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Geography 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-making traditions of earlier cultures, explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World (Afro-Eurasia). Islamic geography had three major fields: exploration and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical geography. Islamic geography reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century. History 8th and 9th century Islamic geography began in the 8th century, influenced by Hellenistic geography, combined with what explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World (Afro-Eurasia). Muslim scholars engaged in extensive exploration and navigation during the 9th-12th centuries, including journeys across the Muslim world, in addition to regions such as China, Southeast Asia an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geography
Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding of Earth and world, its human and natural complexities—not merely where objects are, but also how they have changed and come to be. While geography is specific to Earth, many concepts can be applied more broadly to other Astronomical object, celestial bodies in the field of planetary science. Geography has been called "a bridge between natural science and social science disciplines." Origins of many of the concepts in geography can be traced to Greek Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who may have coined the term "geographia" (). The first recorded use of the word Geography (Ptolemy), γεωγραφία was as the title of a book by Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy (100 – 170 AD). This work created the so-called "Ptolemaic tradition" of geography, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the Arab world, most populous cities in the Middle East and Arab world and forms 22% of the Demographics of Iraq, country's population. Spanning an area of approximately , Baghdad is the capital of its Baghdad Governorate, governorate and serves as Iraq's political, economic, and cultural hub. Founded in 762 AD by Al-Mansur, Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and became its most notable development project. The city evolved into a cultural and intellectual center of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered it a worldwide reputation as the "Center of Learning". For much of the Abbasid era, duri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
T-O Map
A T and O map or O–T or T–O map (''orbis terrarum'', orb or circle of the lands; with the letter T inside an O), also known as an Isidoran map, is a type of Early world maps, early world map that represents the Afro-Eurasia, Afro-Eurasian landmass as a circle (= O) divided into three parts by a T-shaped combination of the Mediterranean sea, the river Tanais (Don) and the Nile. The origins of this diagram are contested, with some scholars hypothesizing an origin in Roman or late antiquity, while others consider it to have originated in 7th or early-8th century Spain. The earliest surviving example of a T-O map is found in a late-7th or early-8th century copy of Isidore of Seville, Isidore of Seville's (c. 560–636) ''De natura rerum'', which alongside his ''Etymologiae'' (c. 625) are two of the most common texts to be accompanied by such a diagram in the Middle Ages. A later manuscript added the names of Generations of Noah, Noah's sons (Shem, Sem, Japheth, Iafeth and Ham ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prime Meridian
A prime meridian is an arbitrarily chosen meridian (geography), meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. On a spheroid, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a degree (angle), 360°-system) form a great ellipse. This divides the body (e.g. Earth) into hemispheres of Earth, two hemispheres: the Eastern Hemisphere and the Western Hemisphere (for an east-west notational system). For Earth's prime meridian, various conventions have been used or advocated in different regions throughout history. Earth's current international standard prime meridian is the IERS Reference Meridian. It is derived, but differs slightly, from the Prime meridian (Greenwich), Greenwich Meridian, the previous standard. Longitudes for the Earth and Moon are measured from their prime meridian (at 0°) to 180° east and west. For all other Solar System bodies, longitude is measured from 0° (their prime meridian) to 360� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geographia (Ptolemy)
The ''Geography'' (, , "Geographical Guidance"), also known by its Latin names as the ' and the ', is a gazetteer, an atlas, and a treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire. Originally written by Claudius Ptolemy in Greek at Alexandria around 150 AD, the work was a revision of a now-lost atlas by Marinus of Tyre using additional Roman and Persian gazetteers and new principles. Its translation – Kitab Surat al-Ard – into Arabic by Al-Khwarismi in the 9th century was highly influential on the geographical knowledge and cartographic traditions of the Islamic world. Alongside the works of Islamic scholars – and the commentary containing revised and more accurate data by Alfraganus – Ptolemy's work was subsequently highly influential on Medieval and Renaissance Europe. Manuscripts Versions of Ptolemy's work in antiquity were probably proper atlases with attached maps, although some scholars believe that the refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Almagest
The ''Almagest'' ( ) is a 2nd-century Greek mathematics, mathematical and Greek astronomy, astronomical treatise on the apparent motions of the stars and planetary paths, written by Ptolemy, Claudius Ptolemy ( ) in Koine Greek. One of the most influential scientific texts in history, it canonized a geocentric model of the Universe that was accepted for more than 1,200 years from its origin in Hellenistic Roman-era Alexandria, Alexandria, in the medieval Byzantine and Islamic Golden Age, Islamic worlds, and in Western Europe through the Middle Ages and early Renaissance until Copernicus. It is also a key source of information about ancient Greek astronomy. Ptolemy set up a public inscription at Canopus, Egypt, in 147 or 148. Norman T. Hamilton found that the version of Ptolemy's models set out in the ''Canopic Inscription'' was earlier than the version in the ''Almagest''. Hence the ''Almagest'' could not have been completed before about 150, a quarter-century after Ptolemy began ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine science, Byzantine, Islamic science, Islamic, and Science in the Renaissance, Western European science. The first was his astronomical treatise now known as the ''Almagest'', originally entitled ' (, ', ). The second is the ''Geography (Ptolemy), Geography'', which is a thorough discussion on maps and the geographic knowledge of the Greco-Roman world. The third is the astrological treatise in which he attempted to adapt horoscopic astrology to the Aristotelian physics, Aristotelian natural philosophy of his day. This is sometimes known as the ' (, 'On the Effects') but more commonly known as the ' (from the Koine Greek meaning 'four books'; ). The Catholic Church promoted his work, which included the only mathematically sound geocentric model of the Sola ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marinus Of Tyre
Marinus of Tyre (, ''Marînos ho Týrios''; 70–130) was a List of Graeco-Roman geographers, geographer, Cartography, cartographer and mathematician, who founded mathematical geography and provided the underpinnings of Claudius Ptolemy's influential ''Geography (Ptolemy), Geography''. Life Marinus was originally from Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre in the Roman Empire, Roman Roman province, province of Phoenicia under Roman rule, Phoenicia. His work was a precursor to that of the great geographer Claudius Ptolemy, who used Marinus' work as a source for his ''Geography (Ptolemy), Geography'' and acknowledges his great obligations to him. Ptolemy said, "Marinus says of the merchant class generally that they are only intent on their business, and have little interest in exploration, and that often through their love of boasting they magnify distances." [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circumference Of The Earth
Earth's circumference is the distance around Earth. Measured around the equator, it is . Measured passing through the poles, the circumference is . Treating the Earth as a sphere, its circumference would be its single most important measurement. The first known scientific measurement and calculation was done by Eratosthenes, by comparing altitudes of the mid-day sun at two places a known north–south distance apart. He achieved a great degree of precision in his computation. The Earth's shape deviates from spherical by flattening, but by only about 0.3%. Measurement of Earth's circumference has been important to navigation since ancient times. In modern times, Earth's circumference has been used to define fundamental units of measurement of length: the nautical mile in the seventeenth century and the metre in the eighteenth. Earth's polar circumference is very near to 21,600 nautical miles because the nautical mile was intended to express one minute of latitude (see meridia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stadion (unit)
The stadion (plural stadia, ; latinized as stadium), also anglicized as stade, was an ancient Greek unit of length, consisting of 600 Ancient Greek feet ('' podes''). Its exact length is unknown today; historians estimate it at between 150 m and 210 m. Calculations According to Herodotus, one stadium was equal to 600 Greek feet (''podes''). However, the length of the foot varied in different parts of the Greek world, and the length of the stadion has been the subject of argument and hypothesis for hundreds of years. An empirical determination of the length of the stadion was made by Lev Vasilevich Firsov, who compared 81 distances given by Eratosthenes and Strabo with the straight-line distances measured by modern methods, and averaged the results. He obtained a result of about . Various equivalent lengths have been proposed, and some have been named. Among them are: Which measure of the stadion is used can affect the interpretation of ancient texts. For example, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arabic Mile
The Arab, Arabic, or Arabian mile (, ''al-mīl'') was a historical Arabic unit of length. Its precise length is disputed, lying between and . It was used by medieval Arab geographers and astronomers. The predecessor of the modern nautical mile, it extended the Roman mile to fit an astronomical approximation of 1 minute of an arc of latitude measured along a north–south meridian. The distance between two pillars whose latitudes differed by 1 degree in a north–south direction was measured using sighting pegs along a flat desert plane. There were 4,000 cubits in an Arabic mile. If al-Farghani used the legal cubit as his unit of measurement, then an Arabic mile was 1,995 meters long. If he used al-Ma'mun's surveying cubit, it was 1,925 meters long or During the Umayyad period (661–750), the "Umayyad mile" was roughly equivalent to , or a little more than , or about 2 biblical miles, for every Umayyad mile. Al-Ma'mun's arc measurement Around 830 AD, Caliph Al-Ma'mun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Ma'mun's Arc Measurement
The Arab, Arabic, or Arabian mile (, ''al-mīl'') was a historical Arabic unit of length. Its precise length is disputed, lying between and . It was used by medieval Arab geographers and astronomers. The predecessor of the modern nautical mile, it extended the Roman mile to fit an astronomical approximation of 1 minute of an arc of latitude measured along a north–south meridian. The distance between two pillars whose latitudes differed by 1 degree in a north–south direction was measured using sighting pegs along a flat desert plane. There were 4,000 cubits in an Arabic mile. If al-Farghani used the legal cubit as his unit of measurement, then an Arabic mile was 1,995 meters long. If he used al-Ma'mun's surveying cubit, it was 1,925 meters long or During the Umayyad period (661–750), the "Umayyad mile" was roughly equivalent to , or a little more than , or about 2 biblical miles, for every Umayyad mile. Al-Ma'mun's arc measurement Around 830 AD, Caliph Al-Ma'mun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
