An Historical Atlas of Islam.

• Author: Cobb, Paul M.
• Position: Reviews of Books - Book Review

An Historical Atlas of Islam. 2nd revised edition. Edited by HUGH KENNEDY. Leiden: BRILL, 2002. Pp. xx + 86.

One would think that a book consisting primarily of pictures would be easy enough to review, but atlases in general are so crowded with information, and this atlas in particular, that any detailed assessment would require its own lengthy essay, if not a series of essays. The short and general review that I offer instead is simple: anyone researching or teaching about the pre-twentieth-century Islamic world should acquire this atlas. But first, a word to the wise: the hefty price of the atlas means that most academic readers will not buy the book themselves but will ask their libraries to purchase a copy. If so, be aware that the book also comes with a CD-ROM version of the atlas: since the library is unlikely to need both paper and digital versions, enterprising readers may wish to cut a deal with their acquisitions departments and obtain the CD-ROM for their own use.

This second revised edition, by Hugh Kennedy, of William Brice's original builds upon the rather significant accomplishments of the first, and improves greatly upon them. The new preface and bibliographical preambles by Kennedy explain what specific maps have been added and what has been dropped since the first edition, and I find very little to criticize in the decisions behind these changes. For example, the original atlas could be startling in its mode of organization: first general maps, then maps of Arabia and Yemen, then, suddenly, a map of Iran, of seismic activity, etc., returning just as suddenly to Arabia and Yemen, hurtling to the east, then the Maghrib, then to India and southeast Asia. The new edition offers a much more logical organization of its maps, one less likely to induce motion-sickness than its predecessor, with general maps followed by specific regional maps grouped according to the area being described.

Of the new maps, one notes in particular those of the Fertile Crescent (under the caliphs and in Crusader times), Egypt, Sicily, and the Caucasus. But the most significant addition to this second edition comes in the various city-plans. Whereas the first edition offered maps of Mecca, Medina, and Istanbul, the second edition offers city-plans of Mecca, Medina, San'a', Damascus, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Mosul, Baghdad ('Abbasid and Buyid/Saljuq/Mongol), Fustat/Cairo (early Islamic and Mamluk), Isfahan, Samarqand, Marv, Herat, Istanbul, Cordoba, Granada...