Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne

the long version

Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne' offers a partial edition of the Arabic descriptive geography by Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad al-Idrisi (d.c. 560 AH/1165 CE) entitled 'Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtaq fi' khtiraq al-afaq'. 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-Idrisi'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.