Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima and the Maps of al-Idrīsī

Abstract

It has long been noted that in compiling a geographical preface to his famous Muqaddima, Ibn Khaldūn relied on the maps contained in the twelfth-century geographer al-Idrīsī’s Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq. Yet Ibn Khaldūn’s reading of nearly seventy regional maps of al-Idrīsī has not to date been the subject of a detailed examination. This article seeks, first, to establish patterns in Ibn Khaldūn’s map reading as recorded in the Muqaddima, noting the focus and direction of his reading as well as its omissions. In addition to his descriptions of the maps, it considers Ibn Khaldūn’s use of the text of the Nuzhat al-mushtāq and occasional examples of his updating and addition of information. Second, this analysis leads to a discussion of the significance—or lack thereof—of al-Idrīsī’s maps for the larger project of the Muqaddima: what role, in the end, did geography play within Ibn Khaldūn’s theory of history?