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2004

Boise State University

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"Surat Bahr Al Rum"(Picture Of The Sea Of Byzantium): Possible Meanings Underlying The Forms, Karen C. Pinto Jan 2004

"Surat Bahr Al Rum"(Picture Of The Sea Of Byzantium): Possible Meanings Underlying The Forms, Karen C. Pinto

Karen C. Pinto

In this paper I will display, examine, and deconstruct the "classical" medieval Islamic conception of the Mediterranean as seen through colorful, miniature maps found in medieval Arabic and Persian geographical manuscripts from the 11th to 17th centuries. In his classic book "Mohammad and Charlemagne" (1939), the Belgian scholar Henri Pirenne set forth what has since come to be known as the Pirenne thesis, expressing the dominant European view that the sudden advent of Islam on the "other" side of the Mediterranean disrupted the unity of the "Roman Lake" forever. "With Islam a new world was established on those Mediterranean shores, …