| This dissertation concerns the stylized carto-ideographs---specifically representations of the world---that illustrate medieval Islamic geographical manuscripts. There are hundreds of cartographic images scattered throughout the medieval and early modern Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript collections. Yet these maps have often been deliberately ignored on the grounds that they are not "mimetically" accurate representations of the world. What many failed to see is that these images are iconographic representations of the way in which the medieval Muslims perceived their world.;This dissertation explores the applicability of newer and more innovative techniques for approaching the visual record of Islamic history. My aim is to bring Middle Eastern maps into the orbit of modern and postmodern theoretical paradigms. I do this through a series of experimental scenarios that suggest alternate ways of viewing maps.;In chapter 1, "Fatih Revisited: A View through the Ottoman Cluster," I employ a Schamaesque approach to reading a set of classical Islamic mappamundi from the period of Mehmet II. Through them I construct an alternative view of "the Conqueror" and raise questions about patronage and propaganda.;In chapter 2, "'It's a Bird. It's a Plane. No, It's a Hat!' Iconography, Meta-Cartography, and the Hierophany of Encirclement," I analyze the world maps from the point of view of past and present iconographic theory. My contention is that all maps are composed of metascopic and microscopic cultural fragments that need to be taken apart and analyzed individually. I concentrate on one widespread metamotif: Bahr al-Muhit (the Encircling Ocean).;In chapter 3, "Place in the Context of Time & Space: The Buja and the Capturing of Imagination," I view time and space in the maps via the prism of place. Due to limitations of space, every cartographer is faced with the choice of what to include and what to exclude. This necessary cartographic process of choice, omission, and distortion, presents us with a gold mine of information. Specifically, I examine the delineation of an obscure East African tribe, the Buja, and their deserts ( Mafaza), in the Islamic mappamundi. |
