''Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' or ''Book of Highways and Kingdoms'' ( ar, كتاب المسالك والممالك, rtl=yes, ) is the name of an eleventh-century
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, a ...
text by
Abu Abdullah al-Bakri.
It was written in 1067-8 in
Córdoba Córdoba most commonly refers to:
* Córdoba, Spain, a major city in southern Spain and formerly the imperial capital of Islamic Spain
* Córdoba, Argentina, 2nd largest city in the country and capital of Córdoba Province
Córdoba or Cordoba may ...
,
al-Andalus
Al-Andalus translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label= Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, al-Ándalus () was the Mus ...
(present day Spain). Al-Bakri based his work on the accounts of traders, the writings of
Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Warrāq,
(''On the Topography of North Africa''), and
Abraham ben Jacob. Despite the fact that al-Bakri never left al-Andalus, his writings are regarded as objectively reporting the accounts of other travelers by contemporary historians, and much of what he wrote is substantiated in other sources.
He described a wide array of regions from the
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Afr ...
, through the
Sahara
, photo = Sahara real color.jpg
, photo_caption = The Sahara taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, 1972
, map =
, map_image =
, location =
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, to
Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, E ...
, giving descriptions of the geography, people, culture and political situation in each region. The ''Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' exists today only in fragmentary form. It is sometimes confused with a
work by the same name written in the ninth century by
Ibn Khordadbeh
Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh ( ar, ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خرداذبه; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking Persian bureaucrat and ...
.
References
Islamic-spain.tv: Geography and al-Andalus- ''Website of a documentary on the rise, reign, and fall of Islamic Spain''.
Geographical works of the medieval Islamic world
11th-century Arabic books
History of the Sahara
Geography of Africa
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