In Picturing the Islamicate World, Nadja Danilenko explores the message of the first preserved maps from the Islamicate world. Safeguarded in al—Iṣṭakhrī’s Book of Routes and Realms (10th century C.E.), the world map and twenty regional maps complement the text to a reference book of the territories under Muslim rule. Rather than shaping the Islamicate world according to political or religious concerns, al—Iṣṭakhrī chose a timeless design intended to outlast upheavals.
Considering the treatise was transmitted for almost a millennium, al—Iṣṭakhrī’s strategy seems to have paid off.
By investigating the Persian and Ottoman translations and all extant manuscripts, Nadja Danilenko unravels the manuscript tradition of al—Iṣṭakhrī’s work, revealing who took an interest in it and why.