Picturing the Islamicate World

In Picturing the Islamicate World, Nadja Danilenko explores the message of the first preserved maps from the Islamicate world in al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Book of Routes and Realms(10th century C.E.) and unravels how the treatise was transmitted for almost a millennium.

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In Picturing the Islamicate World, Nadja Danilenko explores the message of the first preserved maps from the Islamicate world. Safeguarded in al-Iṣṭakhrī’s Book of Routes and Realms (10th century C.E.), the world map and twenty regional maps complement the text to a reference book of the territories under Muslim rule. Rather than shaping the Islamicate world according to political or religious concerns, al-Iṣṭakhrī chose a timeless design intended to outlast upheavals.

Considering the treatise was transmitted for almost a millennium, al-Iṣṭakhrī’s strategy seems to have paid off.

By investigating the Persian and Ottoman translations and all extant manuscripts, Nadja Danilenko unravels the manuscript tradition of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s work, revealing who took an interest in it and why.