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Ibn al Sabbah: Nisab al-akhbar Ii tadhkirat al-akhyar (Collection of Annecdotes)
(15th) Andalous
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Abd Allah Ibn al-Sabbah al-Asbahial-Andalusi al-Haydji: He was originally from the city of Jativa (Valencia-Spain). He was born before 1415 and lived in Bursa between 1426 and 1453. At least part of his book he wrote between 1453 and 1455. The literary tour (of anecdotes) made in this work follows this route: Granada, Ceuta, Marrakesh, Fez, Tlemcen, Oran, Tunis, Bejaia, Constantina, Annaba, Beja, Kairouan, Gafsa, Tripoli, Alexandria, Misr-Cairo, Aqaba, Eilat, Yanbu, Rabig, Mecca, al-Tayf, Yemen, Tihama, Matrib, Saba, al-Yamama, Najd, Medina-Yatrib, Hebron, Jerusalem, Damascus, Dyar Bakr, [Bursa], Constantinople, Baghdad, Wasit and Basra. His story of the sources of the Nile does not bring anything new.
Taken from: Antonia Constan Nava; Edición diplomática, traducción y estudio de la obra Nisab al-ajbar wa-tadkirat al-ajyar.
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P219
Ibn al-Sabba said: God has mercy on him: Its boundaries range from Ifriqiya (1) to Tangier (2), Yazula (3), the cradle of the Almoravids (4), the sea South and the country of Sudan, to the Mountains of the Moon and the country of the Nile and Abyssinia. It is the sixth region of the seven aqalim (5) mentioned.
P236
The characteristics of the city of Cairo (note that) the river Nile is drinkable and sweet, that is enough for her. It is a sea of seas, with abundant drinking water. From Misr (Egypt) it flows for three months to the Sudan. [The river] flows from the Mountain of the Moon in Abyssinia over Qanawa (6), al-Zany and Karkar al-Makar.
The author said: All the historians agreed that the Mountain of the Moon is in this zone and [the river] descends from its summit to the earth [creating] meadows, holes and springs, although in the time of flood - God decides this - from there a lot of water overflows the holes and the meadows until causing a great overflow that satiates the whole region, to the east and the west, through artificial mouths for each terrain, arriving at him in great amount. If there is a great increase [in the water-level], there will be fertility and crops; But if it does not exceed the level, or just a little, then there will be shortages and prices will increase in the country. Your well-being depends on the amount of the flood of this Nile.
Said Ibn al-Sabbah -God have mercy on him-: The historians said that it was called Mountain of the Moon because it modifies its color from the first night of the month until the fourteenth full moon. Sometimes it turns red, sometimes it turns black, some turns yellow, some green, sometimes blue. Its summit is cloudy, still having a dense darkness. It is not possible to rise to it and the clouds discharge rain on it continuously, until the end of time. From it rises a river towards the country of Egypt, and a river towards the country of Karkar (sic) until the zone of the south.
(1) Ifriqiya: was the area of eastern Algeria, present-day Tunisia and Tripolitania (today's western Libya).
(2) Tangier: a Moroccan port on the Strait of Gibraltar.
(3) Yazula: The first Almoravids fighters came from the Berber tribe of Yazula.
(4) Almoravids: was an imperial Berber Muslim dynasty centered in Morocco. It established an empire in the 11th century that stretched over the western Maghreb and Al-Andalus.
(5) Aqalim: the seven climes each of these east-west belts on the planet had its own well defined climate.
(6) Qanawa: Djanawa and Janara was the name given to the country of the pagan tribes south of the Muslim lands in West Africa. (Guinea).