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Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne offers a partial edition of the Arabic descriptive geography by Abu ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad al-Idrīsī (d. c. 560 AH/1165 CE) entitled Kitāb Nuzhat al-mushtāq fī’ khtirāq al-āfāq. The author lived at the court of the Norman King Roger II in Sicily where he composed this work for him. Little is known about al-Idrīsī’s life, except that he had travelled extensively and had acquired first-hand information about the areas he described in the Nuzhat, which is also known as the Book of Roger. Originally published by Brill in 1866, this edition of the Arabic text concerning Africa and the Iberian Peninsula by R. Dozy and M.J. de Goeje was based on the Paris and Oxford manuscripts. It includes a translation into French, with notes, a glossary (Arabic-French), and Index.

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Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Idrīs al-ʿĀlī bi-amr Allāh, also called al-Sharīf al-Idrīsī (Edrisi in the French tradition), owes his fame to a work of descriptive geography entitled Kitāb Nuzhat al-mus̲h̲tāḳ fi ’khtirāḳ al-āfāḳ, which he wrote on the orders of Roger II, the Norman king of Sicily. According to information found at the end of the six complete manuscripts which have survived, the book was completed in 1154 CE, and this is the only certain date known in the life of al-Idrīsī. Some scholars have claimed that he was born at Ceuta in 493/1100 and that he studied at Cordoba. Al-Idrīsī himself states in his book that he travelled a great deal in Spain and in North Africa. He is believed to have died in 1165 CE. Reinhart P.A. Dozy (1820-1883) was the most impressive Dutch Arabist of his day who was never appointed professor of Arabic in Leiden. His works on Muslim Andalusia brought about a scholarly revolution in the field and were translated in many languages. Michaël Jan de Goeje (1836-1909) was the professor of Arabic in Leiden from 1869. By editing al-Ṭabarī’s Annals as well as the Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum (BGA), de Goeje became the most productive editor of Arabic works in western oriental studies. The present text edition of the Andalusian part of al-Idrīsī’s larger work, produced by Dozy and De Goeje and originally published by Brill in 1866, was based on the Arabic manuscripts kept in Paris and Oxford. It includes a French translation, notes, and a glossary.

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