this map is really interesting especially if it's from al-Idrisi collection! On it, as we see Sicily is shown in form of sphere, and if look on his so cold The Tabula Rogeriana, world map, Sicily is shown very accurate, close to it's real geographical form. Maps organized in circles belong to earlier tradition and we can suppose that in 12 century different maps were used in different aims. Knowledge of that time was high enough to produce maps with correct forms of objects and distances between them, but ancient "sphere" maps were still widely used for practical purposes - to get from one place to another (as we see, using that map it was probably possible to get from Balarm for example, to Syracuse). This can bring us to middle ages mentality and domination of practisism over accuracy
It’s all my primitive supposes, as I moan for not having access to western historiography dedicated to medieval cartography, and possibility to study this question close.
Unfortunately the link you gave isn’t working (maybe it's mine problem, but I tried it from dieferent browsers with no success)
If you’ll recall the source of pic. pls don’t forget this topic
Maybe you still have it saved on your pc? I would be very grateful for sharing! I’ve got flaming desire to read those arabic signs to map objects
Anyway thanks for response and billion thanks for your attention to history in the mod.