The nearest Arabic geography in time to 1200 for the Indian Ocean. Its first and second climates describe the Maldives and Laccadives (the Dibajat islands, with their queen, cowrie shells and coir), Sarandib (Lanka) with its king and its pearl and gem trade, the Malabar and Konkan ports, Sindh and Gujarat, largely from earlier writers (Ibn Hawqal, al-Jayhani) and sailors' reports, so much of it is already a century old in 1200. For the Maldives it is almost all there is before Ibn Battuta's visit in 1343 to 1344: the kingdom of Male in 1200 is known only from such notices and from the island's later chronicle tradition. Place names are garbled and distances are not to be trusted.
About this source
- Title
- Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq
- Author
- Muhammad al-Idrisi
- Author's dates
- about 1100 to 1165
- Written
- completed 1154 at Palermo
- Language
- Arabic
- Covers
- a description of the known world as of the mid 12th century
- Kind
- Geography
Jaubert's translation is old and faulty but the only complete one online. The Maldives in 1200 are a near blank: the conversion to Islam is dated 1153 by the islands' own tradition (the Loamaafaanu copper plates, 12th to 13th century, and the later Tarikh), and no text of 1200 survives.
Where to read it
Editions
- Opus Geographicum (Naples and Rome, 1970 to 1984), critical Arabic text; not freely online (not freely online)
Translations
- P. A. Jaubert, Geographie d'Edrisi, vol. 1 (Paris, 1836), French; the climates covering India, Lanka and the islands
- P. A. Jaubert, Geographie d'Edrisi, vol. 2 (1840), French
- S. Maqbul Ahmad, India and the Neighbouring Territories in the Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtaq (Leiden, 1960), English of the Indian sections; in copyright (not freely online)