There are marked differences between the modern map of Ibn Battuta’s travels and the medieval map of his travels. The most obvious difference is that the modern map is intended to be geographically accurate and is made with satellite imaging. Ibn al-Wardi’s map was not intended to be geographically accurate but was meant to represent a cosmological understanding of the world. Because of this, the medieval map and travel route depicted on it is completely distorted. The distances between locations appears shorter than it is. It also represents bodies water in more abstract ways, not accurately depicting the coastlines and river distances. It makes the Nile River look incredibly wide when it is compared with the Arabian sea. Because bodies of water are distorted, medieval people’s understanding of the size and scope of them may not have been clear. There is also the issue of what the map is centered on. For the modern map, any place in the world can be chosen as the “center.” It is all arbitrary because it is a globe. When you click on the map, it automatically centers around the middle of the Arabian desert because that is the most central point in relation to all the points located on the map. The medieval map is completely different. Because it is a cosmological map, it has Medina and Mecca directly in the center. This indicates their importance and the centrality of Islam to life and their understanding of the universe. Medina and Mecca are towards the bottom of the modern map. Overall, it is interesting to compare the two maps because the intentions behind their creation and representation are completely different, which causes them to look different. It is important to note that the points I chose for Ibn Battutah are all located in the Middle East, which is shown at least semi-accurately on the map. If I had chosen points in sub-Saharan Africa, India, or China, the points would not have made any sense at all because these locations are distorted on the medieval map.
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