21 results
Map of Turkey, Arabia and Persia
John Senex (circa 1678-1740) was an English surveyor, engraver, bookseller, and publisher of maps and atlases. He served as geographer to Queen Anne and was elected to the Royal Society in 1728. Among his many works was A New General Atlas: containing a geographical and historical account of all the empires, kingdoms, and other dominions of the world, published in 1721. This map of the Middle East is one of 34 maps in the atlas. Senex borrowed liberally from the great French mapmaker Guillaume de L’Isle, often simply translating ...
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Library of Congress
The History of Persia
Captain John Stevens (died 1726) was a prolific translator and embellisher of Spanish and Portuguese works of history and literature who published this book in 1715. In his preface, Stevens explained: “Persia is at this time, and has been for several Ages, one of the Great Eastern Monarchies, and yet the Accounts we have hitherto had of it in English have been no better than Fragments.” The book is a translation of a work in Spanish published in 1610 by Pedro Teixeira (erroneously identified by Stevens as Antony), a Portuguese ...
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Library of Congress
Bahrain and Jemama
Heinrich Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (1808–99) was a German Orientalist who specialized in Arab history and literature. He studied at the universities of Göttingen and Berlin, and taught at Göttingen from 1842 until 1890. This work is an analysis, based on Arab sources, of the geography of Bahrain and of the province of Yemama, located in present-day Saudi Arabia. Wüstenfeld noted in his introduction that Bahrain and Yemama were the least-known parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Only three Europeans—in 1819, 1862–63, and 1864—were known to have traveled through ...
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Library of Congress
Qur'anic Verses
This eighth century calligraphic fragment from the collections of the Library of Congress is most likely the oldest Islamic text in North America, one that could have been touched by the youngest companions of the Prophet Muhammad. The fragment includes verses 53-54 of the 34th chapter of the Qur'an entitled Surat Saba' (Sheba), as well as the first ten verses of the 35th chapter of the Qur'an entitled Surat al-Fatir (The originator). Surat al-Fatir is an early Meccan surah that deals with the mystery of creation and angels ...
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Library of Congress
A Guide for the Good
This Muslim prayer book is a 1785 copy of an original 15th-century manuscript. The work includes a panorama of Mecca and Medina, the holy cities of Islam in Saudi Arabia. Mecca, where the Prophet Muhammad was born and lived for the first 50 years of his life, is the most sacred city in Islam. It is also where the Ka`bah is found, the holiest sanctuary in Islam and called the "house of God" (Bayt Allah). Muslims throughout the world pray facing in the direction of Mecca and the Ka ...
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Library of Congress
Sixth Map of Asia
Several editions of Ptolemy’s Geographia (Geography), translated into Latin from the original Greek, were published in Europe in the 15th century. This map is from the 1478 edition, which was published in Rome. Ptolemaic atlases included 12 maps of Asia. The “Sixth Map of Asia” covered the Arabian Peninsula. The outlines of this map are crude, but many geographic features, including the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and different features of the peninsula are clearly recognizable.
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Qatar National Library
The Coast of Arabia the Red Sea, and Persian Sea of Bassora Past the Straits of Hormuz to India, Gujarat and Cape Comorin
This 1707 map of the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent regions is the work of Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733), a Dutch publisher and bookseller based in Leiden who specialized in reissuing maps acquired from earlier mapmakers. The map appears to be based on an earlier Portuguese work, and uses a mix of Dutch, Latin, and Portuguese for titles and place names. The map covers only the eastern and central parts of the peninsula, which is shaped differently than shown on many other maps. The map shows four rivers on the ...
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Qatar National Library
A Drawing (with a Western Perspective) of the East Indies from the Promontory of Good Hope to Cape Comorin
This portolan map by the Dutch engraver, publisher, and map seller Frederick de Wit (1629 or 1630-1706) shows the Indian Ocean from the Cape of Good Hope to the west coast of India (Malabar). The map was first published in 1675 and was reprinted in 1715. It is oriented with east at the top. Kishm is placed in the present-day United Arab Emirates (UAE) and repeated as “Quaro” and “Quiximi.” The shape of the Arabian or Persian Gulf differs from that shown on other maps. There is a big island ...
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Qatar National Library
Sixth Map of Asia: Which Includes Arabia Felix, Carmania, and the Persian Gulf
This map from Ptolemy’s Geographia was published in 1578 and reprinted on many occasions between 1584 and 1704. It is much more finely engraved than maps in previous Ptolemy editions. The map mentions several places in present-day Qatar (Abucei, Leaniti, Themi, Asateni, and Aegei). Names added to this edition of the map include Mesmites Sinus, Idicar, and a second Idicar, located in present-day Kuwait. This name is similar to the island of “Ichara” found near Magorum Sinus. Contemporary research has confirmed that Kharj is the island known to the ...
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Qatar National Library
A Chart of the Coast of Arabia, the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, Drawn from the Chart of the Eastern Ocean
This English map is a reprinting, with slight changes, of an earlier French map published in 1740 by order of Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count de Maurepas (1701-81), secretary of state under King Louis XV. The map was drawn from an earlier chart of the Eastern Ocean, “improv’d from particular surveys and regulated by astronomical observations.” This English edition of the de Maurepas map has a different title cartouche. The “Remarks” section at the lower right gives abbreviations for physical features on the map, and notes: “ A Stroke under ye Name ...
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Qatar National Library
Map of the Coast of Arabia, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
This 1740 map is by the French cartographer and hydrographer Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703-72). It was published by order of Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count de Maurepas (1701-81), secretary of state under King Louis XV. The map focuses exclusively on the coastlines, and provides no detail about the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. It shows pearl banks along the coast from Bahrain to Julfar. Qatar is noted (“Katara”), but the peninsula that it occupies is not accurately drawn. Kuwait is not shown, but the island of “Peleche” is indicated. The Red Sea is ...
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Qatar National Library
Arabia
This 1662 Latin map of Arabia is a copy of an earlier map by Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638), the founder of the Blaeu cartographic firm. It is one of the first maps to show internal features of the Arabian Peninsula. Mountains are depicted, oases denoted by trees, and points used to indicate pearl deposits in the Arabian Gulf. The map uses dotted lines to show international borders. The Red Sea is denoted by three Latin names: Mare Rubrum (Red Sea), Mare Mecca (Sea of Mecca), and Sinus Arabicus (Gulf of ...
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Qatar National Library
Arabia
This map of 1616, with Latin place names, is a reprint of a work by Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612), a Flemish cartographer and engraver who settled in Amsterdam in about 1593 and established a business that produced globes and the first large maps of the world. The place names on the map are unclear. “Coromanis” is shown on many older maps as located in present-day Kuwait, but here is shown as lying beyond “Catiffa,” or Al Qatif. “Luna,” on the coastal belt of the Arabian Gulf, could be Ras Tanurah, located ...
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Qatar National Library
Arabia
This 1616 map is a reprint of a map originally published in 1598 by Jodocus Hondius (1563-1612), a Flemish cartographer and engraver who settled in Amsterdam in about 1593 and established a business that produced globes and the first large maps of the world. The map covers the territory from west of the Gulf of Suez to the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula, and from the mouth of the Euphrates River to Aden. The only cities indicated on the western coast of the Persian or Arabian Gulf are Qatar ...
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Qatar National Library
A Current and Correct Depiction of Arabia Felix, Arabia Petraea, and Arabia Deserta
This map from 1658 was published by Johannes Janssonius (1588-1664), or Jan Jansson. Jansson was born in Arnhem, the son of Jan Jansson the Elder, a publisher and bookseller. Jansson’s maps are similar to those of Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638), the founder of the Blaeu cartographic firm, and Jansson is sometimes accused of copying from his rival, but many of his maps predate those of Blaeu or cover different regions. This map is very similar to an earlier Blaeu map. The map shows more rivers on the Arabian Peninsula ...
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Qatar National Library
Map of Ancient Arabia
This map of the Arabian Peninsula, published in 1720, shows Arabia Felix, Arabia Deserta, and Arabia Petraea. Other regions included are Palestine, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, Persia, Aegyptus, and Aethiopia. A large number of towns are shown. The title cartouche includes nine vignette coins. The tribal and town names on the map are those used by Ptolemy. Some are used more than once, with variations. Thus “Indicara,” “Iacara,” “Ichara,” and “Aphana” all could indicate the same place: the spot where Alexander the Great intended to build a capital on an island in ...
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Qatar National Library
The Life of the Prophet
Maghāzī al-Nabī (The life of the Prophet) depicts the life of the Prophet Muhammad in poetical form. The original work was composed by a famous Arabic and Persian scholar of Kashmir, Ya‘qub Ṣarfī (1521–95). The unique poetic and biographical work, transcribed in two columns on each page of manuscript, includes some supplications and eulogies for the Prophet of Islam. Each column is bordered in lines inlaid with gold. The writing of the manuscript is clear and vivid.
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Allama Iqbal Library, University of Kashmir
Manifestations of Goodness
Dalā’il al-Khayrāt (Manifestations of goodness) is a manuscript by Abu Abdullah Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Jazūlī, a Moroccan Sufi and Islamic scholar who died in 1465. The contents of this work are known to Muslims as one of the best compilations of litanies of peace and blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad. The book was often given to pilgrims on their voyage to Mecca. The beginning of the manuscript shows the varied names by which Allah is called, and several pages portray the names by which the Prophet Muhammad is ...
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Allama Iqbal Library, University of Kashmir
Map of the Three Arabias: Excerpted Partly from the Arab of Nubia, Partly from Several Other Authors
This map of “the three Arabias” by French royal geographer Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville is one of the few 17th-century maps of the Arabian Peninsula. Despite its importance as a crossroads of trade between three continents, the geography of Arabia remained largely unknown to European cartographers until the era of European exploration and expansion in the 15th century. Although published in 1654–by the Parisian printer and engraver Pierre Mariette-Sanson’s map remained largely based on the medieval work of the 12th-century Arab cartographer Al-Idrisi (1099-1164), whose work Geographia Nubiensis ...
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Library of Congress
Mirror Image of 'Ali wali Allah
This 18th-century Ottoman levha (calligraphic panel) depicts the Shi'a phrase “'Ali is the vicegerent of God” in obverse and reverse, creating an exact mirror image. The calligrapher used the central vertical fold in the thick cream-colored paper to trace the exact calligraphic duplication prior to mounting it on cardboard and pasting rectangular pink frames along its borders. Mirror writing flourished during the early modern period, but its origins may stretch as far back as pre-Islamic mirror-image rock inscriptions in the Hijaz, the western strip of the Arabian Peninsula. Engraving ...
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Library of Congress
Zawzani's Commentary on the Seven Suspended Odes
The Muallaqaat (The suspended odes) are long, classical Arabic poems written in the pre-Islamic period. They are referred to by this name because it was believed Arab critics of the time chose to hang them on the walls of the Kaaba in Mecca (a holy place for the tribes of Arabia even before Islam) in deference to the greatness of these poems and to set the standards for all Arabic poetry to come. They typically start with a pause by the lover and his companions to memorialize the remnants of ...
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Bibliotheca Alexandrina