ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the intellectual weaknesses inherent in the constitution of the ‘continents’ as legitimate containers and the ‘civilizations’ as their respective content matters. Since classical antiquity, the terminological construction of geography has divided subject matters into two conceptual groupings: geographical containers and their ontological content matters. Containers are demarcated special realms. Civilizations, such as Western, Chinese, and Islamicate, are commonly seen as ‘contents’ within continental containers, as in ‘Western culture’, which is situated in Europe and North America. In his seminal study of Greco-Hellenistic and Roman geography, van Paassen distinguishes between two fundamentally different strata of the geographical ordering of knowledge by the ancients: scientific geography and narrative geography. The term ‘Islamicate’ was first coined by Marshall Hodgson to denote a larger cultural-geographical scope than that implied by the terms ‘Arab’ or ‘Muslim’. Al-Biruni and Al-Idrisi’s achievements must be seen within their transregional biographical contexts.
