The aim of this series of studies and research books in geographical literature is to arouse greater interest among the people of our culture in this space left to a few scholars behind the walls of academia, and to renew the preoccupation of Arab intellectuals and creators with the topics of geographical literature that an Arab century of restricting thought to ideology has made it far away Completely out of mind.
Perhaps it is important for us in the project “Encouraging the Horizons” to point out that one of our main incentives to bring this series to light is what we perceive as an urgent need to supplement the texts of the travel literature, which began to appear in succession in the series “One Hundred Arab Journeys to the World” with research work and studies. For this series, the path to a better taste, and at the same time illuminates the glorious monuments accomplished by Arab and Muslim travelers and geographers over more than ten centuries, which is the age of all the currents that emerged in Arab geographical literature, and most of these works are unknown by the vast majority of Arab readers, and almost He is not present as he deserves in the culture of some of the best Arab readers.
This series will be concerned, on several levels, and from different points of view, with the various topics of geographical literature written in Arabic, from thinking, preoccupation, research and adventure in asking the question. This applies to the studies carried out by scholars, starting with travel literature, and even books of virtues, passing through works that deal with ethnography, cosmography, cartography, oceanography, and other things that enter the section of geographical literature in its various directions through the ages.
When we raise the question about the components of travel literature, the expected studies will contribute to dismantling the foundations on which the Arab view of the other is based, far and near, and stand on the deep problems raised by the subject of the other in culture, through the confusion with the various questions raised by the accumulated texts through the centuries. And when we speak of cosmography, an unknown realm of preoccupation with the universe and existence will unfold to us. And when we speak of ethnography and cartography, patterns of awareness of the world, of peoples and civilizations arise there. We are at the center of the conversation about distances, dimensions, borders and landmarks for a person examining his foothold on the planet, and striving to understand the meaning of his existence through what he perceives of the different existences of the rest of the human race, whether in matters of the unseen or in the places of existence.
And when we talk about books on the virtues of cities, and there are those who exclude them from geographical literature, we are talking about works that mix literature and history in their focus on urban space. It is a level of Arab culture's preoccupation with the place that is no less important than others.
Against this background, we call, in the project "Encouraging the Horizons", for Arab scholars concerned with this field, with their different references and methods of research, to enrich this endeavor with research and investigation work, so that together we can restore the Arab and Islamic geographical heritage to the Arab book treasury through a renewed awareness of it and its topics. This helps to link this accomplished knowledge with contemporary geographical knowledge, thus enabling the reader to build modern perceptions about travel literature and the literature of the relationship with the place, which would crystallize a better awareness of man about his world.