cartography
15
(short lyric poems) by Ahmed (Amed)
Paa (d. 902/1496–7), it is clear that the
latter’s poetry had a major influence upon
Cafer’s verse (Erünsal, Life and works, lxxvi–
lxxxi). The Hevesname was hailed as an
original work which, unlike most fifteenth-
century Ottoman mesnevis, was neither a
translation of, nor inspired directly by, an
existing Persian or Arabic text. Its three
parts provide, respectively, a poet’s appre-
ciation of many prominent buildings in
late fifteenth-century Ottoman Istanbul,
a discussion of concepts of love, and the
story of a love affair in which Cafer was
involved. His principal prose composi-
tion, Mahruse-i stanbul fetihnamesi (Marse-i
stanbul fetnmesi, “Conquest of the city
of Istanbul”), is a highly-regarded work
of Ottoman ina (in), “one of the finest
examples of sixteenth century Ottoman
prose writing” (Erünsal, Life and works, lxi).
It contains much information which com-
plements that found in the standard Otto-
man histories of the siege. A second, short
prose work, Enisü’l-arifin (Ensü l-rifn,
“Companion of the wise”), is a translation
into a simple Turkish style of a treatise on
ethics in Persian by ükrüllah (ükrüllh,
d. c. 868/1464). Cafer Çelebi’s reputation
as a prose stylist rests particularly on the
letters and documents produced by him
as nianc, which remained exemplars for
subsequent niancs into the seventeenth
century. However, according to Erün-
sal (Life and works, lxv–lxix), there is no
separate müneat (münet, letter collection)
attributed to Cafer.
Bibliography
This article draws heavily on the works of
smail E. Erünsal listed below.
Works by Cafer Çelebi
Ensü l-rifn, several manuscripts, including
London, British Library, Or. 8016 and
8995; Mahruse-i Istanbul fetihnamesi, ed. Halis
Efendi, Tarih-i Osmani Encümeni Mecmuas,
Supplement 20–1 (1331/1913), 24 pp.;
Mahruse-i Istanbul fetihnamesi (abridged tran-
scription), ed. eref Kayaboaz, Istanbul
1953; Heves-nâme, ed. Necati Sungur, Ankara
2006;smail E. Erünsal, The life and works of
Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer Çelebi, with a critical edition of
his divan, Istanbul 1983.
Sources and Studies
Of the several entries on Cafer Çelebi in
sixteenth-century Ottoman biographical
works, see especially Mecdi Efendi, Had’iku
‘-ak’ik (Istanbul 1269), 355–7; Me‘ir
ü-u‘ar or Tezkere of ‘k Çelebi, ed. G. M.
Meredith-Owens (London 1971), 60a–62b.
References and a few documents relating
to him also occur in Sa‘d Çelebi Müne’ati,
ed. Necati Lugal and Adnan Erzi, Istanbul
1956. For a detailed biography and further
references, see the introduction to smail E.
Erünsal, The life and works of Tâcî-zâde Ca‘fer
Çelebi (Istanbul 1983), xxiii–xlvi, updated
in smail Erünsal, Tâcîzâde Câfer Çelebi,
TDVA 39:353–6.
Other Works
E. J. W. Gibb, History of Ottoman poetry (Lon-
don 1902), 2:263–85; . H. Uzunçarl, ah
smailin zevcesi Tacl Hanmn mücevherat,
Belleten 23/92 (1959), 611–19; smail E.
Erünsal, Hevesnâme, TDVA 17:277–8.
Christine Woodhead
Cartography
The word cartography first appears in
the nineteenth century, coined by Manuel
Francisco de Barros e Sousa, Viscount of
Santarém (1791–1856). In this survey, it
will be used as a synonym for the practices
of mapmaking and for the results of those
practices. The Chicago history of cartography
includes in its purview maps of the uni-
verse and maps of the earth as a whole, as
well as parts of the planet. This entry will
focus on terrestrial imaging in pre-modern
Islamicate societies; there is little research
on mapmaking for the period after 1800.
16 cartography

1.  Classification of map types
The discussion of cartography in pre-
modern Islamicate societies commonly
focuses on the results of mapmaking—that
is, maps—and on their scientific charac-
ter (projections, coordinates, grids, scales).
Three main classes of maps have been
identified: maps in the tradition of Ptol-
emy’s (d. c. 170) Geography; maps of the so-
called Atlas of Islam, also called maps of the
Balkh School, after Ab Zayd al-Balkh
(d. 322/934), more recently termed
KMMS maps, derived from the title of
Ab Isq al-Iakhr’s (d. c. 350/961)
Kitb al-maslik wa-l-mamlik (usually trans-
lated as “The book of roads and king-
doms”); and portolan (navigational) charts
of the Mediterranean Sea and the Black
Sea, as well as books on Mediterranean
islands and depictions of the Mediterra-
nean coast, that is, isolarii or kitb-i bariyye.
Further types include maps of (mostly
seven) climes, so-called T-O maps [Illus-
tration 1], qibla maps (showing the direc-

Illustration 1.  Bilingual TO-shaped map in Arabic and Latin. Codex Vitr. 14/3, fol. 116v., manu-
script containing the Etymologiae by Isidore. Courtesy of the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid.
cartography 17
tion of prayer), pictorial and narrative
maps, plans of urban waterways and
river maps, city and topographical maps,
itineraries, hybrid maps mixing elements
from more than one of the listed types or
from more than one cultural background,
and translations and adaptations of maps
introduced from other societies, be they
Islamicate or Christian. Not every type
of map was produced everywhere and
in all periods. T-O maps or city plans,
for instance, are rare or not at all extant
for most pre-modern Islamicate societ-
ies (Tibbetts, Later developments, 154).
Other types of maps are primarily known
from the early-modern Ottoman Empire
(Karamustafa, Military, administrative
and scholarly maps and plans, 214–9).
2.  Contexts of map production
and usage
The contexts of map production can be
defined according to a variety of parame-
ters: motivation and purpose, locality and
mode of production, producer, audience,
display, material, and relation to other
forms of visualisation. Motivation and
purpose are most often derived from the
type of map, its material and social envi-
ronment of preservation, and the quality
of its execution as a work of science or
art. Motivations and purposes include the
acquisition of knowledge through trans-
lation and adaptation, visualisation of
knowledge, education, search for patron-
age, gift giving, propaganda, commerce,
religious commitments, preparation or
commemoration of military campaigns,
and matters of administration.
The production of maps in connection
with educational activity took place pri-
marily within the teaching of astronomical
and astrological texts and the construction
of instruments at madrasas, although most
of the geographical knowledge taught
there was represented in the form of
tables of latitudes, longitudes, and angles
of the qibla (direction for prayer towards
Mecca). It seems also possible that maps
were at times included in princely educa-
tion; notable recipients of such instruc-
tion include the Tmrid princes Iskandar
Sultan (r. 805–16/1403–14) and Ulugh
Beg (r. in Samarkand 813–53/1411–49)
(Istanbul, Topkap Saray Kütüphanesi,
MS B 411; Aubin).
Maps as tools of propaganda survive
today in historical chronicles and in book
painting. They also existed as wall maps
on silk or other types of cloth and as
globes. Most of the specimens of the clas-
sical period are lost. A surviving text on
gifts testifies to a strong interest in maps
and other visualisations of power among
the Fimids (r. 297–567/909–1171) (Ibn
al-Zubayr; and Ibn al-Zubayr, trans.
al-Qaddm). Some of the most splendid
exemplars of royal propaganda are min-
iature paintings produced for the Mughal
ruler Jahngr (r. 1013–26/1605–27).
Three of them include world maps or
globes in the style of early-modern Ital-
ian or Dutch workshops (Okada, Indian
miniatures, 47–8, 56). Other examples are
Ottoman narrative maps, which provide a
pictorial form for how the depicted theme
should be remembered. Examples are
the maps of military campaigns against
Belgrade (927/1521), Malta (972/1565),
Szigetvár (974/1566), and the afavids
(940–2/1534–5) (Karamustafa, Mili-
tary, administrative and scholarly maps
and plans, 211–3; Rogers, 228–30, 236).
Karamustafa considers most of the narra-
tive maps to have been siege plans used
in actual military planning. Rogers views
some of them as illustrations of a campaign
diary, some as of military relevance, and
others as emphasising devotional aspects,
such as, for example, the religious sites
18 cartography
visited during a campaign (Rogers, 230,
239). He sees related narrative maps of
Ottoman historical chronicles, celebra-
tions of victories, and other congratula-
tory works as components of an Ottoman
realism in historiography (Rogers, 228).
Maps serving religious purposes include
the so-called qibla maps, which list direc-
tions for prayer towards Mecca; depic-
tions of the stations of pilgrimage, mainly
to Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem; and
certificates for the successful performance
of a pilgrimage. Some of the texts that
contain such visualisations of the qibla also
include narrative geography and cosmo­
graphy written for a general public and
hence substantially simplified in compari-
son to their scientific relatives, histories,
and devotional literature. All these forms
of qibla maps belong to the mathematical
sciences, which also included astronomy,
as well as to geography, history, popular-
ising cosmography, and devotional litera-
ture. These maps can include sophisticated
or simple geometrical constructions, such
as the maps that appear on three afavid
astrolabes of the eleventh/seventeenth
century, and in a tenth/sixteenth-century
collection of various short mathematical,
astronomical, and astrological texts that
was once possibly in the possession of an
Iranian merchant of amulets and other
divinatory tools (King and Lorch, 189–
203; Paris, BNF, MS Persan 169).
Other types of maps with religious pur-
poses appear in texts such as Muy l-Dn
al-Lr’s (d. 933/1526–7) Fut-i aramayn,
and as single objects in the form of scrolls,
such as the pilgrimage certificate for a
proxy of the Ottoman prince Shehzade
Mehmed (921–49/1521–43), and the
certificates for less exalted pilgrims that
have been produced in Mecca since the
sixth/twelfth century, if not earlier (Mil-
stein, 166, 169). Some paper talismans
also present topographical illustrations of
the Muslim holy sites in Mecca (Milstein,
169), which served for contemplation, but
also for preparing, remembering, and cer-
tifying the pilgrimage.
Maps produced in Greece during the
Hellenistic age, mainly those of Ptolemy’s
Geography, were translated and adapted
into Arabic during the third/ninth cen-
tury in Baghdad and once more shortly
after the conquest of Constantinople in
857/1453. Maps were also translated
perhaps from Pahlav into Arabic during
the second/eighth or the third/ninth
centuries, and from about the sixth/
twelfth century onwards (if not earlier)
from Arabic into Persian, and, begin-
ning in the eighth/fourteenth century,
into Ottoman Turkish. Translations
from Arabic into Persian or Ottoman
Turkish consisted of mainly three works
with their maps: Ab Isq al-Iakhr’s
Kitb al-maslik wa-l-mamlik, Zakariy b.
Muammad al-Qazwn’s (d. 682/1283)
Ajib al-makhlqt wa-gharib al-mawjdt
(“The wonders of the created beings and
the rarities of the existent beings”), and
the Khardat al-ajib wa-fardat al-gharib
(“The unpierced pearl of wonders and
the precious gem of marvels”), attributed
to Umar b. al-Muaffar b. al-Ward (d.
861/1457; see Ibn al-Ward, EI2). While
the map in the early Arabic versions of
al-Qazwn’s cosmography is believed to
come from Ab l-Rayn al-Brn (b.
362/973, d. after 442/1050), later Arabic
versions and their Persian and Ottoman
translations and excerpts, if they include
a map, appropriated it from one of the
works of the so-called Balkh School, or
replaced it by a world map in the Euro-
pean style of the tenth/sixteenth century.
A variant of the last type combines modern
map contours with symbols of Islamic cos-
mology, such as the great whale, the rock,
cartography 19
and the bull (Washington DC, Library
of Congress, MS Turkish 185). A similar
combination of Islamic cosmological sym-
bolism, in this case enriched by Indian ele-
ments, and Western terrestrial map style is
also found in two of the miniatures made
for Jahngr (Okada, Indian miniatures,
47–8). From the eighth/fourteenth cen-
tury onwards, Italian and Catalan maps
and charts were appropriated in Arabic.
In the tenth/sixteenth century the process
began of adaptation of maps and charts in
various European languages.
Maps designed for a ruler, a governor,
or a courtier, either as a single object or
as part of a geographical, cosmographi-
cal, historical, or astrological work, are
mentioned in the literature or in fact
survive for major dynasties, such as the
Abbsids, Fimids, Mamlks, Otto-
mans, afavids, and Mughals, and also
for various local or regional dynasties,
including the Farghnids, Ghaznavids,
Khwrazmshhs, Aq Qoyunlu, Narids,
and Qubshhs. No comprehensive sur-
vey has been compiled of them so far. The
Tmrids and the Aq Qoyunlu used maps
or treatises with maps as gifts for their
royal relatives and neighbours. In the
tenth/sixteenth century, the Ottomans
looted maps and treatises from Cairo,
and commissioned Venetian mapmakers
to produce maps for them in this style
(Pinto, The maps are the message; Fab-
ris; Arbel). In the eleventh/seventeenth
century Ottoman courtiers received maps
as diplomatic gifts from the Dutch ambas-
sador (Wurm). Members of Ottoman
administrative, military, and scholarly
elites collected maps as part of their per-
sonal libraries (Hagen, Ein osmanischer Geo-
graph). Here the boundaries between the
exchange of gifts and commerce are fluid.
Portolan charts were traded in major port
cities, such as Tunis, Tripoli, Alexandria,
and Istanbul. Bookshops in probably all
major cities sold popular cosmographies
and historical chronicles with maps.
Production sites were distributed across
localities from the Iberian Peninsula to
India and Central Asia. Courtly and
urban painting workshops included maps
in their repertoire. Producers were mostly
scribes and painters. Arab and possibly
Ottoman experts drew portolan charts in
port cities. Occasionally, such knowledge
was passed down within a family across
two or three generations. The materials
on which maps were depicted includes
paper produced in different countries
within and outside the Islamicate world,
gazelle and sheep hide, silk, cotton, other
textiles, ceramic tiles, brass, and other
metals. They were sketched or drawn
freehand with varying degrees of preci-
sion, constructed with the use of ruler
and compass, or drawn with the help of
curved tools, hammered or engraved,
embroidered or woven. Cheaper manu-
scripts display maps drawn in black or
brown inks with an occasional red for
inscriptions. Sumptuous manuscripts as
well as portolan charts use a broad range
of colours, including gold and silver.
3.  Mathematically based maps
Pre-modern mathematically based
maps from Islamicate societies are pri-
marily known from Arabic scientific texts.
Most of the specimens described or extant
are circular or semicircular. One Arabic
example of a rectangular map has been
found in a sixth/twelfth-century copy
of an anonymous text of perhaps the
fifth/eleventh century, compiled by an
unknown Fimid official in Lower Egypt
(Rapoport and Savage-Smith, An eleventh-
century Egyptian guide, A Fols. 23B–24A,
179, 182, 184; Rapoport and Savage-
Smith, The book of curiosities, 121–38).
20 cartography
It is the first extant world map drawn to
a particular scale, albeit incomplete and
faulty, with no grid or coordinates (Rapo-
port and Savage-Smith, The book of curi-
osities, 126). The only known example of
a world map in Arabic based on Ptolemy’s
so-called cloak-projection is extant in one
of the two copies of the Geography, which
the Byzantine scholar Georgios Amirutzes
(d. 1475) and one of his two sons trans-
lated in 860/1456 for the Ottoman sul-
tan Mehmed II (r. 848–50/1444–6 and
855–86/1451–81) (Babinger, 247).
The main early representatives of this
class of maps seem to be lost, among
them the so-called map of al-Mamn
(r. 198–218/813–33), the world map of
Muammad b. Ms al-Khwrazm (fl.
170–233/786–847), that is, the rat al-ar
(“Image of the earth”), and the terrestrial
globe of Amad b. Muammad b. Abd
al-Jall al-Sijz (fl. fourth/tenth century).
Whether Suhrb’s (d. 318/930) instruc-
tions for a rectangular map with a grid of
longitudes and latitudes, or Muammad
b. Najb Bakrn’s (fl. seventh/thirteenth
century) description of a circular or pos-
sibly stretched curvilinear world map
were ever executed is unknown (Bakrn,
6–16). In the only extant copy of Suhrb’s
Ajib al-aqlm al-saba il nihyat al-imra
(“Marvels of the seven climes to the end
of habitation”), a diagram represents the
instructions for a rectangular map (Ken-
nedy, 113–9). The world maps of this
class are found most often in astronomical
texts (see, for example, Ab Al Qan
Marwaz’s, 465–548/1072–1153, Gayhn
shenkht, 178, and others).
Modern scholars discuss the relation-
ship between this type of map and Hel-
lenistic maps, particularly those thought
to have been part of Ptolemy’s Geography,
as well as the properties and survival of
the so-called map of al-Mamn. Two
extant works—one by Muammad b.
Ms al-Khwrazm (extant as a copy
dating to 428/1037) and the other by
the anonymous fifth/eleventh-century
Egyptian writer mentioned above—offer
the material basis for discussing the first
point. Al-Khwrazm’s work shares with
Ptolemy’s work a substantial number of
geographical latitudes. Its longitudes dif-
fer as a rule by 10°. In addition to newly
added coordinates, differences between
the two geographies consist mainly in the
number and kind of the extant maps. The
anonymous Egyptian mapmaker worked
with al-Khwrazm’s rat al-ar for his
own map of the Nile, as specific features
of his rectangular world map indicate.
But he also stressed that he was following
the practices of Ptolemy (Rapoport and
Savage-Smith, The book of curiosities,
132–4).
The idea that the caliph al-Mamn
ordered the creation of a new world map
is based on a passage in al-Masd’s (d.
345/956) Murj al-dhahab (“The golden
meadows”). While it cannot be discounted
that such a map was indeed designed, it
has proved so far impossible to locate
with certainty possible traces of this map
on any of the extant maps. Fuat Sezgin
identifies the circular map found in one
of the manuscripts of Amad b. Al b.
Falallh Umar’s (701–50/1301–49)
Maslik al-abr f mamlik al-amr (“Ways
of perception concerning the most civilised
principalities”) with this alleged map of
al-Mamn, but David King rejects this
claim as a misinterpretation (Sezgin,
Mathematische Geographie, 10:20–2, 73–140;
for the map see 12:23, n° Ia; King, World
maps, 31–7; Pinto, Cartography, 138).
Al-Sharf al-Idrs’s (493–561/1100–
65/6) system of seventy regional maps,
described and depicted in his Nuzhat
al-mushtq f khtirq al-fq (“Entertain-
cartography 21
ment for one who longs to travel the
world”), is considered the most success-
ful representatives of this class of maps.
It employs a Ptolemaic system of climates
and geographical coordinates, although
the rectangular regional maps in the
extant manuscripts rarely reflect precise
mathematical calculations. As is the case
with many other Arabic, Persian, and
Turkish maps in extant manuscripts,
these regional maps are instead free-
hand drawings of coastlines, mountains,
lakes, rivers, and cities (Ahmad, al-Idrs,
161–5). The circular world map found in
most of the extant versions of al-Idrs’s
Nuzhat al-mushtq is not directly related to
the system of seventy rectangular maps,
and it also differs in content in several
respects. This type of circular world map
with a very similar kind of content was
recently found in a copy of the Book of
curiosities, and accordingly it was at first
argued that this was proof of the map’s
existence before al-Idrs had conceived of
his Nuzhat al-mushtq. In the recent print
edition of the work, however, the editors
have revised this evaluation and leave the
questions of priority and origin undecided
(Rapoport and Savage-Smith, An eleventh-
century Egyptian guide, 30–4).
Later maps of this type have not
received substantive attention, partly
because of the prevailing negative evalua-
tion of later Islamicate societies and their
knowledge regimes as being characterised
by decline, and partly because the few
specimens investigated have been found
lacking with regard to their mathematical
precision and geographical content.
4.  Maps of the so-called
Balkh School
The maps of the so-called Balkh
School do not contain projections, coor-
dinates, or grids. They depict the world
as a whole, and regions of the Islamicate
realm with stylised circles, ovals, triangles,
rectangles, and lines representing oceans,
lakes, islands, mountains, regions, cities,
and routes between major cities and postal
stations. Its main representatives are the
maps attributed to Ab Zayd al-Balkh,
Ab Isq al-Iakhr, Ibn awqal (d.
c.380/990), and with some modifica-
tions, also those of al-Muqaddas (d.
c.390/1000) (Tibbetts, The Balkh school,
108–36). Gerald Tibbetts believes that the
first set consists of maps only, while subse-
quent authors added written explanations
as well as reports about their own travels.
In addition to world maps, the maps of
this school depict regions of the Islamicate
world between M War al-Nahr (Tran-
soxania) and al-Andalus. The oldest speci-
men of this type of map is a copy of Ibn
awqal’s Kitb rat al-ar (“Book of the
image of the world”) of 479/1087, pre-
served today in the library of the Topkap
Palace, in Istanbul. Karen Pinto severely
criticises Tibbett’s views, presenting her
own conflicting claims (Pinto, Ways of
seeing, 3, 15, 23–4; Tibbetts, Later devel-
opments, 137–8, 141–6).
The prevalent scheme of geographical
representation in this set of maps is
regional. The regions do not represent
political entities of the Umayyad or
Abbsid caliphates, but rather they seem
to combine pre-Islamic Iranian and
Roman concepts, without, however, tak-
ing those up in all their detail. Standard
elements, in addition to regions and
routes, are mountains, seas, lakes, and
a few major rivers, such as the Euphra-
tes and the Tigris. Sometimes, names of
tribes, scientific data such as the circum-
ference of the earth, information about
mineral sources, and natural events are
also included. A second major feature is
the maps’ focus on routes, mostly, but not
22 cartography
exclusively land routes, with cities regis-
tered as stations along such routes. Reli-
gious and political centres are occasionally
highlighted but are not a major category
of organisation. The main religious feature
of the world maps of this class is Mount
Qf, which, according to Islamic cosmog-
raphy, is the outermost surrounding of the
world, separated from terra firma by the
encompassing sea (al-bar al-mu).
These maps are believed to have had
their origin in pre-Islamic Iranian picto-
rial representations of the seven king-
doms, which formed the inhabited world,
depicted as six circles surrounding a cen-
tral seventh circle. Because the depiction
of this scheme in al-Brn’s Kitb tadd
nihyt al-amkin li-ta masft al-maskin
(“Book of the determination of the ends of
places for the correction of the distances
between habitations”) identifies the inte-
rior circle with Babylon, Tibbetts sug-
gests that the scheme’s origin might be
in ancient Mesopotamia. He also specu-
lates about an Indian origin, believing
that the inner circle represented Mount
Meru (Tibbetts, The beginnings of a car-
tographic tradition, 93–4).
Al-Brn’s image leaves, however, no
doubt that it presents a substantially mod-
ified view of the world. Its distribution of
regions through the circles clearly differs
from the verbal depiction of an early-first/
seventh-century source preserved only in
Arabic translation, according to which
the innermost circle was the seventh kish-
var (region) and represented the Sasnian
empire (http://www.iranicaonline.org/
articles/haft-kesvar).
A recognisably older version that also
places the regions in circles is al-Brn’s
representation of the seven kishvars in his
summa of astrology, Kitb al-tafhm li-awil
inat al-tanjm (“Book of teaching the
basics of the art of astrology”). Irnshahr,
representing some notion of Iran, alone
occupies the centre, and the regions in
the circumferential circles are much less
detailed and modernised than those in
al-Brn’s other scheme (Karamustafa,
Cosmographical diagrams, 80).
Another pre-Islamic iconographic
conceptualisation of the inhabited world
depicts it as a bird. Several versions
are attested in verbal form. The most
commonly mentioned in modern lit-
erature is that described by Ibn Faqh
al-Hamadhn (fl. fourth/tenth century).
He divides the bird into five parts: the
head, the two wings, the chest, and the
tail. The head is identified with China and
beyond; the right wing with India and its
adjacent seas; the left wing with the Kha-
zars (who ruled the South Russian steppes
and parts of the Caucasus, and were
apparently perceived by these mapmakers
as lords of the Caspian Sea) and two of
their northern neighbours; the chest with
Mecca, the ijz, Syria, Iraq, and Egypt;
and the tail with a part of North Africa
(Ibn al-Faqh, Mukhtaar, 3–4). Other ver-
sions using this bird iconography focus
exclusively on central Islamic territories,
mostly Syria, Egypt, and (parts of) Iraq
(Ibn awqal, 209). In the fifth/eleventh
century, Mufaal b. ad al-Mfarrkh,
a local historian of Isfahan, used this
image to highlight the position of the
Saljq capital of Isfahan, depicting it as
the head of the bird (Durand-Guédy, 55).
This repositioning of the bird’s body parts
may reflect the struggle between the two
royal cities—Isfahan and Baghdad—for
preeminence during this time.
The origin of this verbal and visual
depiction of the regions of the earth and
its peoples is unclear (Tolmaschewa, 118;
Park, 14, 207; Ahmad, Djughrfy, 576;
Antrim, 96, 172). At present, one speci-
men of a bird-shaped map is known,
cartography 23
from Shams al-Dn Muammad b. Ab
Bakr al-Dimashq’s (654–727/1256–1327)
encyclopaedia Nukhbat al-dahr f ajib al-
barr wa-l-bar (“Chosen passages of time
regarding the marvels of land and sea”)
(Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, MS
Sprenger 13).
5.  Portolan charts and
island-books
Portolan, or nautical, charts are extant
from about the late seventh/thirteenth
century and are found in museums in
Europe, the United States, and Turkey.
The feature of these charts usually con-
sidered the most important is their fairly
accurate depiction of the Mediterranean
coasts. Most of the extant portolan charts
and atlases, dating to the eighth/fourteenth
and ninth/fifteenth centuries, were pro-
duced in Italian port cities and Ciudad de
Mallorca (today Las Palmas). In the later
ninth/fifteenth century, portolan charts
began to be produced in present-day Por-
tugal and Spain, followed by France and
the Low countries in the tenth/sixteenth
century. Arabic charts and atlases are
extant from perhaps the eighth/fourteenth
century (this is contested), certainly, how-
ever, from the ninth/fifteenth and tenth/
sixteenth centuries. Ottoman and Greek
charts and atlases are preserved from the
tenth/sixteenth and eleventh/seventeenth
centuries (Campbell, 418, 423, 445, 459;
Vernet, 4; Herrera Casais, The nautical
atlases; Pujades i Bataller, C 54; Soucek,
Islamic charting, 282–3; Munich, BSB,
MS Cod. turc 431; Manners, 105; Chris-
tie’s, Sale 7751, Lot 214; engör and
Elisabeth, Countess of Kuefstein; Soucek,
The ‘Ali Macar Reis atlas’; Goodrich,
Atlas-i hümayun; Goodrich, The Walters
Deniz atlas; Tolias). Of the corsair, later
admiral, geographer, and producer of
maps Pr Res’s (executed 961/1554) two
world maps (919/1513, 935/1528), only
fragments are preserved. One shows parts
of Africa and the New World, the other
depicts the northwestern Atlantic (Soucek,
Islamic charting, 267–72).
Pr Res was also the compiler and in
the first case perhaps also the draughts-
man of two versions of a sailing handbook
of the Mediterranean, the Kitb-i bariyye
(926/1520; 932/1526). (For a summary
of research on this subject, see Soucek,
Islamic charting, 272–9; see also Soucek,
Piri Reis). Rogers offers a good discussion
of the artistic features of the two versions
(Rogers, 231–4). In his view, the Kitb-i
bariyye introduced city or topographical
maps into Ottoman mapmaking culture,
where it flourished throughout the tenth/
sixteenth century (Rogers, 231, 234). The
great number of copies of this work dating
up until the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, the migration of maps from the
Kitb-i bariyye into other atlases and geo-
graphical works such as Katib Çelebi’s (d.
1067/1657) Cihannüma (version 2), and the
application of its cartographic style to con-
tinental maps otherwise drawn in the style
of early modern European maps speak
for its tremendous impact on Ottoman
mapmaking practices and preferences.
The main issues that have attracted
the attention of scholars with regard to
these charts and atlases are their usage,
their dependence on Italian or Catalan
models, and their places of production.
The fragments that were rediscovered in
the early twentieth century hold special
interest because of their depiction of the
New World, and their standing among
all known charts and maps of these ter-
ritories is a question to be evaluated. The
spectrum of possible usage depends on the
content of the charts and atlases. Some
are considered as specimens intended for
practical use, either at sea or for preparing
24 cartography
a military campaign (Soucek, Islamic
charting, 283; Christie’s, Sale 7751, Lot
214; Haase). Other exemplars, in par-
ticular those with expensive visual repre-
sentations of geographical, cultural, and
political matters, are seen as objects of
patronage and decorative luxury produc-
tion, designed for entertainment, pleasure,
or education.
The Arabic charts and atlases were pri-
marily produced in important port cities
and are thus seen as surviving examples
of a more extensive craft and trade (Her-
rera Casais, The 1413–14 sea chart). The
charts in Ottoman Turkish are not attrib-
uted to any particular place or workshop.
Due to their technical and artistic rela-
tionship to Italian charts and atlases they
are either conceived of as products from
an Italian workshop made without top-
onyms and other textual elements, which
are believed to have been added later by
an Ottoman seaman or chart vendor, or
as ready-made imports from Italy (Soucek,
Islamic charting, 279–81).
The discussion about the charts’ cul-
tural significance is usually phrased in
terms of nationalistic, cultural, or reli-
gious superiority. Pujades believes that
the oldest Arabic chart is derived from
a “Christian model,” without specify-
ing what such a term signifies (Pujades).
Herrera Casais and Soucek searched
for specific Catalan or Italian ancestors
of the Arabic and Ottoman exemplars,
highlighting the decorative elements and
calligraphy as important features that
give the charts their Arabic or Ottoman
character (Herrera Casais, The 1413–14
sea chart; Herrera Casais, Granada en los
atlas náuticos; Soucek, The ‘Ali Macar
Reis Atlas’). Sezgin interprets Italian and
Catalan portolan charts as reproductions
of Persian and Arabic models, based on
a remark in Qub al-Dn al-Shrz’s
(633–710/1236–1311) astronomical trea-
tise al-Tufa al-shhiyya (“The royal gift”)
(Sezgin, Mathematische Geographie, 10:312–
4). A careful analysis of the various charts
and atlases shows, however, that they are
more appropriately described as culturally
mixed objects. Chart makers of the late
seventh/thirteenth and the first half of the
eighth/fourteenth centuries constructed
layers of nautical, geographical, cultural,
religious, and political representations,
drawing on Arabic, Byzantine, and Latin
maps and texts as well as diverse orally
conveyed information (Brentjes, Medieval
portolan charts). In subsequent periods,
chart makers modified and adapted these
layers, at least partly, to new conditions,
information, kinds of knowledge, and
forms of representation.
6. Hybridisation
Many extant manuscript maps are
hybrid maps, which combine elements of
the Balkh School with Ptolemaic com-
ponents. Tibbetts has discussed this phe-
nomenon (Tibbetts, Later developments,
137–9). Arabic and Ottoman Turkish
portolan chart makers often added to
the already culturally mixed character
of their models new elements from their
own cultural environment. They intro-
duced local names for cities, villages,
landmarks, rivers, and mountains, high-
lighted certain cities, or replaced some of
the earlier visual representations by lunar
calendars or Islamic geometrical artwork.
Al al-Sharaf and his son Muammad
(fl. tenth/sixteenth century), for instance,
integrated into their charts information
from Pr Re’s’s nautical handbook or
used textual sources about the qibla and
other features of Islamic culture (Herrera
Casais, The nautical atlases).
Another kind of hybrid world map
emerged after the introduction of new
cartography 25
maps from Venice, followed by maps
produced in other European cities. Otto-
man adaptations combine traditional
Ptolemaic elements, such as the circles of
the seven climes, with substantially new
configurations of the continents and the
newly discovered parts of the Americas,
or they incorporate Islamic religious sym-
bols in copies of world maps designed
outside the Muslim world. On the other
side of the Mediterranean, similar pro-
cesses of hybridisation took place in the
early modern period. The construction
of the new maps resulted from combin-
ing Ptolemaic projections, coordinates,
and toponyms with configurations and
toponyms found on portolan charts, into
which material from Ottoman and pre-
Ottoman Arabic sources was introduced
(Brentjes, Gastaldi). The translation of
these hybrid world and regional maps by
Katib Çelebi (ajj Khalfa) and Mehmed
Ikhlai in the 1060s/1650s and again by
Ab Bakr b. Bahrm al-Dimashq and
his groups of collaborators between about
1085/1675 and 1095/1685 posed serious
problems for their integration into Otto-
man geographical perceptions (Hagen,
Ein osmanischer Geograph; Brentjes, On two
manuscripts). Different practices emerged,
ranging from simple transliterations and
translations (often false) to replacements
and reconfigurations. No standardisation
of the immense amount of Ottomanised
cartographic material was undertaken
until the thirteenth/nineteenth century.
7.  Current research
Editions and translations of texts with
maps such as the anonymous Tarikh-i
Hind-i Gharbi (“The history of the West
Indies”) and the African part of al-Idrs’s
Uns al-muhaj wa-raw al-furaj (“The con-
vivality of the hearts and the gardens of
merriment”) continue to be published
(Goodrich, Ottoman Turks; Ducène). Hagen
has presented a systematic analysis of the
entire geographical work of Katib Çelebi,
going far beyond the usual standards of an
edition or translation of a text (Hagen, Ein
osmanischer Geograph).
The debates continue about the scien-
tific character of world maps and globes
produced in the Abbsid caliphate and in
the lkhnid empire as well as about the
relationship between such cartographic
products and those created in Christian
societies north of the Mediterranean since
about 1200. Sezgin produced a three-
volume survey of mainly Western Euro-
pean literature on these issues, in which
he also presents his own ideas, often
simply asserting claims without provid-
ing substantiating evidence or convincing
argument (Sezgin, Mathematische Geogra-
phie). Similarly, Pujades, using secondary
sources exclusively, rejects any impact
from Arabic sources on Italian or Catalan
portolan charts.
New trends have arisen in the history
of cartography, the history of science in
Islamicate societies, and Ottoman history.
Harley, Woodward, and other contribu-
tors to the History of cartography have aban-
doned the notion of limiting the map to a
mathematically based image of the earth
or the heavens and instead extend that
notion to include any graphic representa-
tion that allows for orientation in space or
time (Harley and Woodward, xvi). Simi-
larly Emilie Savage-Smith, taking as her
starting point the example of Harry Beck’s
London Underground Map of 1931, pro-
poses to focus on the functions of the so-
called Balkh maps and to investigate, in
light of their functionality, the appropri-
ateness of the tools of representation these
maps employ—geometrical forms (circles,
triangles, rectangles, squares), colours,
straight lines, flowery circular images for
26 cartography
toponyms, and so forth—and in so doing
calling into question whether the denigra-
tion often accorded them because of their
lack of scientific construction is merited
(Edson and Savage-Smith, 85). In contrast,
Pinto believes that the symbolic character
of these maps is a later development; she
considers the fifth/eleventh-century copy
of Ibn awqal’s work as more mimetic—
and thus less symbolic—than later copies
(Pinto, Ways of seeing, 15). She proposes
to abandon the quest for the origins of
the Balkh School and instead to focus
research on the extant copies, their prop-
erties as artworks, and their audiences.
Art historians and historians of the
Ottoman and Mughal empires have
made efforts to uncover functions of
maps beyond simply providing practical
orientation on land or along coasts, and
beyond applications of mathematical and
astronomical procedures. Pinto considers
gift giving between Muslim rulers and
royal patronage for Islamic maps in the
tradition of the Balkh School as impor-
tant elements in Mehmed II’s interest in
geography and cartography (Pinto, The
maps are the message). Karamustafa
proposes to read several Ottoman maps
as produced “in the service of the state”
(Karamustafa, Military, administrative
and scholarly maps). Tezcan believes that
the Tarikh-i Hind-i Gharbi reflects immedi-
ate political motives, and that these differ
from edition to edition (Tezcan, 3, 11).
Emiralolu takes those ideas much further
and claims that practically all maps since
the early tenth/sixteenth century served
to express, propagate, and translate Otto-
man imperial ambitions and an underlying
universalist ideology (Emralolu). Hagen
takes a skeptical stance towards such
macro-historical generalisations. He sees
Katib Çelebi’s work as an effort to incor-
porate the non-Muslim world, in par-
ticular the European neighbours of the
Ottomans, into the geographical world
view of Muslim scholars and increasingly
also that of Ottoman politics. He under-
scores the notion that function and con-
text determine the meaning and value of
a map (Hagen, Ktip Çelebi’s Maps, 285,
288–93).
Other maps traceable to the Ottoman
court do not appear to manifest political
or imperial messages, but seem instead to
invite a religious and cosmological read-
ing. Drawing upon a careful analysis of
Evliya Çelebi’s (d. after 1094/1683) rhe-
torical strategies, Gottfried Hagen rejects
the widespread acceptance of the famous
traveller’s cartographical terminology as
well as his information about the work-
shops of mapmakers in Istanbul and
European scholarly literature in Otto-
man libraries. Hagen rather sees this as
an expression of Çelebi’s struggle for an
authoritative Islamic but at the same time
modern voice of Ottomanness (Hagen,
Atlas and Papamonta, 105–6, 109, 129).
Another new direction of inquiry goes
beyond the traditional study of transmis-
sion of culture by emphasising instead the
shared character of cultural products pro-
duced in Islamicate and Christian societ-
ies around the Mediterranean. Such an
approach restates the usually unilateral
directedness of transmission as a matter
of multi-cultural mediation and inher-
ent relatedness (Rothman, 78). While this
theme applies to a much broader array of
objects, actors, events, and processes, it
also includes maps and plans (Rothman,
64–5).
Cartographic topics that have been
studied for the modern period include the
use of maps in the classroom, which is a
new use for maps in Islamicate societies
since the nineteenth century, and the rep-
resentation of borders. In both cases, links
cartography 27
to political events and changes such as
those brought about by reforms and lost
wars are seen as primary forces motivat-
ing the introduction of maps as tools of
education. Maps, with their implicit defi-
nition of territory, nation, and citizenship,
have functioned as an immediate transla-
tion of political needs and visions in the
Ottoman Empire and in Qajar as well as
Pahlav Iran (Fortna; Kashani-Sabet).
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Division, MS 104.1.
Sonja Brentjes
Caucasus, post-900/1500
The Caucasus, post-900/1500,
entered a new phase of its history, as the
Ottoman-Persian struggle for dominance
began. This resulted in a series of wars that
lasted until the early nineteenth century.
While the afavid empire took possession
of the Caspian region and the Ottoman
Empire wielded power over the Black
Sea region, the South Caucasus territories
were divided several times between the two
empires. With the decay of afavid power
many independent states ruled by Turkic
dynasties appeared in the Caucasus.
Although Armenians and Georgians
remained predominantly Christian, the
influence of the Ottoman Empire, its vas-
sal Crimean Khnate, and the afavid
empire weakened the role of Christianity
in the region and stimulated the Islami-
sation of the Caucasus. In the tenth/
sixteenth century, many Kabardians and
Abkhazians adopted Islam. In the elev-
enth/seventeenth and twelfth/eighteenth
centuries, the rapid spread of Islam began
in the Northwest Caucasus among Circas-
sians, Balkars, and Karachays.
The conversion in the Northwest Cau-
casus was more superficial than in the