Al-Bakri

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For the lunar crater, see
Abū al-Ḥasan Bakrī
.
Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī
Personal
Born1040
Islamic history, geography

Abū ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn ʿAmr al-Bakrī (

Muslim West.[1]

Life

Al-Bakri was born in

Almeria. While in Seville, he was there when El Cid arrived to collect tributes from Alfonso VI.[3] He died in Córdoba without ever having travelled to the locations of which he wrote.[5]

Works

Al-Bakri wrote about Europe, North Africa, and the Arabian peninsula. Only two of his works have survived. His Mu'jam mā ista'jam contains a list of place names mostly within the Arabian peninsula with an introduction giving the geographical background. His most important work is his Kitāb al-Masālik wa-al-Mamālik ("

Abraham ben Jacob.[5][6] It is one of the most important sources for the history of West Africa and gives crucial information on the Ghana Empire, the Almoravid dynasty and the trans-Saharan trade.[6] Although the material borrowed from al-Warraq dated from the 10th century, he also included information on events that occurred close to the time that he wrote.[6]

Al-Bakri mentions the earliest urban centres in the trans-Saharan trade to embrace Islam, late in the 10th century,

Iberia, enabling Al-Bakri to write in his Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik (Book of Highways and Kingdoms): "The city of Ghana consists of two towns situated on a plain" and that "One of these towns, which is inhabited by Muslims, is large and possesses twelve mosques in one of which they assemble for the Friday prayer. There are salaried imams and muezzins, as well as jurists and scholars."[7]

His works are noted for the relative objectivity with which they present information. For each area, he describes the people, their customs, as well as the geography, climate and main cities. Similar information was also contained in his written geography of the Arabian Peninsula, and in the encyclopedia of the world in which he wrote. He also presented various anecdotes about each area. Unfortunately, parts of his main work have been lost, and of the surviving parts, some have never been published.[6]

Legacy

The crater Al-Bakri on the Moon is named after him.[8]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Lévi-Provençal, E. (24 April 2012). "Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī".
  2. ^ Lévi-Provençal 1960, p. 155
  3. ^ a b "Al-Bakrī, Ab | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2022-07-11.
  4. ^ Hermes, N. (2012). The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture: Ninth-Twelfth Century AD. Springer. "Judged as the greatest geographer of al-Andalus, polyvalent scholar Abu ʿUbayd ʿAbd Allah al-Bakri belonged to the powerful Arab tribe of Bakr ibn Wail"
  5. ^ a b Vernet 1970
  6. ^ a b c d Levtzion & Hopkins 2000, pp. 62–63
  7. ^ "Saudi Aramco World : From Africa, in Ajami". Archived from the original on 2014-11-30. Retrieved 2011-09-23.
  8. ^ "Al-Bakri". Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature. USGS Astrogeology Research Program.

References

Further reading

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Bakri".

External links
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