EDRISI, with his complete name Abu-Abdallah Mohammed ben Mohammed ben Abdallah ben Edda, a well known Arabian writer on 1 Geography, who flourished about the middle of the sixth century of the Mohammedan era. Of the circumstances of his life little is known. He was a descendant of the family of the Edrisides, who for upwards of a ccutury possessed the sovereignty over the Moham medan provinces of Northern Africa. When, in A.D. 919, the Edriside dynasty io Africa was overthrown by Mahedi Abdallah, the survivors of the family went to Sicily; and there our Edriai seems to have been born. The geographical treatise, which has made his name cele brated, was written at the command of Roger 11. king of Sicily, whom ho frequently mentions in the body of the work ; he informs us in the preface that he completed it in tho year 548 of the Hegira, a.D.1153-4 ; and that it was intended to illustrate a silver terrestrial globe, 450 Greek pounds in weight, which King Roger had caused to be made. Tho time at which he wrote it is further ascertained from an inci dental allusion to the fact of the town of Jerusalem being then in the possession of the Christiana, which occurs in the work, and to the capture of Tripolis and Bona by Roger, which events happened in the years 540 and 548 of the Hegira (1145-6 and of our era). Tho work itself also internal evidence of its having been written by a person who had visited Spain and Italy. Gabriel Sionita and Johannes Hesrenits, who, in 1619, published a Latin translatiou of an abridgment of Edrisi's work, were induced by an erroneous reading of the only manuscript which they had, in a passage where Edrisi speaks of the Nile dividing the country adjoining it into two halves (ardind ' our instead of ardihd 'its country,' the true reading), to suppose him a native of Nubia; and this mistake gave occasion to the designation of Geographus Nubiensis, under which Edrisi, of whoa° reel name the translators were soon because universally known. His work bears the title Nuzliat al-mushtAls fi ilehtirak ni./Ifilk,' i.e. Amusement of the curious in tho exploring of
countries.' Besides the abridged translation above mentioned, we now possess a French version of what seems to be the complete original work, by M. Am6dee Jaubert, made from two Arable manuscripts, the one found in the royal library nt Paris, the other (which is accom panied with maps) recently procured in Egypt by M. Asselin, and now likewise belonging to the Bibliotheque du Rot. Two other manu scripts of the original work of Edrisi aro pre/serve-1 in the Bodleian library at Oxford (Cod. Graves, No. 3837, and Cod. Pocock, 375). The globe which this treatise was intended to illustrate is entirely lost ; but a planiaphere, which 6 inserted in one of the Bodleian manuscripts, may be seen engraved in Vincent's 'Periplue of the Erytbrean Sea,' who observes (p. 568) that "it is evidently founded upon the error of Ptolemy, which carries the coast of Africa round to the east, and forms a southern continent totally excluding the circumnavigation into the Atlantic Ocean." It appears, from a comparison of this planiaphere with the maps of Fra Mauro and the globe of Martin Behem at Ntiresuberg. that for upwards of three centuries the globe of Edrisi , remained the foundatiou upon which all subsequent representations I of the earth's burfaco were constructed. In his descriptive treatise, Edrisi, like all other Arabian geographers, distributes the portion of the globe known at his time into seven climates, each of which he subdivides into ten regions : in the account which he gives of them he follows the uniform plan of proceeding from west to east; but he does not, like Abulfeda, determine the longitude and latitude of the places which he mentions. The abridgment of the work contains little more than an itinerary of these different regions; but the original perform ance now translated adds many remarks on their inhabitants, natural productions, &c. Edrisi frequently refers to writers that have pre ceded him : among others to an Arabic translation of Ptolemy of Claudia; to Abdallah ben Khordadbeh, and Masudi.