Ibn Husayn al-Qami al-Nisaburi: Gharayib al-Quran

(Oddities of the Qur’an) (d1446)

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Taken from:  islamicbook.ws   غرائب القرآن ورغائب الفرقان

Ch4

The water surrounds most aspects of the earthly lands, so that is called the surrounding sea. Four bays entered from that water into the south side, connected to the eastern ocean and cut off from the west by the center of the inhabited part:  The first starts from the west; the Barbary Gulf (1), because it is a Berber border from the land of Abyssinia, and its length from the south to the north is one hundred and sixty leagues (2), and its width is thirty-five leagues. And on its western side is the land of the infidels of Abyssinia and some Zinj, and on the eastern the country of the Muslims of Abyssinia. The second is the Red Gulf, whose length from south to north is four hundred and sixty leagues (2). And wide near its end of sixty leagues, and between its edge and Fustat (3) Egypt, which is on the east of the Nile, a three-day march on land, on its western side is the Zinj land of the Berbers and some countries of Abyssinia, and on its eastern side there are coasts on which the city of the Messenger, may God bless him and grant him peace, for the convoys of Egypt and Abyssinia to the Hijaz (4), then the coasts of Yemen, then Aden on the eastern corner of it.