Geographorum artifex sodalitatis

by Didier Marcotte

This collection of critical editions of some of the most important classical Arabic geographical sources is one of the masterworks of Dutch orientalist Michael Jan de Goeje. The first edition of the work appeared between 1870 and 1893 at Brill in Leiden; a number of volumes were reprinted ("photomechanice iterata") subsequently in the following years. In 1906, the first volume of a revised edition appeared (vol. 3, al-Muqaddasi), with many emendations based on 2 new manuscripts. De Goeje’s death in 1909 disrupted the revision of the first edition, and in 1927, a new print of vol. 1 (al-Istakhri) appeared as a photographical reprint of the first edition. In 1938, J.H. Kramers published a revised edition of vol. 2 (Ibn Hawqal), based on a newly discovered manuscript that contained a radically different text, and necessitated a real re-edition rather than some small adjustments. In 1967, Brill reprinted the entire set (including the updated volumes 2 and 3). In 1992, Fuat Sezgin reprinted the entire set in his "Islamic Geography" reprints series (Islamic Geography vols. 34-41); again, with Kramers' edition of Ibn Hawqal's text.