Akam al-Marjan fi Dhikr al-Madain al-Mashhura fi Kull Makan
- Author died
- 350 AH
- Editions
- 'Alam al-Kutub
Akam al-Marjan fi Dhikr al-Madain al-Mashhura fi Kull Makan (Hills of Coral on the Mention of Famous Cities in Every Place) is a concise geographical gazetteer written by the astronomer and geographer Ishaq ibn al-Husayn al-Munajjim (d. c. 350 AH / 961 CE), surveying cities and regions across the Islamic world, Africa, Europe, and Asia .
Authorship and Date of Composition
The author, Ishaq ibn al-Husayn al-Munajjim, is an obscure figure about whom virtually nothing is known beyond his name . Orientalists, including Vladimir Minorsky and Carl Brockelmann, investigated his identity without reaching a definitive conclusion . Proposed datings have placed him in the 3rd century AH, around 340 AH, or no later than 454 AH (the founding date of Marrakesh, which is not mentioned in the book) .
Internal textual evidence indicates that the work was composed between 344 AH and 350 AH: the author records that Almeria (al-Mariyya) had become the provincial capital (which occurred in 344 AH / 955 CE under the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir), but he omits any mention of the royal city of Madinat al-Zahra (constructed between 350 and 365 AH), Cairo (founded in 359 AH), and Marrakesh (founded in 454 AH) . Although transmitted through a Yemeni manuscript, the author is generally considered to have been of Andalusian origin or closely connected to al-Andalus, as evidenced by traces of Andalusian dialect and the rich, detailed treatment of the Iberian Peninsula and North African maritime trade .
Method and Scope
The book belongs to the tradition of mathematical geography established by Ptolemy, which divides the inhabited earth into seven climes and determines geographic positions relative to the prime meridian in the West and the Equator . Rather than following an alphabetical arrangement, the work organizes cities by religious prominence and regional progression .
The treatise is structured into several geographic sections:
- The Islamic East and Arabia: Opens with the holy sanctuaries of Islam, followed by Baghdad, Samarra, Kufa, Basra, and Wasit . It then covers Southern Arabia (Sanaa, Aden, Oman, Saba, Marib, Hadramawt, Socotra, and Bahrain), followed by the Levant and the eastern provinces, including Azerbaijan, Hamadhan, Isfahan, Rayy, Kirman, Khwarazm, Balkh, Bukhara, and Samarkand . The text provides concise notes on economic geography, such as tax revenues (kharaj), regional industries, and demographic origins, and is the earliest known Arabic source to mention the Ili River in connection with Gorgan .
- Egypt, North Africa, and Bilad al-Sudan: Covers Alexandria, Damietta, Tinnis, and Fustat, before moving across North Africa through Tripoli, Sirte, Qayrawan, Tahert, Fez, Tlemcen, Ceuta, Tangier, and Sijilmasa . It includes descriptions of commercial ports and overland trade posts, followed by brief entries on sub-Saharan lands (Bilad al-Sudan), including Abyssinia, Mali, and Nubia .
- Al-Andalus and Europe: Provides a detailed overview of the maritime and inland administrative districts of the Iberian Peninsula and the military borderlands (al-Thughur) facing Christian Spain . It concludes with non-Muslim lands in Europe and Asia, treating Italy, France, the Slavs (al-Saqaliba), the Byzantine Empire (including Constantinople), the Khazars, the Bulgars, and non-Muslim Turkic tribes .
Reception and Manuscripts
The work was utilized and cited by later scholars, notably al-Idrisi in his geographic compendium Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi Ikhtiraq al-Afaq and Ibn Khaldun in his historical writings .
The text is preserved in a single Yemeni manuscript held at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan . The manuscript consists of 33 folios transcribed in Yemeni Naskh script by Ahsan ibn Ali ibn Ubayd Allah al-Ansi al-Kawkabani in Sha'ban 1129 AH for the Zaidi Imam of Yemen, al-Qasim ibn al-Husayn (r. 1128–1139 AH) . The text was first described and published by Angela Codazzi in the 1920s and was later critically edited by Fahmi Sa'd (Beirut, 1988) .
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