a scribe’s antecedent: skribh, “to scratch” into bark, stone, earth:scribes, like cartographers, turn the world into paper:philosophers spoke of liber mundi. in certain tomes one finds answers at the end:the Prophet could reject material reality. he who never learned to read:at the Mosque of the Booksellers, scholars publish works by burning them on windy days:the Muqaddimah tells all history in that all history is an introduction:there is no projection without distortion, as Mercator knew:cartographers, like scribes, turn paper into the world   map from Old French mapemonde from Medieval Latin mappa, “cloth,” and mundi, “world”“When folded such fabrics of space-time transpose orient with occident:antipodes touch, URAL MOUNTAINS labels an unnamed sea, Cairo’s dawnsweeps San Francisco’s brume, the qibla points everywhere, which is Mecca.When unfolded the world resumes its mundane form. Only the folded map isa holy text—its symbols unseen, its referent a thought with no edge.”—Muhammad al-Idrisi, commentary on Kitab nuzhat al-mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq