Two centuries old by 1200 but the only early geographer who had crossed the Sahara himself: he was at Sijilmasa and Awdaghust in 951, saw the gold trade and the famous cheque for 42,000 dinars, and described the king of Ghana as the richest on earth, with notes on the veiled Sanhaja, the Ibadi towns, the Fezzan, Nubia and Alodia, and the Zanj. Later geographers (al-Bakri, the Istibsar, al-Idrisi, Yaqut) repeat him, so his text shows what in their accounts is really tenth-century. Background only for 1200.
About this source
- Title
- Kitab surat al-ard
- Author
- Ibn Hawqal
- Author's dates
- active about 943 to 978
- Written
- about 977, revised to about 988
- Language
- Arabic
- Covers
- the Islamic world as seen on journeys of 943 to 973
- Kind
- Geography
Kramers's edition from the Istanbul manuscript is the standard text and is not free online; de Goeje's 1873 text is shorter. Levtzion and Hopkins translate the Sudan passages.
Where to read it
Editions
- M. J. de Goeje (ed.), Viae et regna: descriptio ditionis moslemicae auctore Abu'l-Kasim Ibn Haukal, Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum 2 (Leiden, 1873), Arabic
- J. H. Kramers (ed.), Opus geographicum, Bibliotheca geographorum arabicorum 2, 2nd ed., 2 vols (Leiden, 1938 to 1939), the fuller Istanbul text (not freely online)
Translations
- J. H. Kramers and G. Wiet (trs), Configuration de la terre, 2 vols (Paris and Beirut, 1964), French (not freely online)