Contents Biography Ṣūrat al-’Ar

Ibn Hawqal

Contents Biography Ṣūrat al-’Arḍ Editions Citations References External links See also

Ibn Hawqal

Born Nisibis, Abbasid Caliphate

Died after 978

Academic background

Influences Al-Balkhi

Academic work

Era Islamic Golden Age

School or Balkhi school tradition

Main Islamic geography interests

Notable Ṣūrat al-’Arḍ works

Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (م حمد أبو القاسم بنحوقل), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal alNaṣībī, born in Nisibis, Upper Mesopotamia;^[1] was a 10thcentury Arab^[2] Muslim writer, geographer, and chronicler who travelled during the years 943 to 969 AD.^[3] His famous work, written in 977 AD, is called Ṣūrat al-’Arḍ(صورة الارض; "The face of the Earth"). The date of his death, known from his writings, was after 368 AH/978 AD.
Ibn Hawqal based his great work of geography on a revision and augmentation of the text called Masālik ul-Mamālik by Istakhri (951 AD), which itself was a revised edition of the Ṣuwar al-aqālīm by Ahmed ibn Sahl al-Balkhi, (ca. 921 AD).^[4]However Ibn Hawqal was more than an editor, he was travel writer writing in the style followed later by Abu Ubaydallah al-Bakriin his Kitab al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik, a literary genre which uses reports of merchants and travellers. Ibn Hawqal introduces 10th century humour into his account of Sicily during the Kalbid-Fatimiddynasty. As a primary source his medieval geography tends to exaggeration and his depiction of the barbaric uncivilised Christians of Palermo, reflects the prevailing politics of his time. Yet his geographic accounts of his personal travels were relied upon, and found useful, by medieval Arab travellers.

The chapters on Al-Andalus, in Muslim-held Spain, and particularly on Sicily, describe the richly cultivated area of Fraxinet (La Garde-Freinet), and detail a number of regional innovations practiced by Muslim farmers and fishermen. The chapter on the Byzantine Empire - known in the Muslim world as, and called by the Byzantines themselves, the "Lands of the Romans" - gives his first-hand observation of the 360 languages spoken in the Caucasus, with the Lingua Franca being Arabic and Persianacross the region. With the description of Kiev, he may have mentioned the route of the Volga Bulgarsand the Khazars, which was perhaps taken from Sviatoslav I of Kiev.^[5] He also published a cartographic map of Sindh together with accounts of the geography and culture of Sindh and the Indus River.