Al-Khitat Al-Maqriziyyah - Al-Maqrizi (The History of Egypt)

Kitab al-Mawa'iz wa-al-I'tibar bi-Dhikr al-Khitat wa-al-Athar, or "Khitat al-Maqriziyyah" is a book written by Taqi Al-Din Ahmed bin Ali bin Abdul Qadir Al-Maqrizi (845 AH).

This book has another name known by it, which is “Al-Khitat Al-Maqriziyyah.” In this book, the author chronicles Umm al-Dunya, Egypt, during the period extending from the year twenty of the honorable Prophet’s migration to the year nine hundred and six, speaking about its great Nile and its impact on the life of Egypt, its weather and climate, and the construction of Egypt and Cairo, its streets, its alleys, its hotels, its bays, its bridges, its kings, its sultans, its mosques, its beliefs, its religions, its schools, endowments, and other things related to Egypt until the beginning of the tenth century AH.

The subject of this book falls within the art of writing plans, topography—a type of regional historical geography. This art was known in many Islamic countries, where the introductions to books that chronicled Islamic cities, such as “The History of Baghdad” by Al-Khatib Al-Baghdadi, “The History of Damascus” by Ibn Asakir, and “Al-Alaq Al-Khathirah” by Ibn Shaddad, included topographical descriptions of these cities. Nevertheless, we can say that this art is one of the arts that Islamic Egypt was specialized in and that it grew and developed throughout its long history, and it had a glorious history in it that paved the way for the completion that this art reached in Al-Maqrizi’s huge book “Al-Khitat Al-Maqriziyyah”, which is undoubtedly the largest representative of the art of topography.

The book is a seminal work in urban history and one of the first to concentrate in city history.