Contributions of the Muslims to geography

The Muslim geographers had sufficient contributions to geography. It was they who first studied geology from geographical point of view and placed it in a prestigious position. They prepared a Surat-al Aradh or a map of the world. Al Kharizmi, Al-Masudi, Al-Muqaddasi, umar-Khayyam and Yaqut-Ibn –Abdullah made remarkable contributions to this subject.



Al-Kharizmi

Al-Kharizmi translated the book of the Greek geographer Ptolemy and added a map to it. Al Kharizmi zccepted Ptolemy’s latitude and longitude and added to it some description of the Muslim countries. With the endeavour of Al- kharizmi a real picture of the world was prepared and that was used as a model for drawing the map of the world afterwards. Al-Kharizmi devided the world into seven iqlims or zones. Following this theory, the geographers divided this earth into seven continents according to the differences of atmosphere.

Al-Muqaddasi

Al-Muqaddasi wrote a world-famous book named ‘Ahsan Al-Taqasim Fil-Ma’rifati Aqalim’. He traveled around various Muslim countries of the world for twenty years. In this book, he presented many important geographical facts of those countries and also added a map to it.

Umar Khayyam

Umar Khayyam invented an almanac called ‘Al tarikh Jalali’ after a long research. For this, he become famous in the history oif the world. This is more accurate and better in quality than the calendar introduced by Pope Gregori in the sixteenth century.









Yaqut Ibn Abdullah

The book on geography ‘Mu’jamul Buldan; a book on geography, by yaqut Ibn Abdullah Al-Hamabi was an authentic one. In that book, he described historical, national and natural condition of every place and introduced historical persons and mentioned historical events.