The representation of the Mediterranean in the KMMS (Kit?b al-mas?lik wa-al-mam?lik, i.e. Book of Routes and Realms) tradition is striking. The cartographers use a bulbous geometric form to portray both sides of the Mediterranean as mirror images of each other. Given the history of tension between the northern and southern ?anks of the Mediterranean especially with the onset of Islamic control, this harmonious depiction of the two sides of the Mediterranean as near re?ections of each other takes us by surprise. Not least because we know the northern ?ank of the Mediterranean from modern maps to be anything but even. It is as if the Muslim cartographers chose to transpose the southern ?ank of the Mediterranean, with which they must have been more familiar, to the north. Should we read this as an assertion of a Muslim Mare Nostrum? The three islands of Cyprus, Crete, and Sicily form the central East-West axis of the image. These islands run through the heart of the sea and are capped by a mysterious, mythical island labeled Jabal al-Qilal. The Nile Delta and the Bosphorus with Crete as its central hub create an off-center North-South axis. These two axes divide the Mediterranean into four distinct quarters: the Levant opposite Anatolia, and the larger quarter of North Africa opposite Spain and Portugal. Separation of the Levantine ?ank from its Anatolian counterpart is indicated by the presence of three prominent south-eastern Anatolian rivers. Beyond the mouth of the Mediterranean a band representing the Encircling Ocean serves as the ?nal frontier for the Muslim Mediterranean. This map is always drawn with west, i.e. the mouth of the Mediterranean, at the top of the map. Thus the eye of the cartographer is ?rmly located in the East, speci?cally the Levant and the caliphal lands that lie east of it. This paper picks apart and studies the Islamicate map of the Mediterranean with the intention of explaining the signi?cance of its iconic form and the meaning behind its layout and distribution of places and spaces. The intent being to access windows into the milieus and geographic mentality that created and perpetuated this curious image of the Mediterranean and what its commissioners and makers intended to communicate to their audience about the geospatial politics of their time.