of al-Idrisi’s manuscript are extremely detailed representations of the world, well ahead of their time. Not only are the al-Idrisi maps ranked among the most mimetic world maps of the later Middle Ages, they also include detailed regional maps that show an astounding understanding of the topography of each region. The example above shows the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia, and it was copied in Cairo in 1553. The inset, left, shows Konrad Miller’s late-19th-century reconstruction of what al-Idrisi’s world map would look like if all its pieces were joined together. P H O T O : Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford; I N S E T : Library of Congress
See Pixeum exhibit 242
October
This uniquely topographical work from 16th-century illustrator Matrakçı Nasuh, who pioneered the incorporation of the bird’s-eye cartographic illustration into Ottoman historical chronicles, shows the earliest-known depiction of Baghdad. Between 1537 and 1564, Nasuh illustrated four volumes of his Ottoman history, Cami’ü’tevar h (The gathering of histories), depicting the campaigns of three Ottoman sultans: Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512), Selim I (r. 1512– 1520) and Suleiman I (r. 1520–1566). Completed in 1537, the first section of Nasuh’s histories illustrates Suleiman’s campaign of 1534–1535 on the frontiers of Persia and Iraq. P H O T O : Istanbul University Library / Alamy
November
Famed as the earliest-extant portolan chart map of the New World, Ottoman admiral Piri Reis’s surprisingly accurate depiction of South America in 1513 has been the subject of many controversial studies. Scholarship has focused on connections between this map and the no-longer-extant map of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. Although this map was presented to Ottoman Sultan Selim
I in 1517, this is the only portion of it that remains. It shows West Africa, the Atlantic, South America and Antarctica. P H O T O : Topkapı Saray Museum / Alamy
This map of Japan is from Katip Çelebi’s 1732 geographical dictionary, Kitab-ı cihannüma (Mirror of the world). Çelebi’s translation of Gerardus Mercator’s Atlas Minor into Ottoman Turkish in 1653–1655 heralds the twilight of Islamic cartographic innovation and the rise of copying maps in the European model. Çelebi’s copying of Western work was followed by al-Dimashqi’s copying of Joan Blaeu’s Atlas Maior in 1675–1685. P H O T O : Gerlach Books
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