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Idrisi's Account of the British Isles

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

A.F.L. Beeston
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Extract

Idrisi's great geographical encyclopædia, Nuzhat al-muŠtāq al-āfāq, compiled in A.D. 1153 for King Roger II of Sicily, is formally arranged according to the seven Ptolemaic climates, each divided into ten “sections” numbered from west to east. In this arrangement, Ireland occupies the first section of the seventh climate, and Great Britain the second. Since Tuulio's publication of the third to fifth sections of this climate, it seems time that a comprehensive treatment should be attempted of the preceding two sections. Jaubert's pioneer French translation contains many attempts at identification of the place-names mentioned, which are not uniformly successful. Miller's Mappæ Arabicæ represents a considerable advance in this respect, but his identifications are not in every case acceptable, and even where correct they deserve some justificatory comment. In the following pages I have attempted to give all necessary comments, and to suggest some identifications which I believe to be an improvement on those hitherto proposed. I must express my grateful thanks to the Conservateur du Cabinet des Manuscrits of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and to the India Office Librarian in London, for the facilities which they have afforded me of consulting the manuscripts in those places; to Dr. W. B. Stevenson for generously allowing me to see the typescript of his article on Idrisi's map of Scotland before publication; to Professor I. Y. Krachkovskii and the Director of the Publichnaya Biblioteka for assisting me to obtain photographs of the Leningrad manuscript; and to Professor H. A. R. Gibb for some very helpful suggestions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , June 1950 , pp. 265 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1950

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References

page 265 note 1 Tuulio, O. J., Du nouveau sur Idrisi (Studia Orientalia edidit Societas Orientalis Fennica, vol. 6, no. 3), Helsingforsiae, 1936.Google Scholar

page 265 note 2 Géographie d'Edrisi, traduite de l'arabe en francais… par Jaubert, P. Amédée, 2 vols., Paris, 1840.Google Scholar

page 265 note 3 Miller, Konrad, Mappæ Arabicæ, Bd. II, pp. 145–6, Stuttgart 1926–7.Google Scholar

page 265 note 4 Stevenson, W. B., “Idrisi's map of Scotland”, Scottish Historical Review, vol. xxvii, no. 104, pp. 202–4.Google Scholar

page 265 note 5 Dunlop, D. M., “Scotland according to al-Idrisi”, Scottish Historical Review, vol. xxvi, no. 102, pp. 114–18.Google Scholar

page 266 note 1 Hoeuerbach, W., Deutscland und seine Nachbarländer nach der grossen Geographie del Idrisi (Bonner orientalistische Studien, Heft 21), p. 6, Stuttgart, 1938.Google Scholar

page 266 note 2 Op. cit., p. vii. Tuulio further (ibid. and in La Finlande et les autres pays baltiques, Studia Orientalia, 1930, vol. 6, p. 16) assigns the Leningrad MS. to this family. But the textual evidence, at any rate in our sections, is against this.

page 267 note 1 Thus, according to Loth's foliation of the MS. It must, however, be noted that the volume has an Arabic foliation in which Loth's ff. 111–12 appear as ff. 110–11.

page 273 note 1 See Dunlop, op. oit., p. 118.

page 276 note 1 The reasoning being: Yarmouth to Grimsby, 150; coast opposite Norwich to Grimsby, 70; therefore Yarmouth to coast opposite Norwich, 80; coast to Norwich, 10; therefore Yarmouth to Norwich, 90.

page 277 note 1 As Stevenson loc. cit. points out, the map of the section places Bskh south of Afrwik.

page 277 note 2 Ekwall, E., Concise Oxford dictionary of English place-names, 3rd ed., Oxford, 1947.Google Scholar

page 278 note 1 The term Rũs was one of the names by which the Norsemen were known to the Arabs; but to assume that this is the basis of Idrisi's name would be hazardous, since the form Ruslanda implies that it was a name used by speakers of a Germanic language, whereas there seems no reliable evidence that the Norsemen actually called themselves Rus (see Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v.).

page 280 note 1 Cf. the forms given for the names of England, Dover, and London.

page 280 note 2 Du nouveau, pp. 44 aqq.