The ''Book of Roads and Kingdoms'' ( ar, كِتَاب ٱلْمَسَالِك وَٱلْمَمَالِك, translit=Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik) is a 9th-century
geography
Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, an ...
text written by the
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
geographer
Ibn Khordadbeh
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 ...
. It maps and describes the major trade routes of the time within the
Muslim world
The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
, and discusses distant trading regions such as
Japan,
Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
, and
China.
It was written around 870 CE, during the reign of
Al-Muʿtamid of 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-Muttalib ...
, while its author was Director of Posts and Police for the
Abbasid 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'' (" ...
in modern-day
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
.
The work uses much of the Persian administrative terms, gives considerable attention to
pre-Islamic Iranian history, and uses the "native Iranian cosmological division system of the world". These all show "the existence of Iranian sources at the core of the work".
[ pp. 359–60.]
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
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, and pre-Islamic Iranian history have clear influence on the work.
The book is also referred to in
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
as ''The Book of Roads and Provinces''.
Notes
External links
*
اﻟﻤﺴﺎﻟﻚ واﻟﻤﻤﺎﻟﻚالمسالك والممالك – resource for Arabic books – الوراقالمسالك والممالك لابن خرداذبة ونبذ من كتاب الخراج وصناعة الكتابة للبغدادي
9th-century Arabic books
Geographical works of the medieval Islamic world
Iranian literature
Iranian books
870
Memory of the World Register in Iran
{{iran-hist-book-stub