Note 1 — CHAP. III

: Abou-abd-allah Mahommed was a Moor of the family who reigned over Malaga after the fall of the Kalifat of Cordova, in the early part of the 11th century, and his patronymic of Edrisi or Al Edrissy implies that he was descended from the princes of that race who had previously held supreme power in what is at the present day the Empire of Morocco. He took up his residence in Sicily under the patronage of the Norman king, Roger II., A.D. 1154, and the work on geography which he there composed was not only based on the previous labours of Massoudi, Ibn Haukul, Albyrouni, and others, but it embodied the reports of persons commissioned specially by the king to undertake voyages for the purpose of bringing back correct accounts of foreign countries. See REINAUD'S Introduction to the Geography of Abulfeda, p. cxiii.