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Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World; Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ʿAbbāsid Empire

Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World; Mapping Frontiers across... AL-MASĀQ, 2016 VOL. 28, NO. 2, 206–220 BOOK REVIEWS Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World, Zayde Antrim, 2012, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 212 pp., £47.99 (hardback), £17.49 (paperback) ISBN 9780199913879/9780190227159 Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ʿAbbāsid Empire, Travis Zadeh, 2011, London, I.B. Tauris, 336 pp., £62.50 (hardback), ISBN 9781848854512 When al-Muqaddasī (d. 991) explained – in the introduction to his geographical work Aḥsan al-taqāsīmfī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (The Best Divisions of Knowledge of the Regions) – that he had visited all the areas he was writing about whilst other scholars knew of them only through hearsay, his tone was characteristically hyperbolic, but he was not simply boasting about being well travelled. Rather, he was making a statement about how he approached the task of describing and explaining the world: he had chosen to prioritise ʿiyān (personal experience) over the citation of past authorities. Like so much of the intellectual life of the early and clas- sical Islamic world, this was an area of active debate: as Zayde Antrim and Travis Zadeh demonstrate, in two contrasting but complementary books, at the time when al-Muqaddasī was writing, there were as many routes http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean Taylor & Francis

Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World; Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ʿAbbāsid Empire

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Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World; Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ʿAbbāsid Empire

Abstract

AL-MASĀQ, 2016 VOL. 28, NO. 2, 206–220 BOOK REVIEWS Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World, Zayde Antrim, 2012, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 212 pp., £47.99 (hardback), £17.49 (paperback) ISBN 9780199913879/9780190227159 Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ʿAbbāsid Empire, Travis Zadeh, 2011, London, I.B. Tauris, 336 pp., £62.50 (hardback), ISBN 9781848854512 When al-Muqaddasī (d....
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2016 Nicola Clarke
ISSN
1473-348X
eISSN
0950-3110
DOI
10.1080/09503110.2016.1198512
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

AL-MASĀQ, 2016 VOL. 28, NO. 2, 206–220 BOOK REVIEWS Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early Islamic World, Zayde Antrim, 2012, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 212 pp., £47.99 (hardback), £17.49 (paperback) ISBN 9780199913879/9780190227159 Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam: Geography, Translation, and the ʿAbbāsid Empire, Travis Zadeh, 2011, London, I.B. Tauris, 336 pp., £62.50 (hardback), ISBN 9781848854512 When al-Muqaddasī (d. 991) explained – in the introduction to his geographical work Aḥsan al-taqāsīmfī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (The Best Divisions of Knowledge of the Regions) – that he had visited all the areas he was writing about whilst other scholars knew of them only through hearsay, his tone was characteristically hyperbolic, but he was not simply boasting about being well travelled. Rather, he was making a statement about how he approached the task of describing and explaining the world: he had chosen to prioritise ʿiyān (personal experience) over the citation of past authorities. Like so much of the intellectual life of the early and clas- sical Islamic world, this was an area of active debate: as Zayde Antrim and Travis Zadeh demonstrate, in two contrasting but complementary books, at the time when al-Muqaddasī was writing, there were as many routes

Journal

Al-Masaq: Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean – Taylor & Francis

Published: May 3, 2016

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