Fig. 28 Southeast Asia from al-ldrisi's atlas, mid-twelfth century, a copy bearing the date 960 AH (1553 A.D.). Six pages of the atlas have been joined together in this illustration; south is at the top. (Each section is approx. 21 x 30.5 cm) [Bodleian Library, Oxford, ms. Poe. 375, fol. 33v-34r, 38v-39r, 42v-43r, 77v-78r, 81v-82r, 84v-85r]
The Island of Women
In contrast to the Islands of Spice, the long and colorful tradition of an island of women somewhere in Southeast Asia defies identification and probably belongs to the region's purely mythical landscape. One source dating back about a thousand years, the geographer 'Aja'ib al-Hind, relates the story of a ship in the Sea of Malayu (Malaya), en route to China, which after encountering a storm landed on an unknown island. As the sailors were disembarking from their ship,
a parry of women arrived from the interior of the island, the number of which God alone could count. They fell on the men, a thousand or more to each man. The women carried them off to the mountains and forced them to become the instruments of their pleasure.
All but one man died of exhaustion, the survivor, a Spaniard, being hidden by one of the woman. Together they escaped in a boat filled with gold that she had discovered on her island, and the two safely reached the port from whence the sailor had come.
Other authors note that the island of women "is situated at the limit of the sea of China," and repeat the various traditions that its inhabitants make themselves pregnant by facing the wind, by eating the fruit of a particular tree, or by beholding their own image (see Ortelius, fig. 86). As we have seen, the island of Waq- waq, as a result of its fabled tree, also became the object of Amazonian lore. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Western map makers recorded such islands in Southeast Asia (see, for example, Bordone & Gastaldi, pages 120 & 143, below).
The Island of the Castle
Some early Arab authors wrote of "a white castle which stands on the sea and appears to the sailors before the dawn." Alexander the Great is said to have reached the island with the castle, whose inhabitants were clothed in leaves. Although one story noted that sailors "rejoice when they see the island, for it assures them of safety, profit, and good luck," stepping foot on the island was also said to induce insanity, which could only be cured by eating a particular fruit which grew there. Other stories associated the island with misfortune. Some accounts give a specific location to the island, such as "in the sea off Champa (central Vietnam)," though the tradition is generally of a place somewhere in the outer ocean.
The Motionless Sea (Sea of Darkness)
Sailors venturing into the eastern periphery of Arab voyages risked drifting in to a 'Sea of Darkness' (Bahr al-Muzlim), in which sailors are tossed about forever.93 Ibn Battuta, in Southeast Asia in the early fourteenth century, reported that after 34 days' sail from Muljáwa (Java) he and his party "came to the sluggish or motionless sea [in which] there are no winds or waves or movement at all in it, in spite of its wide extent" (see page 105, below).94 Friar Odoric, his European contemporary, repeated a similar story when describing the seas near Java. Odoric refers to an island called Panten, or Tathalamasin, whose king counts many islands under his dominion. "By this country," according to Odoric, is a sea called Mare mortuum (dead sea), which flows continually to the south, and into which "whosoever falleth is never seen again." These images perhaps tie in with the Chinese idea of a flat world tilted 'down' to the southeast, to where the earth's water incessantly flows.
Sharif al-Idrisi
The work of the twelfth-century Sicilian geographer al-Idrisi is the earliest surviving Arab view of Southeast Asia. Al-Idrisi's atlas was divided into a world map (fig. 27) and seventy regional maps, of which six covered southern and Southeast Asia (joined together in figure 28). His map is a composite of sources. Some of his data can be traced back as far as the mid-ninth century text, Akhbar al-Sin, and the geographer, Ibn Khurdadhbih; much of it is rooted in intervening geographers; and some of it is new, or at least newly-interpreted. The maps illustrated are from a fine copy of al-Idrisi's atlas, bearing the date of 960 AH (1553 A.D.).
The landmass running along the top (south) is Africa, which al-Idrisi, influenced by earlier Arab geographers, shaped around a landmass which Ptolemy believed connected Southeast Asia with Africa (see al-Idrisi's world map, figure 27). This concept, Arab geographers' one dramatic concession to Ptolemy, was influential, being found in Western sources such as the 1320 mappamundi of Sanudo (fig. 3). But contrary to Ptolemy, al-Idrisi followed the overwhelming Arab consensus in leaving the eastern (left) end of the Indian Ocean open.
The southeasternmost archipelago (upper left) comprise the islands of Waq- Waq, a colorful land of plentiful gold and trees with blossoms of girls. These isles lie in the sea off China, which is the mainland coast below. To the left of the mainland cape lies the archipelago of Sila, which is identified with Korea. Skipping to the upper right (west), the large round island in the corner is Ceylon, and the large, fat island near the mainland to the lower left (northeast) of Ceylon is Ramni, a kingdom of Sumatra for which the island was sometimes named. Various small 'Java' islands lie to east (left) of Ramni, including Salahit, visited by Sindbad and probably part of Sumatra, and Harang, one of the departure points for the Spice Islands and probably part of Sumatra or Java. Sanf, which is Champa in Indochina, is the island directly between eastern Ramni and the mainland. Among the mainland coastal cities near the eastern end of Ramni is Cattigara, an emporium noted by Ptolemy whose location was eagerly sought during the Renaissance.
Now we reach the long, prominent narrow island which dominates the Indian Ocean. al-Idrisi identifies this as al-Qumr, which is Madagascar, the island lying in its 'proper' place off the wildly mis-located African coast. Al-Idrisi notes that the same island is also called Mala'i. This could refer to a placename on Madagascar, or to the Malayu of other Arab geographers, which is part of Malaya or Sumatra. In addition, one of the locales on the large island is Qmar, which is Cambodia (i.e., Khmer). Thus the island may be both Madagascar and part of the Southeast Asian mainland and Sumatra.
Champa (Sanf) was erroneously depicted as an island because little was known about it except that it was a port-of-call en route to China. A more dramatic example of the pitfalls of charting lands based on inexact textual references can be found in three archipelagoes off eastern 'Madagascar'. They are Ma'id, the large island between 'Madagascar' and the mainland which is evenly divided between the upper-left and upper-central sheet; Muja, one of the islands off the southeast coast of 'Madagascar'; and Qamrun, the group of five small islands caught between 'Madagascar' and the Ptolemaic African coast. All three places are described in the mid-ninth century text, A khbar al-Sin, as lying between India and China, which al-Idrisi interpreted as meaning that they lie on the sea route between the two. In fact they lie on the overland route: Qamrun is Assam, while Ma'id and Muja are kingdoms along the border between Burma and Yunnan.
Part II
The Early Mediterranean and
European Record
Chapter 4
Asia and Classical Europe
Of the various peoples inhabiting Europe in ancient times, only the dominant Greek and Roman civilizations were in a position to seriously consider who and what lay far to their east. It is doubtful if those who lived in western and northern Europe, whatever their sophistication and aspirations, learned anything about the East which had not been sifted through those