A crucial motif in the novel, maps symbolize both the known and unknown. When Rawiya joins al-Idrisi’s quest to map the known world, the expedition must traverse unexplored or previously misunderstood territories. The result, which “was to be the most accurate map of the inhabited world that had ever been made, a collaboration on a grand scale and the culmination of the long journey that had been taken” is the fruit of both close observation and personal experience (258).

Maps also represent individuality and creative agency—and, when layered with the signification of the known and unknown, maps further symbolize self-discovery; to an extent, a map’s charted shapes will always be subjective, and the surveyed land will always reflect the individual traveler’s journey. Nour’s mother, a practiced cartographer, tells Nour that “when you make a map, you don’t just paint the world the way it is. You paint your own” (315). When Nour receives a map of her mother’s world without placenames, she must use her synesthesia to crack the code. Once this is done, she scratches the paint to reveal her mother’s Arabic handwriting, which she can now understand.