The incomplete manuscript known by the title Book of Highways and Kingdoms was an ambitious undertaking by Abu Ubayd Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Bakri, an eleventh-century Spanish-Arab geographer who never left al-Andalus in Spain. Relying on what he read and what travelers reported to him, al-Bakri composed a substantial reference work describing the geography, climate, people and customs of the world he knew, constructing what was to become a medieval manuscript of renown. Presented here in the original Arabic, collated from manuscripts in Leiden, Cambridge, London and Milan, the whole is introduced by a German essay from the editor, Ferdinand Wüstenfeld. Divided into two volumes for convenience of use, this chronicle will be welcomed by medievalists and others interested in the perception of the world in the eleventh century.

Heinrich Ferdinand Wüstenfeld (1808-1899) was a German Orientalist with a particular concern for Arabic study. Educated at Göttingen and Berlin, he eventually became a professor at the former. A prolific writers, he published several important works on Arabic history.