Guides to reading the atlas
6 guides to the conventions this atlas runs on. The 153 figure pages can tell you who Ibn Sina was; they cannot tell you whether his dates are Hijri or Gregorian, why he is also called Avicenna, or how much weight a 17th-century chronicle in his bibliography can carry. These do.
Every figure counted here is counted from the atlas itself: 153 figures, 12 eras, 29 cities, 10 collections and 403 distinct works cited across the figure bibliographies. Each guide names its own sources, and links the pages it draws on.
The guides
Hijri and Gregorian dates in this atlas
Every date on Nubala is Gregorian CE. How to convert a year to Hijri and back, why the answer is give-or-take one, and what the ~ on 59 birth years means.
7 min read · 5 sources
Why one scholar has five names
Ibn Sina, Avicenna, Pur Sina: how an Arabic name is built, why transliterations differ, and how this atlas's 380 aliases let search find all of them.
7 min read · 5 sources
What the Golden Age label actually covers
The Golden Age is one of twelve eras here and holds 38 of 153 figures. What the label includes, what it hides, and the scholars who came after it.
7 min read · 5 sources
How to read the sources a figure page cites
Every Nubala figure cites three or four works - 462 citations in all. What a 17th-century chronicle, a modern monograph and an encyclopedia entry each prove.
8 min read · 6 sources
Who the atlas counts as a figure
153 figures across 16 modern countries, including a Nestorian translator, two Sabian astronomers and a Jewish-born vizier. The rule, and where it thins out.
8 min read · 6 sources
Comparing two figures, and reading the result
The compare page returns four numbers for any two of the 153 figures. What lifespan overlap, birth gap, era distance and shared cities each mean - and do not.
8 min read · 5 sources
Or go straight to the atlas
- The timeline - all 153 figures in order, 670 to 1981 CE, filterable by era.
- Search - alias-aware, so Avicenna, Ibn Sina and Pur Sina all reach the same page.
- Compare - any two figures side by side, with the overlap or the gap between their lives.
- The Golden Age - the largest of the 12 eras, and the one most often misunderstood.