The Interplay of the Cultural and the Visual in Travel Literature: A Study of the Formation of Epistemic Identity in Al-Maqdisi’s Trip: Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm fī Maʿrifat al-Aqālīm

Abstract

This paper investigates how cultural frameworks intersect with visual observation in shaping epistemic identity within travel literature, focusing on Al-Maqdisi’s Trip: Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm fī Maʿrifat al-Aqālīm. By analyzing materials that extend beyond direct witnessing, the study identifies the ways in which unseen cultural sources—both oral and written—inform the travel narrative and influence its epistemological orientation. Although Al-Maqdisi repeatedly affirmed his intent to record only what he had directly observed, his broader cultural knowledge inevitably filtered into the text through transmitted oral accounts, dialogues, reports, and written works he consulted, sometimes cited and other times not. The findings highlight how this interplay between the cultural and the visual not only shaped the narrative’s descriptive strategies but also redefined its central concern with vision and observation, thereby revealing the subtle yet powerful role of cultural mediation in constructing knowledge within the travel text.