Beschreibung:

ISLAMIC MECCA-CENTRED WORLD MAP--A rare and important 17th-century Safavid brass world map from Isfahan [International Instrument Checklist #8024], the finely-engraved circular map plate with a centrally-pivoted brass diametrical rule rotating over it, with a compass box inset into the plate, 2 turned brass feet attached to the underside of the plate. (One foot a skilful modern replacement, lacking needle, glass, folding dial, and latitude arc). Diameter : 225mm. A RARE AND IMPORTANT MAP OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD, WHICH EMPLOYS A SOPHISTICATED NON-POLAR PROJECTION BASED ON 9TH-CENTURY ISLAMIC MATHEMATICS TO PRESERVE DIRECTION AND DISTANCE TO MECCA AT THE CENTRE. No Islamic map of this type was known before the present example appeared in 1989, and it 'vie[s] with any of the spectacular instruments and manuscripts located during this century as major discoveries in the history of early science in general and the history of medieval cartography in particular' (King World-Maps p.371). Exhibited at both the Musée du Louvre and the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, this map on brass, with a second example discovered in 1995, is the subject of Professor David A. King's major study World-Maps for finding the Distance and Direction to Mecca , and these two world-maps remain the only examples known. The Qur'an enjoins Muslims to turn towards the Kaaba in their prayers: 'So turn towards the Holy Mosque, and turn towards it wherever you may be. And those who are recipients of the Book surely know that this is the truth from their Lord; and God is not negligent of all that you do' (2:144). The purpose of the map is to display this sacred direction ( qibla in Arabic and all languages of the Islamic commonwealth) and the distance of Mecca from any given locality in the Islamic world. The qibla direction was normally determined using information about the direction and distance of Mecca supplied in astronomical handbooks with tables (called in Arabic zij es), which gave results of variable accuracy. The ideal was a technique that would give an accurate qibla for any location in the Islamic world (i.e. was universal), and it was only natural that a culture that was capable of producing astronomical instruments far in advance of anything created in Western Europe in the period before the Renaissance would wish to develop a map or instrument that could show this information simply and accurately. The majority of maps and instruments devised to achieve this aim employed cartographic projections that, in common with all projections of a spherical surface onto a plane, suffered distortions that precluded the uniformly accurate representation of these values for all locations. The difficulty of devising a universal Mecca-centred map was further complicated by the non-integral value of Mecca's longitude, 77°10', according to the mediaeval reckoning. Although numerous world maps on paper or cloth with cartographic grids (usually square or rectangular) and localities properly marked according to their (mediaeval) latitudes and longitudes were produced by Muslim scholars between the 9th and the 16th centuries, none have survived the vicissitudes of time. The present world map features 'a highly distinctive grid, of a kind not attested on any other known map before the 20th century' (King World-Maps p.236). The mathematics underlying the grid were developed by Muslim scholars in 9th-century Baghdad (cf. op . cit. pp.61-64 and 350). The longitudes and latitudes of the localities marked on the grid are derived from a Timurid geographical table compiled in the Samarqand region in the mid 15th century; the data in this table was used in the gazetteers on later Persian astrolabes. Thus the map is entirely within the tradition of mediaeval mathematical geography and cartography. A recension of this lost Timurid table was discovered in 1993 in an 18th-century manuscript treatise on the astrolabe by 'Abd al-Rahim ibn Muhammad, titled Maqsad al-talib wa-muntaha 'l-mat