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
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttal ...
. He is the author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography.
Biography
Ibn Khordadbeh was the son of
Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh
Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh ( fa, عبدالله بن خرداببه) was a Persian general and governor for the Abbasid Caliphate.
He was the son of Khordadbeh, a Zoroastrian from Khurasan who converted to Islam. By ca. 815, Abdallah served as th ...
, who had governed the northern Iranian region of
Tabaristan under the
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Mutta ...
caliph
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
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 dynasty that ruled in parts of Tabaristan (present-day Mazandaran province) in what is now northern Iran from 651 until 1349, alternating between outright inde ...
''
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 Sasa ...
'' (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
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheisti ...
who was convinced by the
Barmakids to convert to
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God (or '' Allah'') as it was revealed to Muhammad, the ...
. 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, but grew up in the city of
Baghdad
Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...
. There he received a cultivated education, and studied music with the prominent singer
Ishaq al-Mawsili
Ishaq al-Mawsili ( ar, إسحاق الموصلي; 767/772 – March 850) was an Arab musician of Persian origin active as a composer, singer, music theorist and writer on music. The leading musician of his time in the Abbasid Caliphate, he served ...
, 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
Jibāl ( ar, جبال), also al-Jabal ( ar, الجبل), was the name given by the Arabs to a region and province located in western Iran, under the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates.
Its name means "the Mountains", being the plural of ''jabal'' (" ...
, and eventually in
Samarra 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
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
tic coast as far as Brahamputra, the
Andaman Islands,
peninsular Malaysia and
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mo ...
.
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 n ...
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
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
and the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
, transporting their merchandise by camel as far as Baghdad.
Ibn Khordadbeh clearly mentions
Waqwaq 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
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importa ...
, Greek and Pre-Islamic Iranian history have clear influence on the work.
It is one of the few surviving sources that describes
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
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
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{{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