The classification of human geographical subjects, their common and distinctive features has been noted. The place of geography of religion in the system of human geographical sciences has been traced. The object and subject of study of geography of religion has been identified. The regional investigations of sphere of religion have been analysed and approaches to its study have been systemized. Key words: geography of religion, sacred geography, religious sphere, social geography, human geography.
Abstract
Following the conquest of Baghdad in 1534, the Ottoman Empire pursued a wide range of policies to maintain the shrines of Muslim saints buried in the province, many of whom were revered by both the Sunni Ottomans and the Shiʿi Safavids. Ottoman endeavors entailed active management of the Tigris and Euphrates waters to provision inland shrines with water and guard those on the riverbanks from damaging floods. With a hydraulic infrastructure, the Ottomans appropriated the memories of the saints of Baghdad and reinforced their territorial claims to the province in the face of a rising Shiʿi power in Persia. The story highlights the political and religious dimensions of water control in a sacred geography as imperial conflicts within Islamdom and Christendom redrew the map of Eurasia.
This chapter explains the remarkable popularity of Henry Maundrell’s A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Easter AD 1697 (1703). It argues that Maundrell’s eye-witness reportage of his travels in the Holy Land provided the book’s readers with a storehouse of geographical observations and descriptions of eastern customs with which they could recreate imaginatively the world of the Scriptures. Tracing the book’s use by editors, commentators, translators, and paraphrasts, it argues that Maundrell was most often put to work in defence of the Bible against attacks on its claims to truth. Yet in the hands of Maundrell’s late eighteenth-century German translator, the naturalist and historicist tendencies inherent in his account were brought into sharper focus; ‘sacred geography’ was transformed into a history of biblical culture.
Social and geographical essence of regional research of religious sphere