This map is based upon, and develops, the world view expounded in the second century AD by Ptolemy, which dominated geography for centuries. Oriented, as customary with Islamic maps, with south at the top, it shows Africa extending eastwards so that it covers virtually all of the Southern Hemisphere. A series of red concentric circles marks the seven zones, or climes, into which Ptolemy divided the habitable world. The eastward curve of Africa, and the source of the Nile in East Africa, are Ptolemaic; but Africa no longer joins up with India, making the Indian Ocean an open sea rather than a gigantic lake, suggesting additional knowledge derived from more recent scholarship. 

MS. Pococke 375, fols. 3v–4r