Geography and cartography in the medieval Islamic world

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Medieval Islamic geography and cartography refer to the study of geography and cartography in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age (variously dated between the 8th century and 16th century). Muslim scholars made advances to the map-making traditions of earlier cultures,^[1] particularly the Hellenistic geographers Ptolemy and Marinus of Tyre,^[2]: 193 combined with what explorers and merchants learned in their travels across the Old World (Afro-Eurasia).^[1] Islamic geography had three major fields: exploration and navigation, physical geography, and cartography and mathematical geography.^[1] Islamic geography reached its apex with Muhammad al-Idrisi in the 12th century.