In Middle Eastern studies, the history of cartography is a relatively underdeveloped field, certainly in comparison to other areas of the world. This excellent book on the history of mapping of the Middle East is a game-changer. It offers a sensible, accessible and nuanced contextual analysis of maps of the Middle East since the early Islamic period to this day, including maps that appear in diverse media, not only the stand-alone map but also stamps, donation boxes, and art. To the best of my knowledge, no other book on the history of mapping in the region offers such an informative and informed introduction. Moreover, the author dares to cover both the pre-modern and modern traditions of mapping, a comparative intervention that enriches our understanding of every aspect of these maps.
The main argument of the book is twofold. First, the author demonstrates that the rich pre-modern Islamic tradition of mapping of the Middle East emphasized mobility and connectivity over sovereignty, while at the same reflecting and creating local-patriotisms, categories of belonging that pre-dated either colonialism or nationalism. Second, Antrim shows how these pre-modern mapping traditions were mostly suppressed by colonial and national mapping traditions, which tended to enclose and subdivide space into supposedly homogeneous units, following an “insidious logic of partition” and exclusion (p. 15). This imposition of modern mapping, identified here correctly as a key tool of colonial and national projects, constrains our ability to recover the pre-modern conceptions of the region. Equally, it limits our ability to imagine alternative futures.
The first two chapters deal with medieval and early modern traditions of mapping. The most popular medieval maps are found in the “Atlas of Islam” tradition. While each Islamic region had a separate map, an embodiment of localized sentiments of belonging, these maps do not draw political or ethnic boundaries. Instead, the maps follow itineraries that cut through the regions, stressing mobility over sovereignty. Another popular tradition, that of the maps showing the direction to Mecca (known as qibla maps), also evokes the unity of the Islamic community, creating a uniform and intimate relationship between the viewer and the Kaʿba.
Like its medieval precursors, Ottoman mapping too accorded primacy to mobility over sovereignty. Pīrī Reis’ corpus draws heavily on medieval European portolan charts, but has literary and aesthetic qualities that go beyond the genre. His maritime maps are paralleled by the magnificent maps of Matrakci Nasuh, which also take the form of a deconstructed itinerary. While Matrakci's depictions of Istanbul and Aleppo usually attract most attention, most of his maps are of small towns or villages where the royal camp stayed. The images evoke Ottoman order and stability, or, especially in Iraq, sacred topography of Sunni and Shia shrines.
Colonial forms of mapping marked a sharp break with these pre-modern traditions. Utilizing the case studies of the Description de l’Égypte, French Algeria and Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine, Antrim shows how each colonial intervention was accompanied by mapping, which was both “means of and a justification for colonialism” (p. 114). Because Colonial maps reproduced the colony for those whose support was needed to sustain the colonial enterprise, they did not emphasize belonging, but rather access from Europe. Wasteland and unproductive land were highlighted, while indigenous social formations erased. French mapping of Algeria delineated novel political boundaries between French territory and its neighbours, and was obsessed with administrative, tribal or ethnic subdivisions and enclosures. The maps that accompanied the Sykes-Picot agreement are the culmination of this logic of partition. Yet not all colonial maps were drawn with the same brush. The followers of Saint-Simon, who unusually called for interbreeding between the colonizer and the colonized, sought to convey in their maps the “practical genius” of the native harnessed by the management and guidance of French civilization (p. 134).
Maps made in twentieth-century nation states adopted the ideal of a bounded territory enclosing a specific racially or ethno-linguistic group, leading to an unprecedented dynamic of exclusion. The “logo-map”, along with the museum and the census, produces self-aware national populations within bounded territories. Turkish maps espoused this ideal to the extreme, erasing any mention of Kurds or Armenians. Iranian maps have intriguingly followed a different path, with a tradition of celebrating the diverse ethnic groups of the country. Much of the early Zionist mapping avoided boundaries altogether, in order to attract immigrants into what was shown to be an empty land. Here the dispossession of Palestinians required brutal erasure of pre-modern geographical discourses. But, as Antrim shows through a poignant analysis of an eleventh-century “Atlas of Islam” map, Palestine was a place of affective resonance within a larger Syrian region. This chapter ends with a work of art: Mona Hatoum's Present Tense installation uses olive oil soap to construct a floor mosaic in the form of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – the indigenous soap dissolves the transient boundaries, and questions the power of maps to arbitrate belonging (p. 232).
A final fifth chapter shows how the most current crop of maps project alternative and conflicting futures for the Middle East. Al Jazeera covered the Arab Spring by using an image of the Arab World that had no internal political boundaries, no Arab states at all. Western strategists and media continue to draw lines of partitions based on ethnic and sectarian divisions. These maps are testimony to the persistence of colonial practices; they suggest that the Middle East is not in a post-colonial phase, but rather exists in a colonial present.
This beautifully produced book should be of interest to a wide readership. Medievalists would learn much from the first two chapters about pre-modern approaches to geographical space. Historians of the modern Middle East would encounter the richness and the opportunities offered by pre-modern mapping traditions. The book's exploration of maps as tools of colonial and settler colonial projects illuminates so much about Middle Eastern identities. For historians of cartography, this is the best introduction to the mapping tradition in the Middle East in the medieval, early modern and modern periods, offering insights about the power and limitations of maps in other places and times.
