Ibn Khurdadhbi
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Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh ( ar, ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خرداذبه; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking Persian bureaucrat and geographer in the Abbasid Caliphate. He is the author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography.


Biography

Ibn Khordadbeh was the son of Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh, who had governed the northern Iranian region of Tabaristan under the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (), and in 816/17 conquered the neighbouring region of Daylam, as well as repelled the
Bavandid The Bavand dynasty () (also spelled Bavend), or simply the Bavandids, was an Iranian peoples, Iranian dynasty that ruled in parts of Tabaristan (present-day Mazandaran province) in what is now northern Iran from 651 until 1349, alternating betwe ...
''
ispahbadh ''Spāhbed'' (also spelled ''spahbod'' and ''spahbad'') is a Middle Persian title meaning "army chief" used chiefly in the Sasanian Empire. Originally there was a single ''spāhbed'', called the , who functioned as the generalissimo of the Milita ...
'' (ruler)
Shahriyar I Shahriyar I (Persian: شهریار) was the sixth ruler of the Bavand dynasty from 817 to 825. He was the grandson and successor of Sharwin I. Before Shahriyar became ruler of the Bavand dynasty, he was taken as hostage by Harun al-Rashid to Baghdad ...
() from the highlands of Tabaristan. Ibn Khordadbeh's grandfather was Khordadbeh, a former Zoroastrian who was convinced by the
Barmakids The Barmakids ( fa, برمکیان ''Barmakiyân''; ar, البرامكة ''al-Barāmikah''Harold Bailey, 1943. "Iranica" BSOAS 11: p. 2. India - Department of Archaeology, and V. S. Mirashi (ed.), ''Inscriptions of the Kalachuri-Chedi Era'' vol ...
to convert to
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
. He may have been the same person as Khordadbeh al-Razi, who had provided Abu'l-Hasan al-Mada'ini (died 843) the details regarding the flight of the last Sasanian emperor Yazdegerd III during the
Arab conquest of Iran The Muslim conquest of Persia, also known as the Arab conquest of Iran, was carried out by the Rashidun Caliphate from 633 to 654 AD and led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire as well as the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion. The ...
. Ibn Khordadbeh was born in 820 or 825 in the eastern province of
Khurasan Greater Khorāsān,Dabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 or Khorāsān ( pal, Xwarāsān; fa, خراسان ), is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plate ...
, but grew up in the city of Baghdad. There he received a cultivated education, and studied music with the prominent singer Ishaq al-Mawsili, a friend of his father. When Ibn Khordadbeh became of age, he was appointed as the caliphal postal and intelligence service in the central province of Jibal, and eventually in
Samarra Samarra ( ar, سَامَرَّاء, ') is a city in Iraq. It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Saladin Governorate, north of Baghdad. The city of Samarra was founded by Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutasim for his Turkish professional army ...
and Baghdad. Around 870 ibn Khordadbeh wrote '' Kitāb al Masālik w’al Mamālik'' (''The Book of Roads and Kingdoms'') (with the second edition of the book being published in 885). In this work, ibn Khordadbeh described the various peoples and provinces of the Abbasid Caliphate. Along with maps, the book also includes descriptions of the land, people and culture of the Southern Asiatic coast as far as Brahamputra, the
Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between th ...
, peninsular Malaysia and Java. The lands of Tang China, Unified Silla (Korea) and
Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
are referenced within his work. He was also one of the earliest Muslim writers to record Viking trade to the east: 'merchants called ''Rus'' traded in the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, transporting their merchandise by camel as far as Baghdad. Ibn Khordadbeh clearly mentions
Waqwaq Al-Wakwak ( ar, ٱلْوَاق وَاق '), also spelled al-Waq Waq, Wak al-Wak or just Wak Wak, is the name of an island, or possibly more than one island, in medieval Arabic geographical and imaginative literature. Identification with civi ...
twice: ''East of China are the lands of Waqwaq, which are so rich in gold that the inhabitants make the chains for their dogs and the collars for their monkeys of this metal. They manufacture tunics woven with gold. Excellent ebony wood is found there.'' And again: ''Gold and ebony are exported from Waqwaq.'' Claudius Ptolemy, Greek and Pre-Islamic Iranian history have clear influence on the work. It is one of the few surviving sources that describes Jewish merchants known as
Radhanites The Radhanites or Radanites (; ar, الرذنية, ''ar-Raðaniyya'') were early medieval Jewish merchants, active in the trade between Christendom and the Muslim world during roughly the 8th to 10th centuries. Many trade routes previously esta ...
. Khordadbeh wrote other books. He wrote around 8–9 other books on many subjects such as "descriptive geography" (the book ''Kitāb al Masālik w’al Mamālik''), "etiquettes of listening to music", "Persian genealogy", cooking", "drinking", "astral patterns", "boon-companions", "world history", "music and musical instruments". The book on music had the title ''Kitāb al-lahw wa-l-malahi'' which is on musical matters of pre-Islamic Iran.


References


Sources

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ibn Khordadbeh 820s births 913 deaths Year of birth uncertain Geographers from the Abbasid Caliphate 10th-century Iranian geographers 9th-century Iranian writers 10th-century Iranian writers Explorers of India