Arabic Phase of Geography : At the Crossroads of the Human and Exact Sciences (8th–16th Century)

Provide historical, didactic, and pedagogical materials illustrating the role played by Geography as a crossroads between the human sciences and the exact sciences, through the study of specific chapters of mathematics (trigonometry, plane and spherical geometry), and life and earth sciences (botany, agronomy, pharmacopoeia).

• Select, present, and analyze scientific materials produced within the framework of geographical activities.

• Create a bibliographic database and a digital library covering the various themes of geography addressed in the Research Project (P.E.).

• Gather materials and produce pedagogical tools or working documents that can enrich the content of Geography curricula for primary, middle, secondary, and university education: Synthesis articles on the themes of each axis of the P.E., technical sheets, and an anthology of ancient texts.

We have opted for content analysis of the five works in order to decipher the paradigms that organize them. The objective of this technique was to collect and process the mentioned geographical data to identify the different trends inherent to both society and nature. This analysis technique relied on grids applied systematically to all the works; this allowed for a distancing from spontaneous interpretations and the removal of general impressions that might have masked the paradigms we were seeking.

The five works undeniably provide extensive information on plants and/or crops with utilitarian potential. We can certainly say that their authors were implicitly the precursors of the culture versus nature paradigm. Some, if not most, made travel one of the essential means of constituting geographical knowledge. The notion of terroir (local land/territory), which emerges from the five works, reveals traits specific to Arab-Berber-Islamic culture. It was no longer a matter of merely providing names and coordinates that testify to the complex relationship between geography and cartography; what is evoked are the specificities of places and the famous figures who were born or distinguished themselves in those locations. Narrative is dominant here; geography "literalizes" itself—it becomes literature. On the other hand, can we speak of "geographical literature," as some authors call it?

This marks the birth of a true human geography, one of whose goals is to testify to the immensity and diversity of the world, which a map probably cannot fully account for. Al-Bakri and Al-Idrisi both emphasize the complex relationship between geography and cartography. In Al-Bakri’s description, listing the names of stages and unfolding the thread of the route contributes to a textual cartography that is as significant for the reader as the map itself.

Does the representation of space in the Middle Ages not obey the logic of the list more than the evocative power of names? Unlike the map, does the enumeration of itineraries not allow for the insertion of various types of narratives regarding the particularities of places and the customs of inhabitants? The peculiarity of Al-Idrisi’s work lies in the complementarity between the book, the mappamundi (world map), and the regional maps: three distinct and inseparable elements. Why both a mappamundi and maps? While the mappamundi offers the eye an expansive and mastered world, it undoubtedly cannot equal the large-scale map in its ability to account for the details and particularities of more restricted spaces.

An important place is accorded to man, society, and history in these five works.