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MAPPING QUR'ANIC CARTOGRAPHY WITH REMOTE SENSING
Created and composed by L.D.B. Parry, on behalf of, and in the capacity of CEO of our presentation / exhibition team
at the “Bridging-The-Continents” ISPRS 20" International Congress in Istanbul, July, 2004.
Affiliations: 1985 Department of Antiquities, Syria; the 2003 Second Annual Geographers of the Islamic World
Conference in Iran at which team-member LDB Abu Dhar Parry gave a presentation; MCCSI regarding panel
presentations to the provincial and federal energy and environmental regulatory bodies---Alberta Energy Utilities
Board and Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, respectively.
Address L. D. B. Parry, 1507-9910-104 St, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T5C OT7; (E-mail, iberiase(@shaw.ca)
KEYWORDS: archaeology, cartography, history, SAR, geomorphology, mapping, coast, triangulation
ABSTRACT:
The 1991 SAR related discovery of Iram/Ubar increased the likelihood of the discoverability of other arcane and salient
archaeology, history, cartography and geomorphology indicators cited in the Qur'an. The proximal geomorphology of
the region from Istanbul to Ephesus makes them obvious candidates for the *majma ul bahrain" (place of meeting of
two water bodies) and “al kahaf” (the cave) coupling in the same chapter, #18, titled Al Kahaf. Thus, a series of sites
worth mapping into a new atlas of Qur’anic cartography through SAR, thermography, etc., await discovery in the lands
described in the Qur'an from Turkey to the Hadraumat.
The news and results of our presentation will range from the novel consideration of a high-tech teaching tool with
which to study Qur'an and Islam-determined cartography to the production of the most comprehensive technical atlas
of Qur'anic cartography.
[ram/Ubar and Ephesus-Istanbul mark our SE and NW mapping corners respectively, while the eastern coast of the Red
Sea and the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea mark our western boundary. Petra, the river of Talut (as King Saul
is referred to in the Qur'an), Jerusalem, and Bostra-Syria, mark the eastern boundary.
Included in our Qur'anic cartography mapping project are the trade, migration and hajj (pilgrimage) caravan trails that
are directly Qur'an and Islam related. In this regard, the caravan-vectored events of history occurring at Bostra's Jabal
Harun in 582 of the Current Era had a primary impact on the unfolding of Islam. The past Director of Syria's
Department of Antiquities, Dr. Afif Bahnassi, invited team-member Parry, in writing, to investigate what then, in 1985,
was exclusively subject to an archaeology project but what now can be detected by remote sensing there at Bostra's
ancient hermitage where the monk Sergius Bahaira, a.k.a. Nestorius, on Jabal Harun, identified the future of 12-yr old
Prophet Muhammad, according to early Byzantine records and universally accepted Islamic traditions.
being described only two verses later. Goliath is
1.0 INTRODUCTION referred to in the Qur'an in Arabic as Jalut. This river
can be found by locating the same setting and episode
described in 1-Samuel 17:1; that is, between the two
cited hills of Socoh and Azekah. Two verses later,
Samuel states “the Philistines were standing on the
mountain on this side, and the Israelites were standing
on the mountain on that side, with the valley between
them” where “Saul and the men of Israel.....went
drawing up in battle formation to meet the
Philistines”. The camp of the Philistines was called
Ephesdammim between Socoh and Azekah. The
camp of Saul and his men of Israel gathered on the
Plains of Elah. The resulting stand-off was with
Goliath and the Philistines on one side of the valley
and with Saul and the Israelites on the other, each atop
the hills on either side. With Socoh and Azekah
twenty miles west-southwest of Jerusalem, the
locating of the River of Saul, be it today a dried up
river bed, creek or brook by any other name, can be
accomplished and imaged for graphic atlas
representation with the use of a combination of remote
sensing technologies.
Sacred writ geography and cartography, once
discerned and mapped with the tools of remote
sensing, contain the landmarks for a potentially peace-
generating collaboration resulting in an atlas
describing the geography of Abraham's traditions.
The sacred writs of the three traditions associated with
the patriarchal prophet Abraham (a.k.a. Ibrahim in
Arabic and Avrahim in Hebrew), namely those of
Judaism, Christianity and Islam, share geographical
features and cartographic toponyms such that, once
discerned, these three traditions can joint venture into
further studies and investigations.
2.0 EXAMPLES
2.1 River of Saul
A case in point follows by triangulating certain
descriptions in two of those writs. The Qur’an cites a
River of Saul referred to in Arabic as Nahr Talut, with
Talut being the universally accepted Arab Islamic
name for King Saul. Chapter Two, Verse 249,
describes this river as the one associated “with Goliath
and his forces”: with the slaying of Goliath by David
2.2 Mount Ararat and Mount Judi
A second and more famous case in point for sacred
writ triangulation discerned by remote sensing is that
