Muslims made many important contributions to the field of geography from the 7th century onwards. Key Muslim geographers and their works included Al-Khwārizmī who wrote one of the earliest books on geography, Al-Masudi who compiled travel observations in his book Meadows of Gold, and Al-Idrisi who created a detailed world map and geographical encyclopedia. Ibn Majid advanced navigation and oceanography through his books on marine science and ship movements. Muslim geographers accumulated knowledge through travel, study, and the needs of pilgrimage and trade, and their works informed both Eastern and Western understanding of geography for centuries.

1. MUSLIMS CONTRIBUTION IN THE FIELD OF
GEOGRAPHY

2. Muslims' great concern for geography
originated with their religion.

3. Islam requires each Muslim to have at least enough
knowledge of geography to know the direction of the Qiblah

4. Pilgrimage as well as commerce in the vast Muslim
empire needed communication

5. From the beginning of the seventh century, the knowledge
of geography was equally growing with the spread of Islam

6. Thousands of Muslim coins, discovered in the
excavations of Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, Kazan, etc

7. Al-Khwārizmī's (780-850)

He was born in Baghdad,
Iraq.

His major work is Kitāb
ṣūrat al-Arḍ (Arabic: ‫كتاب‬
" ‫صورة األرض‬Book on the
appearance of the Earth" or
"The image of the Earth"

8. Al-Khwārizmī corrected Ptolemy's gross overestimate
for the length of the Mediterranean Sea
(from the Canary Islands to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean)

9. Al-Khwārizmī depicted the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as
open bodies of water, not land-locked seas as of Ptolemy

10. Abdullah al-Mamun
(786-833)
He was the seventh caliph,
or ruler of the Islamic Empire,
of the Abbasid dynasty
He ordered geodetic
measurements, to
determine the size of the earth,
and the drawing of a large map
of the world

11. Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn al-Masudi
(896-956)

He was an Abbasid-era Arab
historian based in Baghdad

He traveled the world
journeying from Persia,
Central Asia, India, the Near
East, Madagascar and the
China Sea

12. Al-Masudi’s book:
Muruj adh-Dhahab
(Meadows of gold)
is a compilation of his
travel observations and
studies

13. Muhammad ibn Ahmad Shams al-Din Al-Muqaddasi
(946-1000, Jerusalem)
He was author of :
"Ahsan al-Taqasim fi Ma`rifat il-Aqalim"
(The Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions)
His book gives a systematic account of all the places and
regions he had visited

14. 
Al-Muqaddasi was the first
geographer to produce
maps in natural colors

The Arab-Muslim maps
point upwards to the South,
the North downwards

The maritime voyages
necessitated the tables of
Latitude and Longitude as
well as the use of the
astrolabe and other nautical
instruments

15. Abu Rayhan al-Biruni
(973-1048, Kath [Uzbekistan] )
He is famous for
a)
Cartography
b)
Geodesy
c)
Mineralogy

16. Cartography
By the age of 22, Biruni had
written
including
several
a
short
study
of
works,
map
projections, Cartography, which
included a method for projecting
a hemisphere on a plane

17. Geodesy and geography


Al-Biruni is regarded as the
father of geodesy
He was the first known writer
to identify certain geological
facts, such as
The formation of sedimentary
rocks
 The great geological changes
that happened in the past


18. Mineralogy

Al-Biruni introduced the
scientific
method
into
mineralogy in his
Kitab al-Jawahir
(Book of Precious Stones)

19. Abū 'Ubayd 'Abd Allāh al-Bakrī
(1014-1094)

He was a SpanishArab geographer

He wrote about Europe,
North Africa, and the
Arabian peninsula
His primary work was:
a) Kitāb al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik
("Book of Highways and of Kingdoms")
b) Mu'jam

20.  Al-Bakri work was
based on literature and
the reports of merchants
and travelers

21. 
Al-Bakri arranged place
names alphabetically,
and lists the names of
villages, towns, wadis,
and monuments which
he culled from the
Hadith
histories
and
from

22. Al Idrisi’s
(1099-1166, Ceuta –Spain)
His book:
‘Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq,’
(The Delight of Him Who Desires to Journey
Through the Climates)
is a geographical encyclopedia

23. In 1166 Al-Idrisi, built a
large global map
He meticulously recorded on
it the seven continents
with trade routes, lakes
and rivers, major cities,
and plains and mountains.

24. Al-Idrisi’s books were translated into
Latin and became the standard
books on geography for three
centuries, both in the east and west

25. Ibn Battuta
(1304-1368, Tangier- Morocco)
He was the only medieval
traveler who is known to
have visited the lands of
every Muslim ruler of his
time.

26. 
•
Ibn Battuta lived by the
motto - 'never, if
possible, cover any road
a second time‘.
"Rihla - My Travels". Is the
story of Ibn Battuta’s
travels. It is a valuable
record of places.

27. Ibn Majid
(1430-1500, Julfar [UAE] )
He invented the compass in
the field of geography

28. Ibn Majid wrote several
books
on
marine
science
and
the
movements of ships,
which helped people of
the Persian Gulf to
reach the coasts of
India, East Africa and
other destinations

29. 
Ibn Majid’s most important
work was:
Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul
‘llmal-Bahr wa’l Qawa’id
(Book of Useful Information on the
Principles and Rules of Navigation)
written in 1490
It is a navigation encyclopedia

30.  Ibn
Majid’s Hawiyat, a poem of
some 1,082 verses, is a genuine
treasury of navigational theory
 Another
important book named
al-Urdjuza covering the same
subject

31. 
Ibn Majid’s rich
contribution to the affairs
of the sea benefited the
sciences of geography
and oceanography,
especially in the Indian
Ocean

In 1498, Vasco Da Gama,
while sailing up the east
coast of Africa met Ibn
Majid. His guidance to
Vasco Da Gama, led to
the downfall of Arab sea
power in the Indian Ocean

32. Discovery of the America is thought to have been
aided by Muslims’ contribution to Geography
E. Renan, in his book
Averroes and Averrosism,
mentions a letter written
by Columbus in October
1498 in which he admits
that one of the sources
which led him to assume
the existence of the 'New
World' was the work of Ibn
Rushd (Averroes) of the
12th century