Creating the Mediterranean
Maps and the Islamic Imagination
Published on 7. December 2017
Book
Hardback
370 pages
978-90-04-34619-2 (ISBN)
Description
In Creating the Mediterranean: Maps and the Islamic Imagination Tarek Kahlaoui treats the subject of the Islamic visual representations of the Mediterranean. It tracks the history of the Islamic visualization of the sea from when geography was created by the Islamic state's bureaucrats of the tenth century C.E. located mainly in the central Islamic lands, to the later men of the field, specifically the sea captains from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries C.E. located in the western Islamic lands.
A narrative has emerged from this investigation in which the metamorphosis of the identity of the author or mapmaker seemed to be changing with the rest of the elements that constitute the identity of a map: its reader or viewer, its style and structure, and its textual content.
A narrative has emerged from this investigation in which the metamorphosis of the identity of the author or mapmaker seemed to be changing with the rest of the elements that constitute the identity of a map: its reader or viewer, its style and structure, and its textual content.
Reviews / Votes
"Creating the Mediterranean is a truly accomplished tour across a complex terrain of settings and subjects that stretches from Abbasid administrators to Ottoman renegades. It is also a study that is exceptional in its methodological variety. [...] Kahlaoui's Creating the Mediterranean is a vitally important contribution to literature on the Islamic Mediterranean. It deserves to be read by any scholar or student interested in the history of cartography, in the cultural history of geography and geographers, and in the sciences in the Islamic world more generally." - Carlos Grenier, Florida International University, in: H-Ideas (June, 2018)"Overall this very interesting book makes a substantial contribution towards the creation of a narrative for Islamic perceptions of the Mediterranean. Kahlaoui is especially impressive in resisting the urge to offer a straightforward uncomplicated arc of development spanning the
early medieval and early modern periods; rather, he depicts a nuanced and complex process of development involving multiple influences and as many discontinuities as continuities. His sensitivity to the audiences and objectives of each author/cartographer is equally notable, once again reinforcing the plausibility of his thesis. The main chapters are supplemented by a long and helpful appendix providing a catalogue of the manuscript sources employed. There are, in addition, many detailed tables of evidence as well as fascinating photographs of key maps throughout. [...] there is no doubt that this work makes a solid contribution to the re-creation of a multi-civilisational understanding of the Mediterranean." - Micholas Morton, Nottingham Trent University, in: Al-Masaq (2019)
"...Creating the Mediterranean is an impressive and meticulously researched work that lays the groundwork for countless areas of future investigation." - Giancarlo Cassale, University of Minnesota/European University Institute, in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies 81/3 (2018)
"...there is so much well researched material in this book, that it is a 'must' for the reference shelves of any cartographic library." - Richard Pflederer, in: The Portolan (2019)
"Overall, I have been impressed by Kahlaoui's rigorous and comprehensive approach, which aims to analyze the entire corpus of 'Islamic' maps. Thanks to his careful study and confrontation of texts and maps, he provides many novel and fascinating insights that should be promptly incorporated into general histories of geography and cartography." - Luis A. Robles Macias, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, in: Bibliotheca Orientalis LXXV/5-6 (2018)
"Tarek Kahlaoui's book is a significant contribution in that it offers a chance to look at Islamic cartographical and geographical production from a new perspective [...] The detailed catalogues in the Appendix, which is comprised of the geographical works and maps the author used, will likely assist researchers in future studies." Kaan UEcsu in Nazariyat
More details
Series
Edition
Approx. 360 pp.
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 160 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
680 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-04-34619-2 (9789004346192)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Tarek Kahlaoui, Ph.D. (2008), is Associate Professor of History at the Mediterranean School of Business. He is working on projects concerning the history and archaeology of the Maghrib and the Mediterranean and has published numerous articles on the topic.