1010-Circa 1075
Geographer

Spanish Muslim. The son of a Muslim governor of the province of Huelva and Saltes in southwest Spain, al-Bakri spent most of his life in Cordoba, Spain, becoming an accomplished scholar and diplomat.

Geographer. Although he never visited West Africa, he wrote accurate descriptions of its land and peoples. His well-known descriptions of the ancient state of Ghana came from research in earlier written sources, including contemporary travel accounts of ship captains and navigators, and interviewing merchants who had visited the Western Sudan. He is known for his meticulous and thorough methodology. His best-known work is Kitab al-masalik wa-'l-mamalik (Book of Routes and Realms, 1068), which includes descriptions of the Empire of Ghana and the trans-Saharan trade routes that linked it to the Arab world.

Sources:

Nafis Ahmad, Muslim Contribution to Geography (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1972).

S. M. Ali, Arab Geography (Aligarh...