Leo Africanus: Andalusian Explorer & Geographer

Following up on Mu?ammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi: Scientific Pioneer of the Islamic Golden Age, this week we’ll take a look at the life of Leo Africanus. Born Al Hassan Ibn Muhammad Al Wazzan, he is best known for his book, Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica (Cosmography and geography of Africa).

"Africa begins in the North, at the mouth of the Nile and stretches West as far as the Pillars of Hercules. Its Western frontier runs from these Straits, down to Noun, the furthest point on the Libyan coast. Beyond, the Ocean wraps around Africa, as far as the desert of Gaoga"

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Leo Africanus, whose birth name was Al Hassan Ibn Muhammad Al Wazzan, was a Moorish diplomat, traveler, historian, and writer best known for his book, Cosmographia et geographia de Affrica (Cosmography and geography of Africa), which described African geography, including the famed city of Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa. Timbuktu was known as the City of Wisdom.

This initial publication, completed in 1550, was the work of Giovanni Battista Ramusio, a Venetian editor who did not know Leo, and admitted to 'modifying' Leo's text.

The name Leo Africanus is said to have been a nickname assigned by his Italian peers when he was already in his 30s. Mohammed was his father's name (the prefix "Ibn" means "son of") and Al Wazzan was his family name referring to his lineage. He was born in Granada about 1494, a city at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain. Granada had been conquered by the Moors of Africa for nearly 800 years.

The Granadan environment rapidly became antagonistic to Muslims and other non-Catholics. After Leo Africanus' birth, his family moved from Spain to Fez, Morocco in North Africa. Their flight predates the greater exodus which occurred at the beginning of the 16th century, when Muslims and Jews were officially expelled from Spain. It is very likely that he studied at the University of al-Qarawiyyin, the oldest university in Morocco.

For centuries caravan travel was the central means of transportation for goods traded between the Mediterranean and the Sudan. Cloth, salt, metals, pearls and writing paper were brought from Europe and the Maghreb into present-day Mali, where they were exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and ostrich feathers.

Leo traveled along these caravan routes, into the Saharan desert and to Timbuktu twice;-once in early 1510 accompanying his uncle on an embassy to visit the sultan of the Sudan; and again a few years later, on a longer trip.

Until the early 19th century, piracy raged in Moroccan waters. Having existed before and after the Roman presence, piracy flourished during the crusades, as a result of the large flow of goods and people in the Mediterranean, headed to or from the Holy lands.

In 1518 as he was sailing back from Constantinople, Leo Africanus was taken by pirates. The Knights of Saint John, also known as the Knights of Rhodes, and soon to become the Knights of Malta, were active in the Mediterranean seas attacking enemy boats for their goods, and for slaves to man the galleys. Realizing their prisoner’s value, they presented him to Pope Leo X, who baptized him in St Peter’s in 1520 and given the name Johannes Leo de Medici. Pope Leo X died shortly after Leo Africanus' baptism. Leo Africanus stayed in Italy for a period of at least 10 years.

A matter that is highly debated among Leo historians is the matter of his conversion. While western historians see him a willing convert who was given a gentle invitation by the pope, Arab counterparts completely refuse that theory altogether and provide that it was just a matter of survival.

Leo was in Italy during the Renaissance, a time of great intellectual and cultural advancement for the country. His mastery of Arabic, Hebrew and Italian enabled him to write a trilingual dictionary, on commission from a Jewish doctor in Italy.

In 1931, a manuscript to Leo was found while rummaging through the archives of the Vatican and the National Library. The discovery revealed that Ramusio, in smoothing the grammar of Al-Wazzan’s text had colored many neutral details to make it more palatable to Christian European audiences

The discovery of these differences between the original and the published text are crucial for the study of Leo's influence.

It has been suggested that William Shakespeare may have drawn on Leo Africanus' book when preparing to write Othello.

The details of Leo's death are unknown.

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About the Author: Lawrence Jean-Louis is the founder of eBrand Me, a digital marketing agency offering marketing & consultative services to CPAs and tax professionals. She aspires to start a money management firm by 2030.