A mountain range in the desert

This lesson asks you to say where various landforms are and to describe their physical characteristics. The museum offers one place from the Islamic world, a mountain range in the desert as al-Idrisi described it; your class adds the other landforms, such as plateaus, plains and valleys, from other regions. ¹

Practise giving a landform a location and one or two physical features, and notice how much the record tells you and how much it leaves out.

Al-Idrisi's record describes al-Muqattam as a mountain that extends from the first land of Egypt in the desert to near Aswan, and reports that ochre and lime are extracted from some of its places ². The author also reports that the mountain has ancient remains and treasures that kings hid, and he ascribes to a widely told account the story of a priest with whom the mountain was associated ³. A different book, Ibn Abd al-Hakam's, adds a report: al-Layth says that al-Muqawqis asked Amr ibn al-As (may God be pleased with him) to sell him the foot of al-Muqattam for seventy thousand dinars, and that Umar told Amr to ask why he offered so much for ground that could not be farmed and gave no water ⁴. The first report speaks of what is quarried; the second reports a price offered for ground with no crops and no water.

In al-Idrisi's record some statements are about the rock, such as ochre and lime, and others pass on stories, such as hidden treasures and a priest. Which kind of statement could a visitor check by going to the mountain, and what would you need to do to test the other kind, and why?

• Mount al-Muqattam: what the record says of its length, its quarried materials and its stories.
• al-Muqawqis: the man who, in Ibn Abd al-Hakam's report, offered seventy thousand dinars for its foot.
• Amr ibn al-As: to whom the offer was made.

Read Mount al-Muqattam. Write its location and what the record says about its physical character, and mark what you would still need to look up.