The Naming of the Black Sea in Arabic-Islamic and Christian Sources
abstract
The paper deals with the naming of the Black Sea in Arabic-Islamic and Christian sources. Based on a purview of major designations of the Black Sea in the Arabic-Islamic and Christian geographical traditions, the author questions the geo-chromatic explanation of the name of the Black Sea. Instead, the author outlines a multi-layered naming structure in the system of the designations of the Black Sea. Historical names of the Black Sea in both Arabic-Islamic and Christian geographical traditions demonstrate independent trends in the naming of this sea which went through a convoluted process of semantic transformations as reflected in the extant records
Keywords: The Arabic-Islamic geographical tradition • The geo-chromatic designation • The Christian geographical tradition • The Black Sea • The descriptive geography