Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
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
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- A3.1 identify the location and describe the physical characteristics of various landforms […]
2 The lesson
What would you say about a landform in a few words?
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.
Go deeper
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.
Think about it
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?
Into the museum
- 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.
Try this
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.
3 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Mount al-Muqattam have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A range through the desert. In al-Idrisi's medieval description, al-Muqattam is a mountain that extends from the first land of Egypt in the desert to near Aswan, and he reports that ochre and lime are extracted from some of its places. Where would you mark a range like this on a map, and what do people take from it?
I can now
Notes
- 1. The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 (2023)
- 2. Al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2002), 2 vols., p.132
- 3. Al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2002), 2 vols., p.133
- 4. Futuh Misr wa-l-Maghrib — Ibn Abd al-Hakam (ed. Abd al-Mun'im Amir, al-Hay'a al-Amma li-Qusur al-Thaqafa), p. 211