As for Egypt’s Oases…they are used to travel from the Nile Valley to the Land of the Blacks across deserts, but the way has lately been cut, although there are still many palm trees, human traces and fruit trees, and camels that have gone wild and conceal themselves…
-Ibn Hawqal, Kitāb Sūrat al-’Ard, Book of the Picture of the Earth, 977 CE
Ibn Hawqal wrote much about east-west caravan routes but little about those running north-south. He gave precise travel times between Ghana’s gold fields, to Gao, to the Aïr, to Kufra and Kharga and Siwa, and on to the Nile Valley, but said nothing about the Darb al-’Arba’īn’s forty days up from Kordofan and Darfur. KhairAllah should redraw Ibn Hawqal’s Picture, adding lines, connecting dots, unconcealing camels.