Arab Geography Research Articles

PERSONAGES SUBJECT TO PROVERBS İN ARABİC LİTERATURE

The parable, which reflects the culture, lifestyle, historical events and religious thoughts of a nation, is an important subject discussed in the prose field of Arabic literature. These expressions, said emphatically and coherently as a result of certain events and interactions, were transferred from generation to generation within that culture and created a rich literary accumulation. Since human beings are naturally prone to both good and bad behaviors, they have sometimes exhibited praiseworthy and encouraged behaviors such as truthfulness, courage, generosity and loyalty; Sometimes he engaged in behaviors that were criticized and should be avoided, such as stinginess, stupidity, ungratefulness, and lying. In this context, some people in the Arab geography have distinguished themselves and come to the fore in society in displaying these behaviors, and as such, they have become the subject of proverbs. In this study, the life stories of the personalities about whom parables are used due to their characteristics and behaviors, the parable written in their names and the subject of this parable are briefly discussed and the personalities in question are presented in alphabetical order. With this, we aim to reveal how these people became the subject of parables, how these parables affected the lives of individuals in the historical process, and who these people who were mentioned frequently in books and found fame were and how many they were.

Reports of the 11th century Andalusian Geographer on the Peoples of Caucasus

This paper, for the first time in Russian historiography, provides information on the 6th-10th centuries history of Dagestan on the basis of translation, commentary and comparative analysis of excerpts in relation to the history of Caucasian peoples from AbūʿUbayd al-Bakrī’s (d.1094) Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik (A Book of Routes and Countries). This work presents a brief description of different polities: indicating trade routes, distances between towns etc. sort of the administrative directory. Kitāb al-masālik wa-al-mamālik is considered as one of the important sources on south-western and north-western Africa history, particularly, during the period of the Almoravids’ reign (1040-1147). As for the information about the Caucasus given by al-Bakri so it’s largely not original. The paper discusses the main aspects of al-Bakrī’s life and scholarly activities who was an expert in Islamic history and Arabic geography. He particularly outlines the history of different Caucasian polities like Derbent; describes the Caspian sea; gives detailed list of routes and distance between polities etc. Moreover, I compared some reports on Dagestan from Muruj az-zahab and Kitab at-tanbih by al-Mas‘udi and al-Bakrī’s work in order to find out whether the origin of the material is the same.

Antiquarianism or Taḥqīq? Guillaume Postel’s Reading of Abu’l-Fidā’s Taqwīm al-Buldān

Abstract This paper retraces Guillaume Postel’s (1510–1581) initial acquisition of a copy of Taqwīm al-Buldān (The Arrangement of Countries), a geographical treatise of the historian and geographer Abu’l-Fidā (672/1273–732/1331) and offers an analysis of his reading of the text through a careful examination of the manuscript itself, hitherto ignored by scholarship. After the introduction and the examination of the manuscript, I will discuss the use Postel made of the Arabic geography in his cosmographical writings advancing the hypothesis that Postel’s cosmography somehow shares a similar approach to Abu’l-Fidā with respect to the concept of “tradition.” Finally, by offering an analysis of a parallel to Postel’s appropriation of Taqwīm al-Buldān, i.e., Hajji Ahmed’s cordiform map, I will propose a new way to re-contextualize the surge of cosmographical works in sixteenth-century Europe, as, at least in part, a product of post-Mongol taḥqīq.

Narasi Al-Tsawab (الثواب) Dalam Al Quran Prespektif Linguistik Behaviourisme

This research contributes to explaining the contextualization of meaning in the Qur'an so that Muslims do not misunderstand the textual understanding and even understanding that is far from the truth. This study uses the theory of linguistic behaviorism pioneered by Bloomfield, this paper can also add to the treasures of knowledge related to the linguistic meaning of the Qur'an, especially with regard to the description of the reward in the Qur'an which was very attractive to Arab society at that time, thus many of them converted to Islam. After the author conducted an analysis of the Qur'anic verses that describe the reward with all its pleasures, the author found three main stimuli related to the condition of Arab society so that it gave rise to linguistic responses in the form of a reward description, namely: the socio-cultural situation of the community, portraits of royal life, and Arab geography.

On the Credibility of Early Evidence of Arab Geographers About the Turks of Central Asia and the Caucasus

The article characterizes the sources and historical conditions for obtaining the earliest information about the Turks of Central Asia and the Caucasus in the first works of Arab geography literature. The importance of this information for achieving the political goals of the Caliphate government on the border with the nomadic Turks is pointed out. Special attention is paid to information about the Turks of Central Asia from two chapters of the Mashhad manuscript of the work of Ibn al-Fakikh al-Hamadani "Akhbar al-Buldan". It is noted that the Meshad manuscript of this monument of Arab geography literature of the beginning of the 10th century preserved the news of the time of the first contacts of Muslim Arabs with the Turks, characterized by open confrontation and struggle for control over the agricultural areas of Central Asia. At the same time, the news of Ibn alFakih makes enables to restore the stages of the gradual transformation of the perception of non-Muslim Turks in Muslim society, as well as to characterize the ideological struggle of the Muslim government aimed at ousting traditional beliefs and spreading Islam among the nomadic Turks. An examination of the composition of the two currently known versions of the text by Ibn al-Faqih gives grounds for the conclusion about the consistent editing of the text by Arab scribes in order to eliminate the first unfavorable images about the Turks that developed during the period of a fierce struggle for dominatin in Central Asia. The change of the images of nomadic Turks in Muslim public opinion and literature is demonstrated by references from the works of Arab authors who wrote in the era of the penetration and adaptation of the Turks in Muslim society and their gradual Islamization (IX-X centuries).

Günümüze Göre Edirneli Şâhidî’nin Leylâ vü Mecnûn (Gülşen-i Uşşâk) Mesnevisi’ndeki Arkaik Unsurlar

The story of Layla and Majnun, which sprouted in Arabic geography by source, made its name in all Islamic literatures, especially in Turkish literature. It is a short story that even those who did not write this story separately mentioned it in some love adventures as an example of pure and hypocritical love. This story is an adventure that expresses the status of genuine lovers in symbolic language. In our study, archaic vocabulary and grammar elements in this story, which has a very important place especially in literature and related fields, will be examined. In the period when Shahidi of Edirne, who is the subject of our article, had written the Layla and Majnun mathnawi, they have talked with Turkish that includes both Eastern Turkish and Western Turkish in Anatolia, and the fact that this situation is clearly noticeable in the mathnawi we aim to examine is one of the elements that makes it worth to analyze. While writing the article, we have tried to give words, additions and word changes in the expressions, which are considered as one of the most important tool of cultural transfer of a language, and the historical course of words as much as possible. These words provide important clues about the vocabulary of Turkish of the period in question. In addition, these words can also give us important clues about the social life, cultural accumulation and traditions of the period.

A Neoclassical Realist Explanation of the Balfour Declaration and the Origins of the British Foreign Policy in Palestine

A number of developments in the first quarter of the 20th century have an important role in shaping the Middle East. The Sharif Hussein-Mc Mahon Negotiations, the Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Balfour Declaration and other secret agreements between Britain and France that emerged during the First World War deeply affected the subsequent period of Arab geography. The Balfour Declaration in 1917 can be called one of the founding texts of Israel. In this respect, the declaration has a great impact on all the Middle Eastern politics, especially Palestine. It will not be wrong to say that the Palestine issue, which has become one of the most important problems of the region in time, has its roots in the Balfour Declaration. For this reason, cognizance of the Balfour Declaration and Britain's Palestinian politics after the First World War is crucial to understand the region's later history. From this point of view, this article attempts to examine the regional policies of Britain through the declaration and to provide a causality for the emergence of the declaration. What is the key motivation behind the Balfour Declaration? How can one explain the emergence of the declaration only in 1917, although it came to the agenda in Britain as early as 1915? This study claims that a particular set of internal and external factors associated with British politics gave rise to the declaration. The present article dissects these factors from the perspective of neoclassical realist theory and evaluate the systemic modifiers and unit-level variables in order to explain the Balfour Declaration. Specifically, it examines decision-making process behind the declaration from a systematic and holistic perspective.

The Indian Ocean in Arab Geography

The focus of the proposed paper is the transmission of geographical knowledge about the Indian Ocean in medieval Arabic scholarship. The goal is to observe, confirm or articulate the probabilities of knowledge transmission across time and massive diversity of Islamic societies of the region and to assess its place in the history of Islamic science and civilization. Two vectors of knowledge transfer are explored: (1) between formal and informal geographical records and (2) between academic geography and the practical knowledge of the ocean and its coasts by Indian Ocean mariners.

Geography and Ethnography: Perceptions of the World in Pre-Modern Societies

List of Figures vii Notes on Contributors xi Series Editor's Preface xvii 1 Introduction 1 Richard J. A. Talbert and Kurt A. Raaflaub 2 Where the Black Antelope Roam: Dharma and Human Geography in India 9 Christopher Minkowski 3 Humans, Demons, Gods and Their Worlds: The Sacred and Scientific Cosmologies of India 32 Kim Plofker 4 Structured Perceptions of Real and Imagined Landscapes in Early China 43 Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu 5 Nonary Cosmography in Ancient China 64 John B. Henderson 6 Knowledge of Other Cultures in China's Early Empires 74 Michael Loewe 7 The Mississippian Peoples' Worldview 89 Kathleen DuVal 8 Aztec Geography and Spatial Imagination 108 Barbara E. Mundy 9 Inca Worldview 128 Catherine Julien 10 Masters of the Four Corners of the Heavens: Views of the Universe in Early Mesopotamian Writings 147 Piotr Michalowski 11 The World and the Geography of Otherness in Pharaonic Egypt 169 Gerald Moers 12 On Earth as in Heaven: The Apocalyptic Vision of World Geography from Urzeit to Endzeit according to the Book of Jubilees 182 James M. Scott 13 'I Know the Number of the Sand and the Measure of the Sea': Geography and Difference in the Early Greek World 197 Susan Guettel Cole 14 Continents, Climates, and Cultures: Greek Theories of Global Structure 215 James Romm 15 The Geographical Narrative of Strabo of Amasia 236 Daniela Dueck 16 The Roman Worldview: Beyond Recovery? 252 Richard J. A. Talbert 17 The Medieval Islamic Worldview: Arabic Geography in Its Historical Context 273 Adam J. Silverstein 18 The Book of Curiosities: An Eleventh-Century Egyptian View of the Lands of the Infidels 291 Emilie Savage-Smith 19 Geography and Ethnography in Medieval Europe: Classical Traditions and Contemporary Concerns 311 Natalia Lozovsky 20 Europeans Plot the Wider World, 1500--1750 330 David Buisseret Index 344

Géographie Arabe et Géographie Latine au XIIe Siècle

Abstract The influence of Arab geography upon the Latin tradition in the Middle Ages is difficult to assess due to several factors including the former’s definition, content, and origin, as well as the tangled historiography on the question of its influence. The purpose of this paper is not to provide a comprehensive study of this complex issue but rather to define the terms of the problem and to examine some concrete cases of contact between both geographical cultures during the twelfth century. The author first considers the impact of the introduction of Greek conceptions, transmitted through the Arabic Ṣūrat al-arḍ (The Picture of the Earth), upon medieval Latin cosmography. Special attention is devoted here to the influence of Greco-Arabic knowledge on contemporary Western Latin ideas about the habitability of the remotest parts of the earth. The author then deals with the relationship between both cultures in the field of descriptive geography and cartography. Unexpectedly, these different traditions can be shown to be largely isolated from one another, and the alleged Arab origin of some documents is, in most cases, dubious. The cause of the obvious lack of interest among Western Christians in Arab descriptive geography could lie in the general conditions of the Latin schools of the time, and perhaps also in the fact that Arabic writings and maps emphasize the domination of Islam over lands formerly under Christian rule.

Konya’ya İskân Edilen Arap Mülteciler (1920-1928)

The political borders of the Turkish Republic have been determined with the Lausanne Peace Treaty. Many people living in Anatolia during the Ottoman Period have lost their life during the Ottoman-Russian War, Balkan Wars, First World War, and the Turkish War of Independence. This fact caused the deterioration of the political, social and economical structure. The newly founded Turkish Republic gave prime importance to the reestablishment of these structures. Hence, first the socio-economical system was reestablished after the military victory. As the Turkish economy was based in those years heavily on agriculture and livestock farming, the need for a working force emerged. Thus, different policies to increase the population in Turkey have been developed and immigrants from the Turkish and Moslem world were received with open arms. During this period a significant number of people migrated from the Balkans, Caucasus, Afghanistan, India and Arabic geography to the Republic of Turkey. This population had been settled in various areas of Turkey. Within this framework, population coming from the Turkish and Moslem world was settled in Konya. Factors such as the climate conditions, transportation (railway), extensive farmlands, and the small impact of the long lasting wars led to the preference of the immigrants to settle in Konya during that period. Hence immigrants coming from the Arab geography such as Damascus, Aleppo, Benghazi, Medina, Tripoli, .Beirut, between the years of 1923-1928 have been settled into different settlement areas within the city district of Konya City such as Cifte Merdiven, Sems and Tarla. In order to determine the immigrant from these regions, the Ankara Republic Archives have been consulted. Thus the archive logs with the numbers 16, 18, 33, and 39 written in Ottoman language have been analyzed together with the logs concerning the real estate’s given to the immigrants. The analysis of these records reveals data about the immigrants from Arab world, their place of immigration, immigration dates, numbers, places they were settled in, and the real estate’s they were allocated.

Geography: Islamic views of Earth

A magisterial series revolutionizes our understanding of Arabic geography, finds Celâl Sengor.

Geography and ethnography: perceptions of the world in pre-modern societies

Where the black antelope roam: dharma and human geography in India / Christopher Minkowski -- Humans, demons, gods and their worlds: the sacred and scientific cosmologies of India / Kim Plofker -- Structured perceptions of real and imagined landscapes in early China / Hsin-Mei Agnes Hsu -- Nonary cosmography in ancient China / John B. Henderson -- Knowledge of other cultures in China's early empires / Michale Loewe -- The Mississippian peoples' worldview / Kathleen DuVal -- Aztec geography and spatial imagination / Barbara E. Mundy -- Inca worldview / Catherine Julien -- Masters of the four corners of the heavens: view of the universe in early Mesopotamian writings / Piotr Michalowski -- The world and the geography of otherness in pharaonic Egypt / Gerald Moers -- On earth as in heaven: the apocalyptic vision of world geography from Urzeit to Endzeit according to the Book of Jubilees / James M. Scott -- 'I know the number of the sand and the measure of the sea': geography and difference in the early Greek world / Susan Guettel Cole -- Continents, climates, and cultures: Greek theories of global structure / James Romm -- The geographical narrative of Strabo of Amasia / Daniela Dueck -- The Roman worldview: beyond recovery? / Richard J. A. Talbert -- The medieval Islamic worldview: Arabic geography in its historical context / Adam J. Silverstein -- The Book of Curiosities: an eleventh-century Egyptian view of the lands of the infidels / Emilie Savage-Smith -- Geography and ethnography in medieval Europe: classical traditions and contemporary concerns / Natalia Lozovsky -- Europeans plot the wider world, 1500-1750 / David Buisseret.

S. M. Ziauddin Alavi, Arab Geography in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.

S. M. Ziauddin Alavi, Arab Geography in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.

Tamim ibn Baḥr' s Journey to the Uyghurs

One of the main and most tempting problems for a student of Arab geographers is the analysis of their excursions into the little-explored regions on the periphery of the Islamic world, such as Eastern Europe, Central Asia, China, and India. It is a well known fact that these geographers, intent on Space, are often negligent of Time. On a sixteenth century Turkish map I have found a phantom of America stretched into the shape of a new-born moon, whereas the wastes of Siberia were still marked as the haunts of the traditional Gog and Magog. Thus, too, in the ninth and tenth centuries, the classical period of Arab geography, the scholars felt no compunction in plagiarizing one another, or borrowing from some ancient source data bearing no relation to the contemporary conditions: in the tenth century King Dahum of “common origin” still figured among, the rulers of India, although this name referred to Dharmapala, the ruler of Bengal about A.D. 800.