Abstract
This article analyzes the ways in which ‘Alī al-Sharafī of Sfax, an atlas author of the sixteenth century, adapted excerpts from the work of the twelfth-century geographer Muḥammad al-Idrīsī as well as features of medieval European portolan charts. The article pursues a translation studies approach. It argues that, through the adaptation of both textual and graphic elements from Idrīsī’s work and the incorporation of other graphic and cartographic elements, al-Sharafī was in fact engaging in a practice of cultural translation which resulted in a unique and innovative textual and cartographic oeuvre. As such, al-Sharafī should be regarded not simply as a passive copyist of textual and cartographic elements, but indeed as an author who engaged in the creative re-signification of the traditions and practices that informed his work.
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The question of authorship in translation is one that requires careful examination. While the source or ‘original’ work is always at the center of any translation endeavor and the voice of the author should always be retained, it is also true that the translator is in many ways a second author whose voice inevitably resonates in the final work. In this sense, the authorship of a translation is multilayered and complex. This applies to an even greater extent to less conventional types of translation, such as cultural translation between different media. The case at the heart of this study is an example of the latter. The focus is on the adaptation of a medieval geographical text by the twelfth-century Arab geographer Muḥammad al-Idrīsī (d. 1165) into maps and atlases by the sixteenth-century North African mapmaker ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Sharafī of Sfax (d. after 1579). Here we understand translation not as the transfer of a text from one language into another, but primarily as a transfer from a predominantly textual medium into a multi-media (textual, cartographic, and iconographic) product, supplemented by occasional transfers of other iconographic elements. At the same time it also represents a conscious modification of al-Idrīsī’s source text in the form of abridgements and adaptations in order to tailor it to the needs of the medium as well as to assert al-Sharafī’s claim to be the co-author of the work. In many genres of Arabic literature, an authorial persona is clearly identified in forewords, afterwords, and colophons.Footnote 1 Although this is also the case in al-Sharafī’s works, none of his colophons follows the classical model precisely—in terms of number, structure, or content—of Arabic and Islamic pre-modern works; but neither does it follow the model and structure of European atlases and charts.Footnote 2
In al-Sharafī’s work, as we will see in more detail, the authorial voice becomes more pronounced through the development of a style and through particular choices made at various points in the body of each work. For instance, while (with one exception) he does not include the characteristic “chain of transmission” (isnād)Footnote 3 of the authorities who supplied the knowledge required for the construction of his maps, he does repeatedly quote authorities in the fields of geography, cartography, astronomy, and Sufism from different epochs and places.Footnote 4 In this way, he constructs a strategy of knowledge validation and inserts himselfFootnote 5 as one more authorial link in the historical chain of transmission of this body of multidisciplinary knowledge through time and space. He thus creates a pattern of multiple authorial voices, which is also common in Classical Arabic literature. Idrīsī’s Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq (The Book of Pleasant Journeys into Faraway Lands, hereafter referred to simply as the Nuzha) is also an example of this. In it Idrīsī cites a number of geographical authorities, both Arabic and European, such as Ptolemy (d. c. 170) and al-Masʿūdī (d. 955).Footnote 6 Lale Behzadi has rightly compared Idrīsī’s approach in this work to the concept of “polyphony”, in the sense that the author often steps back and allows other voices to be heard.Footnote 7 Al-Sharafī’s works are likewise polyphonic in that they retain al-Idrīsī’s voice (among other sources), while also allowing his own authorial voice to be heard. His practice of repeatedly citing other sources should therefore be seen not as a sign of passivity or a lack of originality, but rather as a way of using other authorities to establish an authorial voice, in a quest to anchor a work within a broader tradition and to assert his authoritative status.Footnote 8
This paper will thus focus on al-Sharafī’s decision to present himself as an author. We will explore this at three different levels: 1) at the material level, in terms of the transfer of geographical knowledge and cartographic practices from different sources and traditions into the format of a portolan atlas, the model adhered to by al-Sharafī in the composition of his atlases; 2) at the textual level, in terms of the selective adaptation of sources like al-Idrīsī’s work in a quest to create a new work, which would be sufficiently different to be considered an original product, while retaining enough features from its sources to render them recognizable; and 3) in terms of anchoring of the work in question within its local (Mediterranean) setting, through the selection of an appropriate lexical and symbolic repertoire.Footnote 9
10.1 The Concept of Politics of Translation as an Approach to Analyzing al-Sharafī’s Works
Most studies dealing with the concept of politics of translation tend to focus on two overarching themes: the first relates to the sum of the contextual factors surrounding any given translation endeavor. These of course include questions of patronage and commissioning, but also broader issues related to transmission of knowledge across cultures, ranging from missionary projects to cultural propaganda, to name just two obvious examples.Footnote 10 The second theme relates to the more technical aspects of translation, including lexical and rhetorical choices, which are informed by the cultural (and political) frameworks from which translation projects emerge. Examples of complex and new approaches to this notion abound, from Gayatri Spivak’s studies on feminist translation as solidarity with neglected voices in postcolonial contexts, to Lori Anne Ferrell’s study of stylistic choices in English Bible translations, or Kenneth Lloyd-Jones’s study of Erasmus’s critique of Ciceronianism in the early modern period.Footnote 11 Of special interest and useful for our analysis is the inclusion of the spatial dimension and cartography in translation studies. In his studies on the poetry of Ludovico Ariosto (d. 1533), Francesco Italiano referred to this as “the translation of geographies” or the carticity of a text.Footnote 12 The latter term, as understood by Robert Stockhammer, refers to a kind of writing that uses words to mirror the spatial characteristics of a map. According to Stockhammer, carticity of literary description exhibits an “affinity or distance to cartographical process or representation, not only with respect to the setting, but also […] with respect to the creatures to be located there”.Footnote 13 This can be achieved through a detailed description of the topographic elements of the map, through a sequence that describes an itinerary, or by any other means through which the visual representation becomes indispensable for understanding the text, in a way reminiscent of a map.Footnote 14 Related to these approaches, albeit comprising a somehow different aspect of politics of translation, is the question of how translators have used their newly conceived texts as legitimizing tools to signal their belonging to a given social or scholarly community.
In our study of al-Sharafī’s works, we look beyond conventional understandings of translation—that is, translation as a source-to-target language transfer—in order to consider other processes, such as dynamic equivalence, intersemiotic translation (recently called transmediation), and carticity.Footnote 15 In this broader understanding of cartography as translation—indeed as a complex process of cultural negotiation—Footnote 16 politics of translation should be linked to the positionality of the creator of such anthologies, textual collages, and compendiums. In other words, the decisions made in the process of assembling, blending, interpreting, and modifying sources in order to create a new product should be understood as modes of intellectual “social signaling” by any given translator or intellectual authority.
As a case study, we examine the appropriation of the above-mentioned Nuzha of al-Idrīsī in the works of ʿAlī al-Sharafī.Footnote 17 By unravelling this practice of abridgement, adaptation, and reformulation, we argue that al-Sharafī was not engaged in a mere act of imitation through copying, but in one of active appropriation for the purpose of generating an original textual and visual product of his own. Through his use of al-Idrīsī’s text, al-Sharafī created a framework which allowed him to invest his work with an intellectually authoritative status and to position himself as an authorial persona. As we will see later, al-Sharafī mobilized cultural capital through references and praise for al-Idrīsī’s work, which in his time was a renowned classic of geographical knowledge and mapmaking. This enabled him to present himself as an heir to a long-established tradition of knowledge and mapmaking practiced in multiple Islamic circles. But these references were not his only modes of speaking with and through al-Idrīsī’s voice. Nor was the use of this work his only strategy for translating Majorcan and Italian sea charts and atlases into the knowledge contexts of the two urban societies in which he lived—Sfax and Qayrawan. Numerous other—textual as well as visual—features were used to modify the maps and their contextual elements, which he sought to translate into his two atlases. Creatively appropriating well-known texts, architectural decorations, calligraphies, paintings, materials, layouts, and metric formats were the major ways in which al-Sharafī innovatively transformed foreign charts and atlases and combined them with graphic elements that were more common in his cultural milieu. Hence, in our analysis of al-Sharafī’s work we understand politics of translation as a series of rhetorical and visual choices made by the translator—the mapmaker—to anchor his product within a broader intellectual tradition of textual and visual geographical knowledge in Arabic, and also to ground it in the Mediterranean context in which he lived.
10.2 ‘Alī al-Sharafī: Copyist or Author?
The work of ʿAlī al-Sharafī of Sfax, an otherwise little-known character associated with the production of two atlases and a grand-scale world map,Footnote 18 challenges our understanding of the relationship between map production and appropriation and the reinterpretation of geographical knowledge in many ways. The dearth of information about him and about the context in which he worked makes it impossible to know, for example, whether being a mapmaker was his primary occupation or “professional identity”. We know that members of his family, in both previous and subsequent generations, were involved in mapmaking and astronomy,Footnote 19 but it is not entirely clear what the mechanisms for transmitting the skills and knowledge associated with this activity were, nor in what kind of institutional setting this occurred.Footnote 20 Neither is it clear what kind of intellectual upbringing al-Sharafī had.Footnote 21 Almost all the evidence we have derives directly from his works. Only they provide us with any clues about what mapmaking as an intellectual enterprise meant for him. As such, the graphic and textual decisions in his atlases (and in his world map, for that matter) give us some insight into his strategies of intellectual self-fashioning, which reveal the different layers of his authorial persona.
Al-Sharafī relied on already existing geographical knowledge to produce his works, drawing from it in the form of adapted quotations. In contrast to previous evaluations, our investigation revealed that his use of sources was by no means passive, but rather a complex process of creative reformulation. Thus, while the textual elements in al-Sharafī’s map production seem at first glance to be the work of a copyist, upon closer examination it becomes clear that his adaptation of sources is based on a complex methodology of realizing content-related goals combined with an explicit authorial intent. In addition to drawing on previous geographical knowledge, al-Sharafī also appropriated graphic elements from several Arabic sources as well as textual and graphic features found in geographical and cosmological genres and formats from other linguistic and cultural contexts. As we will see later, these primarily included references to Classical Antiquity (particularly Ptolemaic geography), to early modern European cartographical traditions, and to a lesser extent, to other cosmological traditions, such as the Indian one. Hence, his work constitutes an exemplary case of cultural translation.Footnote 22 In this sense, we can describe al-Sharafī’s methodology as a multilayered quest for dynamic equivalence,Footnote 23 with the atlases being the target language in which semantic (and in al-Sharafī’s case, also semiotic) equivalents of a geographic treatise (as well as other literary, visual, and identity-defining sources) were sought and integrated.
10.3 Al-Sharafī’s Appropriation of al-Idrīsī’s Book
In preparing his atlases, al-Sharafī consulted other geographical, astronomical, and religious texts and relied on oral forms of knowledge;Footnote 24 however, al-Idrīsīʼs above-mentioned book was the source he relied on the most.Footnote 25 The manuscriptsFootnote 26 comprising this book are a geographical compendium containing a series of small sectional charts and a description of a rectangular world map which, if ever executed, did not survive.Footnote 27 Later copies of al-Idrīsī’s work include a circular world map that is not described in the text.Footnote 28 Much later, in the twentieth century, Konrad Miller (d. 1933) reconstructed a full-scale rectangular world map based on six surviving manuscripts of al-Idrīsī’s sectorial charts.Footnote 29 Recently, the Factum Art Foundation also reconstructed the sectorial charts to form a whole rectangular chart, basing its work on the complete copy preserved in the Oxford Bodleian Library.Footnote 30 In this respect, the importance of ʿAlī al-Sharafī and his son Muḥammad resides precisely in the fact that they are the first known mapmakers to have reconstructed al-Idrīsī’s sectorial charts and adapted them to their own cartographic products, respectively, their 1579 and 1601 world maps.Footnote 31 While beyond the scope of our paper, the question of how al-Sharafī gained access to al-Idrīsī’s work is a pertinent one.Footnote 32 None of the copies of the Nuzha catalogued so far was copied in North Africa. However, there is evidence of its use in Ifriqiyya (modern-day Tunisia) since the thirteenth century by authors like Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī (d. 1286) and Ibn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin al-Ḥimyarī (d. after 1325).Footnote 33 In addition to its value for the study of geography, there is evidence that al-Idrīsī’s work was used in some Morisco circles as a tool for Arabic language instruction and geographical consultation, although it is hard to determine how widespread this use was.Footnote 34 For our purposes, however, what matters is that al-Sharafī made use of the text of the Nuzha in multiple ways. In al-Sharafī’s work, the textual, iconographic, and cartographic elements are intertwined to the point of being almost interdependent.
10.3.1 Al-Sharafī’s Authorial Strategies
We will now proceed to analyze al-Sharafī’s authorial (and traductological) strategies with regard to his appropriation of al-Idrīsī’s text. Our exploration will also take into account the ways in which the material characteristics of his opera (including matters of format) affected his decisions.
10.3.1.1 Format and Materiality
Materiality played a decisive role in al-Sharafī’s cultural translation strategies. In his use of sources, some material aspects shaped his decisions at the textual, iconographic, and cartographic levels. This is clear in his choice of the formatFootnote 35 and in the material supports he used (cardboard, paper, and parchment), which help explain the substantial differences between the various renditions of al-Idrīsī’s quotations in al-Sharafī’s work.Footnote 36 The 1551 atlas, for example, is designed in accordance with the format and measurements of medieval Qur’ans from North Africa and al-Andalus. Format-related decisions also apply to the use of quotes from the Nuzha. These appear throughout his atlases, in particular in the explanatory texts accompanying the diagram of the celestial spheres (fol. 2r) and the small circular world map (fol. 2v–3r) in the 1571 atlas, and at the top of the circular world map of the 1551 atlas (fol. 3r).Footnote 37
The latter world map displays the most abridged version of what closely resembles one of the opening passages of the Nuzha, a recurrent passage throughout his work.Footnote 38 One possible explanation for this abridgment could be that al-Sharafī did not have direct access to any complete manuscript of al-Idrīsī’s work until later in his career, and may have been working with indirect quotations from other authors. Another perhaps more plausible explanation relates to al-Sharafī’s authorial strategies as shaped in part by the format of each individual work and the different concepts he employed for each of his atlases. This hypothesis is supported by other characteristics of the world map in question (see Fig. 10.1), which merge aspects of Idrīsīan-style mapmaking with that of others.
The result of this is the creation, whether intentionally or not, of an original “Sharafīan” product, as opposed to a mere imitation of al-Idrīsī. Al-Idrīsī’s influence is seen, for example, on this map in the shape of the Black Sea and the Arabian Peninsula.Footnote 39 Both are ultimately derived from ancient Greek sources. Idrīsīan ancestry can also be discerned in the islands in the Indian and Pacific oceans.Footnote 40 Some of the islands in the Atlantic and the North Sea were already marked in the circular world map attached to some of al-Idrīsī’s manuscripts. Even the shape of the Atlas Mountains and the Nile sources might have been inspired by al-Idrīsī’s sectorial maps of North Africa. But it is more likely that the shape of the Atlas Mountains in al-Sharafī’s map was derived from a Majorcan portolan chart (see Fig. 10.2).
The shape of the Caspian Sea, with its trifurcate contours, is already documented in a circular world map contained in a copy of Ibn Hawqal’s (d. after 978) (see Fig. 10.3) Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ (The Book of the Picture of the Earth). Other features resemble more closely the work of other mapmakers, notably the design of Mount Qāf. This can be found in many earlier circular world maps, for instance those by Zakariyya al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283) and Ibn al-Wardī (d. 1457)Footnote 41 (see Fig. 10.4).
In addition to features derived from different Islamic mapping styles, elements belonging to the Mediterranean portolan chart tradition, such as the lines for the thirty-two winds and the coastal lines of Syria and North Africa, are prominent in our author’s world map. (see Fig. 10.2), It is precisely these hybrid stylistic features that come together in a new product that distinguishes al-Sharafī’s politics of translation and his individuality.
10.3.1.2 A Sharafīan or an Idrīsīan Text?
The richest and most complex aspects of al-Sharafī’s appropriation of the Nuzha can be discovered at the textual level. A comparison of the different surviving manuscripts of this work reveals that, while there are indeed some minor differences between them, none of them corresponds verbatim to al-Sharafī’s rendition of it. While al-Sharafī draws from it, he makes—in addition to the usual copying mistakes—significant abridgements and adaptations of certain passages. Mistakes occur, for instance, when words with the same ending appear in subsequent or nearby lines. This led the scribe (al-Sharafī or his collaborators) to accidentally skip a few words or even entire lines of text. In at least one case, discussed below, the multiplicity of Arabic technical terminology, which came about because scientific texts were translated from different cultures between the eighth and the early eleventh century, seems to be the reason why any given term is sometimes replaced by a different one. In other cases, exemplified below, the alterations are clearly deliberate, even if they only consist of a single word.
These modifications do not constitute consistent patterns within the text, but rather reflect general tendencies of al-Sharafī’s working practice.Footnote 42 In the adaptation of the above-mentioned excerpt describing the characteristics of the Earth, there is a reference to an allegory of possibly Indian origin, in which the Earth is described as a cosmic egg floating in a receptacle of water.Footnote 43 Al-Idrīsī’s text (like all previous texts containing variations of this passage) refers to the “belly of the celestial sphere” (jawf al-falak) and to the “belly of the egg” (jawf al-bayḍa). In the second case, al-Sharafī replaced the word “belly” (jawf) with the word “middle/midst” (wasaṭ), writing “jawf al-falak wa-wasaṭ al-bayḍa”.Footnote 44 By al-Sharafī’s time, the standard term in the astral sciences was no longer “belly” but “middle”. The lack of consistency in his usage of the two terms suggests that wasaṭ was indeed such a common technical term that he replaced the older term simply as a matter of course. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that other sources referred to by al-Sharafī also use the term wasaṭ—from the astronomical work Risāla by al-Jaghmīnī (fl. 13th century) to the work of the Andalusi Sufi Ibn al-ʿAbbād (d. 1389/90),Footnote 45 and the geographical work of Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (d. c. 1470).Footnote 46
In other passages, technical information included in al-Idrīsī’s work is omitted. For instance, when the above-mentioned passage of the NuzhaFootnote 47 refers to the measurements of the equator and other terrestrial and astronomical information, it presents a detailed list of measurement units, including the Persian farsakh, the iṣbaʾ (‘digits’), and the ḥabbat al-sha’īr (‘barleycorn’).Footnote 48 Al-Sharafī dispensed with all of them in his rendition of the quotation in his atlas of 1571.Footnote 49 He also omitted the description of the equator as “the longest line on Earth just as the ecliptic (minṭaqat al-burūj) is the longest line in the heavens”.Footnote 50 The quest for textual sobriety might be the underlying reason for such abridgements. This characteristic is neither capricious nor merely a question of authorial taste, but was dictated by the nature of his cartographic practices. For example, when al-Idrīsī’s wrote the above-mentioned passage describing the characteristics of the Earth, he was introducing the notion that the Earth could be divided into seven climes.Footnote 51 Here, al-Idrīsī explained that the climes were divided not by natural lines but by man-made ones, and that in some of them mountains were more prevalent, whereas cities and fortresses could be found in others.Footnote 52 Al-Sharafī’s decision to delete this entire passage from the text accompanying the circular world map of the atlases (which in the case of the 1551 atlas appears above the map)Footnote 53 can be explained by the fact that neither atlas contains climatic divisions.Footnote 54 As we will see in more detail later, this can be considered an example of carticity in al-Sharafī’s practice, in the sense that the text reflects the characteristics of the map it accompanies. As such, it is also an example of medium-based translation, since the abridgement of the text is designed to fit the visual elements (and the format) of the overall multi-media product of which it is part.
10.3.2 Creating a Mediterranean and Maritime Product
Al-Sharafī’s efforts to simplify, streamline, and reduce to essentials the textual information appropriated from al-Idrīsī’s work went hand in hand with another goal that he sought to achieve. The structure of the atlases highlights the seas, especially the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, as the focus of his work, a structure predetermined by his sources, namely charts labelled in Latin script, which he transliterated into Arabic. To avoid a major conflict between this focus and his use of excerpts from al-Idrīsī’s book, al-Sharafī had to translate the passages borrowed from a universal geographical context into texts applicable to the only two seas of interest to him and his potential customers, who are likely to have been elite families from Qayrawān and Sfax. Thus, on the one hand we have the translation (through transliteration) of a European portolan chart into his own chart; and on the other, the translation (through selection and abridgement) of a universal geography into a series of regional sectional charts.
Perhaps surprisingly, al-Sharafī did not use the Nuzha in his explanatory notes accompanying the sectional sea charts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. In these cases, he drew from “al-Hamadhānī”, a likely reference to the Persian historian Rashīd al-Dīn (d. 1318).Footnote 55 This alone indicates that his textual choices were not random, but conscious and systematic.
In contrast, let us now consider the sections in which our author did use the Nuzha. Drawing on the concept of “carticity”, we have seen in Sect. 3.1.2 that al-Sharafī chose the Nuzha as the best work to construct an explanatory preface to the seas shown on his small circular world maps, thus stressing the interdependence between text and image. He adapted (translated) the essential information on the seven seasFootnote 56 contained in the Nuzha—the origin and beginning of each sea, its length and width, and the number of its islands –Footnote 57 in such a way that the attention of the reader (and viewer) is drawn towards the Mediterranean, about which he gives the most information. The sequence of the seas in the text corresponds to the order in which they are shown on the circular world map. It begins with the China Sea, passes through the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, and then continues through to the Atlantic Ocean and the Strait of Gibraltar, finishing in the Strait of Istanbul and the Caspian Sea.Footnote 58
It is in this process of adapting the text of al-Idrīsī’s universal geography into a Mediterranean atlas that al-Sharafī’s authorial persona finds its most elaborate expression. While throughout his work al-Sharafī retains quotations of passages from the Nuzha that make reference to different parts of the world, a close examination of his textual selection throughout his opera makes it clear that he favours themes, motifs, and cultural and geographic references linked to the Mediterranean. By this we do not only mean references to cities in the Mediterranean region, but also more specifically to imagery related to the sea itself. This allows al-Sharafī to ground his works in a localized environment. We could even call it a strategy of “domestication” of al-Idrīsī’s work. In translation theory, this term has been understood by Lawrence Venuti as a process through which the text in the target language is constructed so that it sounds familiar to the target audience, eliminating from it as far as possible the foreignness of the text in the source language.Footnote 59 By keeping the Mediterranean elements of al-Idrīsī’s work, while removing references to cities, seas, and other geographical landmarks from other regions, al-Sharafī domesticates al-Idrīsī’s work in order to create a new product rooted in a local context.
Furthermore, this process of domestication was fostered by yet another set of elements from the portolan atlases and charts that shaped al-Sharafī’s textual decisions. Given his emphasis on the seas, sometimes even at the expense of coastal—let alone inland—cities, he naturally opts for terms related to seafaring.
The 1571 atlas contains two very clear examples of the maritime nature of al-Sharafī’s creation. In it, our author quotes a passage from al-Idrīsī’s text in which reference is made to two main bodies of water, namely the Gulf of Venice (Khalīj al-Bundiqiyya) and the Black Sea (Khalīj Nītus).Footnote 60 When comparing al-Sharafī’s rendition to al-Idrīsī’s, we notice a major omission. Al-Idrīsī follows the reference to the Gulf of Venice with a geographical itinerary taking in the major coastal cities along it:
[…] it starts from the East from the lands of Calabria, from the lands of Rum and from the city of Otranto (Adhrant/Adhrantū), it passes by the northern side and turns westwards towards the land of Bari towards the coast of Sant Angelo (Shant Anjil) and then runs through the West and along the western shore towards the land of Ancona and passes towards the coasts of Venice and ends in the city of Aquileia (Īkalāya). And from there its shore in turn curves eastwards towards the lands of Croatia (Jarwāsiya), Dalmatia (Dalmāsiya), and Esclavonia (Isqalūniya) until it joins the Syrian Sea (al-Baḥr al-Shāmī).Footnote 61
In a similar fashion, al-Idrīsī’s text follows the mention of Nītus with that of the cities of Trabzon and Constantinople.Footnote 62 In al-Sharafī’s rendition, these detailed descriptions of the seas’ coasts and the listing of the cities along them are omitted, and he instead concentrates exclusively on the bodies of water in the atlases.Footnote 63
However, al-Sharafī’s reformulation of al-Idrīsī’s universal geography not only involves omitting references to the seas and gulfs. In other instances, our author substitutes his own, usually more condensed, rendition of the descriptions that follow the reference to a given sea. For example, after mentioning the eastern Mediterranean (Syrian Sea; al-Baḥr al-Shāmī), he deletes al-Idrīsī’s lengthy descriptions of the distances between its islands and his mention of the fact that it begins in what is considered the Fourth Clime.Footnote 64 In their place he inserts two brief passages adapted from the Nuzha, which are located in different places in the original work.Footnote 65 This demonstrates not only his focus on the Mediterranean but also the elaborate way in which he composed his texts. Of the sea in question he says:
The Syrian Sea begins at the Western-Surrounded Sea which is called the Dark Sea (al-Baḥr al-Muẓlim),Footnote 66 and only God knows what follows the Dark Sea. It is said that in this Western-Surrounded Sea there are 27,000 islands. The Syrian Sea begins at the Strait of Ceuta and [reaches] Syria, and for that reason it is called the Syrian Sea.Footnote 67
In this case, al-Sharafī replaces his source text with a semantically equivalent passage that fits both the needs of the format and the nature of the portolan atlas genre.
Through this strategy, al-Sharafī’s product can also be said to reflect a certain degree of “carticity”, as defined earlier as an intersemiotic translation process.Footnote 68 The structure of the text, with its sequences of seas and coastal towns, mirrors that of the small circular world map, thus creating a certain interdependency between text and image. Therefore, while the textual choices serve to domesticate the atlases, making them a specifically Mediterranean product, they also serve as a strategy of multi-media translation in which text and map are made to correspond.Footnote 69
Finally, through these same strategies of abridgement and adaptation al-Sharafī manages to square the circle, retaining al-Idrīsī’s authority as a solid source of high-level, widely accepted geographical knowledge, while creating his own persona as a successful translator and an inspired creator of a new maritime atlas that is recognizably rooted in his own cultural context.
10.4 Conclusions
Throughout this study we have seen how al-Sharafī’s decisions enabled him to construct a recognizable message that permeates his cartographic oeuvre. The model of the portolan atlas defined the way in which al-Sharafī adapted passages from al-Idrīsī’s text for his own new product, creating a textual support for his otherwise mostly visual (cartographic and iconographic) enterprise. His most common strategy for adapting the Nuzha so as to transform the atlases into a local product was the selective abridgement of quotations. But he also introduced changes into al-Idrīsī’s text that were generally neither random nor the result of copying mistakes. Moreover, the texts were modified to harmonize with the format and the visual characteristics of the atlases. On one level, the choice and modification of the texts were intended to respond to spatial challenges such as format and artistic style. On a second level, as we have seen, the texts were clearly selected, reformulated, and modified with semantic and epistemological concerns in mind.
Al-Sharafī’s rather frugal use of language was designed to communicate only what was deemed essential for each image or cartographic project. This is why he economized on references to measurements and technical and mathematical language and dispensed with references to the climes when the maps linked to the texts did not exhibit climatic divisions. These same authorial strategies helped create a relationship of interdependence between text and image, which can best be explained by the above-mentioned concept of textual “carticity”. In the examples of carticity alluded to by Italiano in his studies on Ariosto, the implication is that a new text is designed from scratch to mirror the image of a map. In our author’s case, however, what we see is the adaptation of a pre-existing text (the Nuzha), which itself was already intended to accompany a cartographic product, into a portolan atlas with its accompanying text. Thus, while carticity in and of itself already implies a certain kind of media translation, in that the text is designed to reflect the visual elements of the map, in al-Sharafī’s adaptation of the Nuzha the carticity of his text in relation to his own maps represents a higher layer of translation: that is, the translation/adaptation of al-Idrisī’s text into his own rendition is informed by the design of his own maps, which are themselves hybrid products, displaying features from different mapmaking traditions.
However, the most important aspect of al-Sharafī’s textual decisions relates, firstly, to his need to anchor his work within the broad intellectual tradition of geographical knowledge in Classical Arabic, and secondly, to his wish to create a localized Mediterranean product, by favouring references to sea over land, and to the Mediterranean region over other areas of the world. In stark contrast to some Ottoman mapmakers and geographers of his time, for instance, al-Sharafī shows no interest in including the Americas in his cartographic works, most likely because their inclusion would have been inconsistent with the Mediterranean focus of his work.Footnote 70 These two driving forces behind his textual and cartographic enterprise are the most clearly political aspects of his production, insofar as they complementarily allow al-Sharafī to present himself as a cosmopolitan figure able to quote from the masters of the broader Arabic tradition while at the same time fashioning himself as a North African and Mediterranean erudite and craftsman. It is precisely these politics of authorial self-fashioning that drive and enable al-Sharafī to position his work as distinct and authentic, while still allowing his sources to take center stage. In other words, al-Sharafī’s politics of translation aimed—in addition to embedding and transforming regional models into local cultural contexts—to cast his own persona as an author, mapmaker, book illustrator, and cultural broker, and to endow his final products with cultural and intellectual authority so that they would be recognized as familiar, valuable, legitimate, and attractive.
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The colophons in al-Sharafī’s works are different from both the standard colophons in the Islamic and Arabic manuscript tradition and from those found in European atlases and portolan charts. While in the 1551 atlas the single colophon occupies the front page and displays features of North African Qur’anic manuscripts and title pages of early printed books, in the 1571 one we find at least four colophons: one at the beginning, two in the middle, and one at the end. The first and main colophon is displayed as a whole page and its format follows the patterns used at the beginning of the text, especially in early modern Islamic manuscripts. These differences are not accidental or random; on the contrary, they demonstrate the uniqueness of each work and the different concepts that al-Sharafī developed for each of the two atlases. For a general perspective on Islamic and Arabic colophons see Déroche (2000), pp. 198–206, 337–349, Quiring-Zoche (2013), Sesen (1997), Piemontese (1987), Troupeau (1997).
- 3.
The isnād is an element proper of the ḥadīth (the sayings and acts of the Prophet Muḥammad) and it is essential for validating their veracity and reliability. See Aerts (2018).
- 4.
The geographical and astronomical works mentioned by al-Sharafī include works by al-Idrīsī (d. c. 1165), al-Jaghmīnī (fl.13th century), Rashīd al-Dīn al-Hamadhānī (d. 1318), and Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār (d. c. 1470); an anonymous work entitled Majmūʿa al-ʿajāʿib wa mā khalaqa Allāh min al-gharāʿib; and a work by an Istanbul-based author of al-Sharafī’s time, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Andalusī.
- 5.
Aside from citing the aforementioned authorities, al-Sharafī also employs this strategy when quoting from al-Idrīsī’s text. Thus, in both atlases—especially in the 1571 one—he includes a passage from al-Idrīsī’s work where the latter says that the geographical information in it has been transmitted via the Greek Hermes, the wise men of India, and the Islamic sages, philosophers, and scholars. See al-Idrīsī (2002), pp. 7–8.
- 6.
al-Idrīsī (2002), pp. 5–6.
- 7.
Behzadi (2015), pp. 15–17.
- 8.
Behzadi (2015), pp. 17–18.
- 9.
On this Mediterranean dimension of al-Sharafī’s production see De Castro León and Tiburcio (2021).
- 10.
- 11.
- 12.
See Italiano (2016), pp. 37–40.
- 13.
- 14.
See Italiano (2016), Chaps. 2 and 3.
- 15.
In the last years this cultural process of translation between media has been analysed and reformulated by several authors. Some of the most interesting approaches have been developed by Italiano and Parlog. Italiano and Emström—drawing on Jakobson—have reformulated the concept using the term transmediation. See Italiano (2016), pp. 11–12, 36–38, Parlog (2019), pp. 15–23.
- 16.
- 17.
Only three works by ʿAlī al-Sharafī have been preserved: two atlases (one created in 1571 and preserved in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, and one created in 1551 and preserved in BnF, Arabe 2278) and a large world map created in 1579 (IsIAO, Rome, Italian National Library).
- 18.
Very little is known about ʿAlī al-Sharafī and his family. It is often assumed that the nisba al-Sharafī was of Andalusian origin, from the village of Sharaf, near Seville, although there is insufficient evidence for this. The name Sharaf has also been associated with places in Yemen, Syria, Arabia, and Egypt. Regarding his place of birth, in his 1571 Atlas and in his 1579 world map he states clearly that he was residing in Qayrawān (al-Qayrawānī qarāran), but not in the 1551 atlas, where he only describes himself as al-Ṣafāqusī (from Sfax). See Kahlaoui (2018), pp. 212–213 and Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (2007), pp. 336–337. According to a more recent source, the Andalusi Sharafī family migrated in the 14th century, settling first in Fez and moving later to other places in North Africa. See the entry “al-Sharafī” in Maʿlamat al-Maghrib (1989), vol. 16, p. 5338. For studies on al-Sharafī, see Herrera-Casais (2008, 2017), Ledger (2016), pp. 272–336.
- 19.
We know that his father Muḥammad taught him the prayer times (see fol. 11r, 1571 atlas) and that later members of his family—such as Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Sharafī (d. 1669)—studied in Alexandria and at al-Azhar (Cairo) and composed works related to astrolabes, quadrants, and timekeeping. See Soucek (1992), p. 287, Maqdīsh (1988), vol. 2, pp. 390–398.
- 20.
The current state of our research has led us to conclude that al-Sharafī’s works should not be categorized within a single discipline, since they reveal other facets of him such as that of faqīḥ (‘legal expert’) or Sufi. For other examples of figures with multiple identities, see Italiano’s study of Álvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (d. 1559), a Spanish sailor who is considered to have been an author, a trader, a translator, a conqueror, a slave, a healer, a fugitive, and a cartographer all simultaneously. See Italiano (2016), pp. 51–72.
- 21.
As already mentioned, al-Sharafī learned astronomy and timekeeping from his father. We also know—as he claims in the 1571 atlas and 1579 world map—that he adhered to the Mālikī school of Islamic jurisprudence, which is to this day the most prevalent in North Africa, and that he frequented Sufi circles, such as those related to the Shādhilī brotherhood. On the Mālikī school, see Talbi (1962), Rammah (1995), Lévi-Provençal (1953). On the Shādhilī brotherhood in Tunisia, see Amri (2001, 2005, 2010).
- 22.
The most notable example is al-Sharafī’s transmediation of the characteristics of the North African Qur’an manuscript tradition to his three preserved works, especially his two atlases. This is discernible both in the format and in many visual elements such as the knot frames and the medallions, among others. For a detailed analysis of the iconographic elements in al-Sharafī’s work as cultural translation, see De Castro León and Tiburcio (2021). For more on the format of the North African Qur’an during the early modern period, see Deroche (2001).
- 23.
See Nida (1964).
- 24.
In addition to the previously mentioned sources used by al-Sharafī, in this section he also uses a commentary by the Andalusi Sufi scholar Ibn ʿAbbād al-Rundī (d. 1390) on the al-Murshida of the Almohad Ibn Tūmārt, the Qur’an, Sunna, ḥadīth and Mālikī law treatises, as well as oral and popular references relating to the sea and to agriculture and paremiology.
- 25.
- 26.
- 27.
For discussions on the real extent of al-Idrīsī’s influence in later cartography and on his role at the court of Roger II of Sicily (d. 1154). See Campbell (2020).
- 28.
A very similar small circular world map is found in the anonymous work known as The Book of Curiosities in the copy preserved in the Bodleian Library (Ms Arab c. 90). This work was composed in the 11th century and the Oxford copy is dated to the late 12th–early 13th centuries. The question of which was the earliest source to contain this circular world map has been a matter of debate. T. Campbell had the following to say on the matter: “The circular world map, occupying an undeservedly central position in Idrīsīan studies, is probably a corrupted copy of the Charta’s information and hence has no valid place in al-Idrīsī’s history”, Campbell (2020), p. 7.
- 29.
Miller (1928).
- 30.
Ms Pokocke 375, dated 1456. The reproduction of the Factum Art Foundation is available online: https://highres.factum-arte.org/Al_Idrisi_HTML/Digital_Restoration/index.html. Accessed: 29 January 2021.
- 31.
This work may also have been produced by his grandfather Muḥammad. In a legend written in the center of the Asian side of his 1579 world map ʿAlī al-Sharafī states: ‘I translated (naqaltu) this geography (jughrāfiyā) of another composed by my grandfather Muḥammad—God have mercy on him—who copied [in turn] the outline of the Syrian Sea and its ports of a nautical chart (kunbāṣ) made by the people of Mallorca—may God destroy it.’ Muhammad’s world map is preserved in the BnF (GE C-5089 (RES).
- 32.
Access to the Nuzha does not necessarily imply direct access to a manuscript of the work in question. Although it is likely that al-Sharafī worked with the Nuzha itself after his 1551 atlas, he may also have worked with abridged versions or fragments.
- 33.
The 18th-century author from Sfax, Maḥmūd Maqdīsh (d. c. 1818) claims that he used al-Idrīsī’s Nuzha in the composition of his own Nuzhat al-anẓār fī ʿajāʾib al-tawārīkh wa-l-akhbār, of which one copy is preserved in the BnF (Ms Arabe 6828). Although this question requires more thorough analysis and more differentiated and reliable data, we can make two important assertions: first of all, our analysis of the cultural strategies that al-Sharafī used to boost his persona has revealed that he used works to which he had relatively easy access and were known by the audience/consumer, as the Nuzha would have been. Secondly, we have recently found three copies of the Nuzha in the Tunisian National Library which would seem to provide solid evidence of the presence of the work on Tunisian territory. None of these copies have any charts, only text. One of them is a fragmentary copy of the Nuzha and is written in Armenian and Arabic (ms 18.314). The other two manuscripts are copies of the same work that is registered in the Tunisian catalogue as Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī dhikr al-amṣār wa-l-aqṭār wa-l-buldān wa-l-juzur wa-l-madāʾin wa-l-āfāq and is attributed to Abū al-Ḥasan al-Bakrī (manuscripts 12.912 and 12.981).
- 34.
The 17th-century Tunis-based Morisco author al-Ḥajarī, known as El Bejarano states in his Riḥla (also known as Kitāb Nāsir al-Dīn ʿalā al-qawm al-kāfirīn), that in the year 1588 he saw a copy of the Nuzha in the residence of the bishop of Granada. The latter was used for Arabic instruction and for geographical consultation. Al-Ḥajarī also notes that this copy of the Nuzha had been printed by the Christians. See al-Ḥajarī (2015), pp. 18–25.
- 35.
None of al-Sharafī’s atlases is similar to European atlases in terms of format. Instead, al-Sharafī based them on the typical format of Maghrebi Qur’ans. The 1551 atlas, for example, measuring 250 × 200 mm, corresponds to the Qur’ans composed during the Almohad period (12th–13th centuries) in al-Andalus and the Maghreb. The 1571 atlas is slightly larger and measures 270 × 210. In contrast, European atlases from the 15th–16th centuries exhibit larger formats and scales. One example is Battista Agnese’s atlas of 1543 (BnF, 14.410 (RES), which measures 345 × 245 mm. Obviously, al-Sharafī’s smaller sizes conditioned numerous formal features, such as the amount of text that could be inserted as well as the size of the tables, diagrams, and maps. See Guesdon (2016), Deroche (2000), p. 181.
- 36.
In his 1551 atlas, al-Sharafī used cardboard, whereas in his 1571 atlas, he employed paper for the texts, diagrams, and tables and paper board for the sectorial charts. These differences in materials also conditioned how he used al-Idrīsī’s texts. In the 1551 atlas (a total of 8 fols.) al-Sharafī had to select very carefully the text that he inserted on each page. The use of paper in the 1571 atlas (14 fols.) allowed him to create a longer atlas and to include longer texts as well as more diagrams and tables. This undoubtedly opened further options for selecting sources and thus incorporating, translating, or transforming additional elements from other cultural contexts.
- 37.
See al-Sharafī BnF Arabe 2278 and al-Sharafī, Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294. In the case of the 1579 world map, the use of the texts and visual elements of the Nuzha is more complex. In contrast to what we see in the circular world maps in the two atlases, the texts in this rectangular map are much more numerous, have a visually greater impact, and function as textual framings of the images. The 1579 world map is preserved without catalogue number in the Library of the Istituto Italiano per l´Africa e l´Oriente (IsIAO), which recently moved from its old headquarters to the National Central Library in Rome.
- 38.
This quotation is very similar—in content and structure—to the one that appears in the explanatory text of the diagram of the celestial spheres in the 1571 atlas (fol. 2r). See BnF, Ms Arabe 2278, fol 3r., where we read: ‘–praise God—description of the geography according to what is be extracted from the words of the philosophers and the noble sages. You [should] know that the Earth is round like the roundness of a sphere and the water adheres to the [whole] Earth and naturally rests upon it. It is divided into two halves by the equator which extends from East to West, and this is the Earth’s longitude. The northern quarter of the Earth is inhabited, whereas the rest of it is empty without people, due to the intense cold and the frost. Also the southern quarter is uninhabited due to the intense heat and the passage of the Sun. The Surrounding Sea encompasses half of the Earth all around in a connected enclosure like a belt; only half of it is visible like an egg submerged in the water. This inhabited quarter was divided by the scholars (ʿulamāʾ) into seven climates (aqālīm) with their [respective] seas, as was mentioned by the author of the Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq and Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār in his [work] Ikhtirāq al-aqṭār [that you should] consult—God is the Wisest.’ (All the translations of the primary sources in this article were done by the authors in collaboration with Sonja Brentjes.).
- 39.
Al-Idrīsī’s two small circular world maps held by the Bodleian Library Oxford can be seen online. For the Pococke 375 ms: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/ced0d8bd-1019-4af2-9086-e411115f1507/surfaces/cc2debab-70f5-4b82-9bab-7235fdb89e43/ and the Greaves 42 ms: https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/c99d2caf-7abc-4593-97a7-02bf17213f35/surfaces/e1cc5c2d-f2a7-45a0-9738-e952e50ec5f6/. Accessed: 29 January 2021.
- 40.
On the representation of the Indian Ocean in European and Islamic cartography, see Vagnon and Vallet (2017).
- 41.
There is some debate concerning the authenticity of the circular map attributed to Ibn al-Wardī. For details of the debate, see Cheneb (2012).
- 42.
For the text of the excerpt in the 1551 atlas, see footnote 38.
- 43.
The allegory is similar to the Vedic Hiranyagarbha, which most likely entered the Islamic imagination through the work of Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī (d. after 1050). See al-Bīrūnī (1910), vol. 1, pp. 221–223.
- 44.
See al-Sharafī, Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, fol. 2v and al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, pp. 7–8.
- 45.
This work, entitled al-Durra al-mushayyada fī sharḥ al-Murshida, is a commentary on the famous work al-Murshida of the Almohad leader Ibn Tūmārt (d. 1130).
- 46.
We still have some doubts about the identity of this author. He may be the Egyptian author Muḥibb al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿAṭṭār who settled in Cairo and was the author of several works on astrolabes and timekeeping. See King (2008).
- 47.
See footnote 38.
- 48.
See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, pp. 7–8.
- 49.
See al-Sharafī, Bodleian Library Oxford ms Marsh 294, fol. 2v.
- 50.
See al-Sharafī, Bodleian Library Oxford ms Marsh 294, fol. 2v and al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, pp. 7–9.
- 51.
See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, p. 9.
- 52.
‘Scholars have divided the inhabited quarter of the Earth into seven climes, each of which extends from West to East along the equator, and these climes are not defined by natural lines but are rather artificial and their borders have been defined by astronomers. And in each of these climes there are a number of cities and fortresses and villages, and the people in them do not like each other. And in each of these climes there are tall mountains, contiguous valleys, springs, running rivers, still lakes, mines, women, and different animals of which we will talk about with the help of God. And each of these seven climes is traversed by seven seas, which are called gulfs, six of which are contiguous and one of which is not attached to anything (…)’ (Transl. S.B., V.d.C.L., A.T.). For the Arabic text see al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, p. 9.
- 53.
In both atlases the small circular world map is oriented southwards, therefore the south is at the top of the folio.
- 54.
See al-Sharafī BnF, Arabe 2278, fol. 3r and Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, fol. 5v.
- 55.
See Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, fol. 12v.
- 56.
These seas appear in the 1571 atlas in this order: Chinese Sea, Persian Sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Adriatic Sea, Black Sea, and Caspian Sea. See al-Sharafī, Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, fols. 2v–3r.
- 57.
In some cases, like the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, al-Sharafī gives very brief information about some navigational dangers.
- 58.
Although it might be considered irrelevant, the sequence of the seas in al-Sharafī’s quotations of the Nuzha is not only connected to the depiction of the seas on the map but also to its format. This is also evident in the 1579 world map, where we find a similar sequence to that in the 1571 atlas. In this case, however, the information about the Black Sea appears before that about the Adriatic. This might be partially explained by the different ways of seeing and reading a rectangular and a circular map. For a visual reproduction of the chart see Chelli (1996), pl. 22, The History of Cartography (1992), vol. 2:1, pl. 24. For the texts of the world map see Nallino (1944).
- 59.
See Venuti (1995), pp. 17–41.
- 60.
While in Ptolemaic geography the Black Sea and the Adriatic are considered “seas” (Ponticum Mare and Adriaticum Mare, respectively), in Islamic cartography all the seas come from the surrounding Dark Sea (al-Baḥr al-muḥīṭ al-muẓlim) and some of them are considered gulfs (khalīj, pl. khuljān). This applies to both the Black Sea and the Adriatic, which are represented in this way in both al-Idrīsī’s circular world map and in al-Sharafī’s 1551 atlas. Al-Idrīsī tells us in his introductory text quoted above: ‘And each of these seven climes is traversed by seven seas, which are called gulfs (khuljān), six of which are contiguous and one of which is not attached to anything…’ (Transl. S.B., V.d.C.L., A.T.). See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, p. 9. However, al-Sharafī was also aware of the European terminology and in the same passage related to the Black Sea he also notes that this khalīj of Nīṭus is also called the Sea of Kafā.
- 61.
See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, p. 11.
- 62.
See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, p. 12.
- 63.
See al-Sharafi, BnF, Arabe 2278, fol. 3r, and Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, fol. 2r–3v.
- 64.
See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, pp. 10–11.
- 65.
The information appears in clime three, first section and in clime four, first section. See al-Idrīsī (2002), vol. 1, p. 221 and vol. 2, p. 525.
- 66.
The “Dark Sea” was a common term to refer to the Atlantic Ocean in Islamic geographical works.
- 67.
See al-Sharafī, Bodleian Library Oxford, Ms Marsh 294, fol. 3r.
- 68.
See Italiano (2016), pp. 37–38.
- 69.
Al-Idrīsī was well aware of the connection between text and image, one of the characteristics of the concept of carticity. At the end of the introduction to the Nuzha he explains that the reason for preparing the sectorial charts is to explain the texts: ‘And we have entered in each division what belonged to it in the way of towns, districts, and regions so that anyone who looked at it could observe what would normally be hidden from his eyes or would not normally reach his understanding or [what he] would not be able to reach himself because of the impossible nature of the route and the differing nature of the peoples. Thus he can correct this information by looking at it… Now it is clear that when the observer looks at these maps and these countries explained, he sees a true description and pleasing form…’ (Transl. S.B., V.d.C.L., A.T.). See Ahmad (1992), pp. 162–163. But in the case of al-Sharafī we see that he carried the concept of carticity beyond the relationship between image and text that appears in al-Idrīsī. As Italiano explains, carticity is here an intersemiotic translation insofar as al-Idrīsī’s texts in the atlases are shaped by the charts and by the author’s concept, likewise based on cartography. See Italiano (2016), pp. 37–39, 68–71.
- 70.
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Tiburcio, A., de Castro León, V. (2024). The Transformation of al-Idrīsī’s Nuzhat al-Mushtāq in the Atlases of ʿAlī al-Sharafī of Sfax. In: Flüchter, A., Gipper, A., Greilich, S., Lüsebrink, HJ. (eds) Übersetzungspolitiken in der Frühen Neuzeit / Translation Policy and the Politics of Translation in the Early Modern Period. Übersetzungskulturen der Frühen Neuzeit, vol 3. J.B. Metzler, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-67339-3_10
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