On Taḥqīq, Space Travel, and the Discovery of Jetlag: Post-Mongol Trajectories of Modern Spatial Thinking

Abstract

Before the invention of modern air travel, the phenomenon we call “jetlag” was known as the “Circumnavigator’s Paradox.” It was first observed empirically by European mariners in the sixteenth century, who noticed a missing day in their ship logs after circumnavigating the globe. But two centuries earlier, the theoretical possibility of such an observation was demonstrated by the Arab statesman and polymath Abu’l-Fidā (d. 1331) in his treatise on world geography, the Taqwīm al-Buldān or “Arrangement of Countries.” Within the context of this special issue on Cultures of Taḥqīq, this article argues that Abu’l-Fidā insight was a quintessential expression of the epistemology of taḥqīq as practiced in the immediate aftermath of the Mongol conquests, with profound implications for the latter history of geography, cartography, and modern spatial thinking.