Geography

Natalie Andrews

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Beginning the Study 6S 209• Made maps based on previous knowledge • Knowledge came from nomads & wanders• Traveled from Arabia to China• Used guidebooks written for pilgrimage

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Muslim Expansion 1S 118• Expansion reached farther than some known

empires• All the way to Iceland, down rivers and to

Scandinavia• Made many trading routes within the empire• Cartographers worked hard to clarity trade

routes and roads• Took info from many ancient texts

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Maps 1S 118• Greeks used lines of latitude for temperature

zones• Ptomely plotted regions, positions and

distances• Put in medians and parallels• Muslim work is based off Ptomely’s work,

instead of more recent Indian, Persian and European work

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Al-Idrisi’s map 6P 209• A morocan scholar at Roger III’s court in

Palerino• Created circular map• Danube, Niger, Nile, Volga, Ganges, Yahtzee• Mediterranean basin and Central Asia • Ptolemic system of dividing world into seven

climes

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Overview 10P 209• Muslims need to face Mecca for prayers• Maps and compasses required for Mecca

prayers• Mixture of different cultures for studies • Unique tables and maps were created

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Background 10P 1• Started cartography to help Muslims find

Mecca • Used all spherical trigonometry and math

available• Purpose for maps spread to be also to help

trade• For trade, cartographers paid attention to

coasts, topographical features and town

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Division 1P 118• Divided the world into 7-9 regions• Earth had a great, encircling ocean that fed

into the two main bodies of water in the world- Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean

• Water separated by the Isthmus of Suez

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Division 1P 119• Abu Ishaq al-Istakhri and Ibn Hauqal, both

cartographers, workecd with the Balkhi School divided the lands of Islam into 20 regions

• Non Islamic lands were still having disputes over land and territories, when Arabs were working together

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Travel for Discovery 1P 119• Sturdier ways for travel were built, creating

more luxury in travel• People started to record their travels much

more carefully • After travelling to China, 11th century Muslims

got the compass• Used compass for direction afterwards and

put it on maps

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Islamic Atlases 1P 120• Diagrammatic itineraries were included• Showed towns that connected to roads, very

similar to fold-out car maps nowadays

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Al-Idrisi 1P 120• King requested a map, al-Idrisi made a circle

map• Map was large, silver relief map, which he

reproduced onto 71 other maps• Wrote descriptive treatises

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Effects of Cartography 1P 120-121• West Europeans went on to use the maps to

explore the world, went to all continents• Vasco da Gorna, Portuguese exploerer, went

around Africa with Arab pilot who created a guide for crossing the Indian Ocean

• Turkish Ottoman cartographer, Piri Re’is, created a detailed map of the Mediterranean with western influences

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Chemistry 11P 123• Arabs focused mainly on alchemy• Still, they discovered alcohol, nitric and

sulfuric acids, sewer nitrate and potassium • Determined the weight of bodies• Mastered sublimation, crystallization and

distilled water

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Universalism 10P 1• Arabs worked to make a system that could be

used throughout the empire• The system consisted of directions and

distances • Longest single table of the system had

500,000 entries and was done entirely by hand, including the calculations

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Impact 11P 1• Through travels they were able to map most

of the known world• Developed new and useful coordinate systems • Created “projections” which were spherical

surface of earth, which lead to the Mercator projection

• Determined the length of latitude and longitude

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