IN NORTHERN MISTS 



THE ARAB GEOGRAPHERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 



If we turn now from the intellectual darkness of Christian 

 western Europe in the early Middle Ages to contemporary 

 Arabic literature, it is as though we entered a new world; 

 not least is this shown in geographical science, where the 

 authors follow quite different methods. Through their contact 

 with the intellectual world of Greece in the Orient, the Arabs 

 kept alive the Greek tradition; they had translations in their 

 own language of Euclid, Archimedes, Aristotle, the now lost 

 work of Marinus of Tyre, and others, and of special importance 

 to their geographical knowledge was their acquaintance with 

 Ptolemy's astronomy and geography, which had been forgotten 

 in Europe, and which first became known there through the 

 Arabs (cf Vol. I, p. ii6). They were also acquainted with Greek 

 cartography. To this education in Greek views and interests 

 was added the fact that they had better opportunities than any 

 other nation of collecting geographical knowledge; through 

 their extensive conquests and through their trade they reached 

 China on the east — where for a considerable time their 

 merchants had fixed colonies, first in Canton (in the eighth 

 century), and later, in the ninth century, even in Khanfu (near 

 Shanghai) ^ — and the western coasts of Europe and Africa on 

 the west, the Sudan and Somaliland (and even Madagascar) on 

 the south, and North Russia on the north. In spite of the 

 religious fanaticism which in the seventh century made them 

 an irresistible nation of conquerors, they had civilization 

 enough to remember that " the ink of science is worth more 

 than the blood of martyrs," and there flourished among them 

 a remarkably copious literature, with an endless variety of 

 works, from the ninth century through the whole of the Middle 

 Ages. 



Although the Arabs never attained the Greeks' capacity 

 for scientific thinking, their literature nevertheless reveals an 



1 Cf. M. de Goeje in the " Livre des Merveilles de I'lnde," ed. by v. d. Lith 

 and Devic, Leiden, 1883-86, p. 295, 

 194 



