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ABULFEDA. A larger and more massive formation than Almanon, 39 miles in diameter, the E. wall rising about 10,000 feet above the interior, which is depressed more than 3000 feet.
In the introduction to this work he enters on the subject of mathematical geography, and describes the most celebrated mountains, rivers, and seas of the world. Abulfeda was a native of Syria; and this and the adjacent countries are described with most fullness and accuracy: the same remark applies to his description of Egypt and the north coast of Africa.
Among the forty-two cities of Arabia, enumerated by Abulfeda, the most ancient and populous were situate in the happy Yemen: the towers of Saana, and the marvellous reservoir of Merab, were constructed by the kings of the Homerites; but their profane lustre was eclipsed by the prophetic glories of Medina and Mecca, near the Red Sea, and at the distance from each other of two hundred and seventy miles.
This descent from Ishmael, Gibbon, after Sale, thus disproves: "Abulfeda and Gagnier describe the popular and approved genealogy of the prophet. At Mecca I would not dispute its authenticity; at Lausanne, I will venture to observe, 1st, That, from Ishmael to Mahomet, a period of two thousand five hundred years, they reckon thirty instead of seventy-five generations. 2d.
In Purchas this person is named Antonio Gonsalvo; but the authority of Clarke, I. 188, is here preferred. Progr. of Nav. Disc. This tribe of Assenhaji, or Azanaghi, are the Zenhaga of our maps, and the Sanhagae of Edrisi and Abulfeda. They are at present represented as inhabiting at no great distance from the coast of Africa, between the rivers Nun and Senegal. Cl.
In this work we find little that relates to commerce: its geographical details will assist us when we give our sketch of the geographical knowledge of the Arabians. The next Arabian geographer in point of time is Abulfeda: he wrote a very particular description of the earth, the countries being arranged according to climates, with the latitude and longitude of each place.
The fleet now separated, a part returning home by way of the Canaries, while Lançarot, with several other caravels, advanced along the coast of Africa southwards, till he got beyond what the Moors called the Çahara, or Sahara, of the Assenaji. This Moorish nation is mentioned by Abulfeda as the ruling tribe in Audagost, or Agadez, and as inhabiting the southern part of Morocco.
Abulfeda, for example, maintains, not only that Palestine is the most fertile part of Syria, but also that the neighbourhood of Jerusalem is one of the most fertile districts of Palestine.
Collective works like those of Muratori and du Chesne had not appeared on the market; libraries were restricted to convents; and it was not to be expected that they should know all the chroniclers of the Byzantines, Latins, Lombards, Normans and Hohenstaufen to say nothing of Arab writers like Nowairi, Abulfeda, Ibn Chaldun and Ibn Alathir who throw a little light on those dark times, and are now easily accessible to scholars.
Abulfeda alludes to the large mirror which enabled the lighthouse keepers to detect from a great distance the approach of the enemy. In our text, through the ignorance of the scribe, who had no gazetteer or map to turn to, some palpable errors have crept in. It is reached in two hours from the bitter spring in the Wadi Hawara, believed to be the Marah of the Bible.
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