The first volume will concentrate on the Islamic Geographers who mapped and made navigable the routes followed by later travellers. While travel, and in particular the rihla (or 'travel to Mecca") did not depend for its impetus on formal geography, the latter served to complement and highlight the travellers' diaries and travelogues, and made known the boundaries of an expandind empire. Links between geography and the pilgrim routes to Mecca and Medina are particularly significant.