al-Idrisi
Created | Updated May 13, 2002
Al-Idrisi was probably the greatest single medieval geographer, and one of the first anywhere to produce a more or less accurate globe (on a silver sphere, although it gets a bit questionable around the edges, with countries like Gog and Magog (just beyond the Great Wall) and the land of Waqwaq where Asia meets Africa...) He was born in Ceuta (now a Spanish city on the Moroccan coast) in 1099, educated in Cordova, and ended up working at the court of King Roger II of Sicily, which in those days had a large Arab minority producing an unusual and flourishing hybrid Norman-Byzantine-Arab culture, for whom he wrote his geographical works, including Kitab al-Rujari (The Book of Roger). He also wrote on medicine. He died in about 1166.
