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The Island of the Jewel ( ar, جزيرة الجوهرة ''Jazīrat al-Jawhar'') or Island of Sapphires ( ar, جزيرة الياقوت ''Jazīrat al-Yāqūt'') was a semi-legendary island in
medieval Arabic cartography Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age (variously dated between the 8th century and 16th century). Muslim scholars made advances to the map-maki ...
, said to lie in the Sea of Darkness (Bahr az-Zulamat) near the
equator The equator is a circle of latitude, about in circumference, that divides Earth into the Northern and Southern hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, halfway between the North and South poles. The term can also ...
, forming the eastern limit of the inhabited world. __NOTOC__ The island does not appear in any surviving manuscript of
Ptolemy Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
's ''
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, an ...
'' nor other Greek geographers. Instead, it is first attested in the Ptolemaic-influenced ''
Book of the Description of the Earth Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī ( ar, محمد بن موسى الخوارزمي, Muḥammad ibn Musā al-Khwārazmi; ), or al-Khwarizmi, was a Persian polymath from Khwarazm, who produced vastly influential works in mathematics, astronom ...
'' compiled by al-Khwārizmī around 833. Ptolemy's map ended at 180° E. of the
Fortunate Isles The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed ( grc, μακάρων νῆσοι, ''makárōn nêsoi'') were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabit ...
without being able to explain what might lay on the imagined eastern shore of the
Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
or beyond the lands of
Sinae The names of China include the many contemporary and historical appellations given in various languages for the East Asian country known as ''Zhōngguó'' (/, "middle country") in its national language, Standard Mandarin. China, the name in Engl ...
and
Serica Serica (, grc, Σηρικά) was one of the easternmost countries of Asia known to the Ancient Greek and Roman geographers. It is generally taken as referring to North China during its Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties, as it was reached via ...
in
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
. Roman missions subsequently reached the Han court via Longbian (
Hanoi Hanoi or Ha Noi ( or ; vi, Hà Nội ) is the capital and second-largest city of Vietnam. It covers an area of . It consists of 12 urban districts, one district-leveled town and 17 rural districts. Located within the Red River Delta, Hanoi i ...
) and
Chinese Muslims Islam has been practiced in China since the 7th century CE.. Muslims are a minority group in China, representing 1.6-2 percent of the total population (21,667,000- 28,210,795) according to various estimates. Though Hui Muslims are the most num ...
traditionally credit the founding of their community to the Companion Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas as early as the 7th century. Muslim merchants such as Soleiman established sizable expatriate communities; a large-scale massacre of Arabs and Persians is recorded at
Yangzhou Yangzhou, postal romanization Yangchow, is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province (Suzhong), East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, ...
in 760. These connections showed al-Khwārizmī and other Islamic geographers that the Indian Ocean was not closed as
Hipparchus Hipparchus (; el, Ἵππαρχος, ''Hipparkhos'';  BC) was a Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the e ...
and Ptolemy had held but opened either narrowly or
broadly Vice Media Group LLC is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company. , the Vice Media Group included five main business areas: VICE.com (digital content); VICE STUDIOS (film and TV production) VICE TV (also known as VICELAND); V ...
. The four chorographic maps of the AD 1037 manuscript of al-Khwārizmī—including that of the Island of the Jewel—are the oldest surviving maps from the
Islamic world The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
. Al-Khwārizmī gave the Island of the Jewel as the easternmost point of the inhabited world. His gazetteer is divided by categories but altogether he provides
coordinates In geometry, a coordinate system is a system that uses one or more numbers, or coordinates, to uniquely determine the position of the points or other geometric elements on a manifold such as Euclidean space. The order of the coordinates is sig ...
for its coast, three cities, its surrounding chain of mountains, and two summits on the interior. It lies in the Sea of Darkness near the equator, east of his equivalent of Ptolemy's Golden Peninsula (
Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...
) and east of the still larger phantom peninsula—now usually known as the Dragon's Tail—which replaced Ptolemy's
unknown Unknown or The Unknown may refer to: Film * ''The Unknown'' (1915 comedy film), a silent boxing film * ''The Unknown'' (1915 drama film) * ''The Unknown'' (1927 film), a silent horror film starring Lon Chaney * ''The Unknown'' (1936 film), a ...
eastern shore of the Indian Ocean. Its center was given at 173° east of al-Khwārizmī's
prime meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ...
off
west Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali ...
and 2° north of the equator. It subsequently appeared in the world map of the '' Book of Curiosities''—where it is labelled "The Island of the Jewel, and its mountains encircle it like a basket" or "like scales"—and in other medieval Arabian and Persian texts. It is now typically identified with one of the Indonesian islands or with
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...
, although al-Khwārizmī's description seems to borrow from Ptolemaic and legendary accounts of Taprobane (
Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...
).


See also

*
Geography and cartography in medieval Islam Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age (variously dated between the 8th century and 16th century). Muslim scholars made advances to the map-maki ...


Notes


Citations


References

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * {{Citation , last=Tibbetts , first=Gerald R. , contribution=4 · The Beginnings of a Cartographic Tradition , contribution-url=http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B1/HOC_VOLUME2_Book1_chapter4.pdf , pp=90–107 , title=History of Cartography , publisher=University of Chicago Press , date=1987 , location=Chicago , volume=II . Geography in the medieval Islamic world