Geography · a Light

He drew the world with south at the top

Al-Idrisi, born in Ceuta and trained in Cordoba, spent about fifteen years at the Norman court of Roger II in Palermo, interviewing travellers and merchants and checking their accounts against each other. In 1154 he delivered a book of geography and a world map engraved on a great disc of silver, which was later broken up and lost. The maps that survive in the manuscripts show south at the top, following a convention of the time, so the familiar shape of Africa and Arabia sits upside down to a modern eye. His work was made for a Christian king by a Muslim scholar using Norman, Arab, Greek and Jewish informants, and it stayed a standard reference in Europe for three centuries.

Al-Idrisi · Palermo, 1154 CE