From The Meadows of Gold PDF

MAS'UDI
From The Meadows of Gold

Translated byVKVL LUNDE
^CAROLINE STONE
The ancient city of Baghdad, ad 915
Mas'udi was born in Baghdad around the year ad
890 and died in Egypt in 956. Throughout his life he
travelled incessantly, visiting the major cities of what
are now Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt, the Arabian
Peninsula, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the west
coast of India. Fascinated by religious diversity, he
interviewed Jewish, Christian, Mazdaean, Zoroastrian
and Hindu scholars, dispassionately recording their
beliefs and discussing their sacred books. (The Arabic
names for the peoples and places he describes are often
used in this book, and their modern equivalents are
given where known.) He was no less interested in
the natural world, and collected intriguing information
about the unusual natural phenomena, plants and
animals that he encountered. He wrote thirty-six
books, only two of which survive: The Meadows of Gold
and Mines of Precious Gems [Muruj al-Dhahab wa
Ma'adin aTJawhar\ and the Book of Admonition and
Revision [Kitab al-Tanbih wa ’l-Ishraf], both notable
attempts at ‘global’ history. All that we know of
Mas'adi’s life and travels is derived from what he
himself tells us in these two books.
The selections that follow are overwhelmingly from
The Meadows of Gold-, a few are from the Book of
Admonition. They have been chosen not only for their
intrinsic interest, but to show the range of their author’s
interests and the extent of his travels. Mas udi left his
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native Baghdad in 941 and took up residence in Fustat
in Egypt, the town that shortly after his death was
transformed into the splendid Fatimid capital of Cairo.
There he completed The Meadows of Gold in 943, and
revised and augmented it in 947 and again shortly
before his death in 956. All the surviving manuscripts
of the work, however, represent the 947 revision. He
finished his Book ofAdmonition in 956, a month before
his death. It is an abridgement of The Meadows of Gold,
but contains much new information, particularly about
the Byzantine Empire. As the reader of these selections
will see, Masudi frequently refers to the date he wrote
or revised the passage in question, an inestimable help
in tracing his intellectual and physical odyssey. (Many
dates are given in both the Muslim and the Christian
calendar, for example 336/947.) He also refers to des
criptions not included in this selection, some in lost
works. The Meadows of Gold is a long work, the
standard edition filling five substantial volumes. This
selection can only hint at the riches to be found in the
life’s work of the man who has been aptly described as
‘the Arab Herodotus’.
Masudi was a late product of the ‘Abbasid Renais
sance’, as brilliant and short-lived as its Italian counter
part. Both were inspired by contact with Greek
philosophy and science and its tradition of free inquiry.
This tradition inspired the humanist curiosity that
made Masudi want to know more of what lay beyond
the borders of the Islamic world and recover the
memory of the ancient civilizations that had once
flourished in the domain of Islam.
i. Mas'udl describes his aims and methods
We beg our readers’ indulgence for any mistakes or

negligence which they may find in this book; for our
memory is weakened and our strength spent as a result
of the great weariness brought about by voyages which
have taken us by sea from one country to another and
by land across extensive desert. We have travelled the
world, by land and sea, avid to witness for ourselves all
that is remarkable among peoples and to see with our
own eyes the peculiarities of each country. With this
aim we have visited Sind [Pakistan], the land of the
Zanj [East Africa], Sanf [the kingdom of Champa,
now southern Vietnam], China and Zabaj [Sumatra].
Moving from east to west, we have journeyed from the
farthest limits of Khurasan to the heart of Armenia, to
Azerbaijan, Arran, and Baylaqan; one day we were in
Syria, another in Iraq. We can compare our course across
the world to the progress of the sun across the heavens,
and apply the following verses of the poet to ourselves:
He has travelled the world in all directions;

now in the farthest east, now in the west.
Like the sun in its course, his journeys reach countries
so remote
no caravan has ever dared penetrate them.
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Mas'udi
During our travels we have consorted with several

kings, as different in their manners and their opinions
as are the different geographical situations of their
countries, and yet little by little we have found among
them the same accord in recognizing that all traces of
science have vanished and that its splendour is spent;
learning has become too general and has lost its depth,
and one no longer sees any but people filled with vanity
and ignorance, imperfect scholars who are content with
superficial ideas and do not recognize the truth.
We have been led to write our books on chronology
and universal history and what occurred in the remote
past in the time of the prophets, the lives of kings and
their deeds, the different nations and their positions
on the globe, by the desire to follow the path of wise
and learned men, and have tried to leave to posterity a
solid memorial built with art and skill. We have found
some authors who came before us excellent, others
inferior; some too prolix, others too concise. We have
also found that the materials available have inexorably
increased with the passage of time. Even the cleverest
and most judicious minds have neglected extensive
areas, each one specializing in a particular field. Every
clime has peculiarities familiar to its inhabitants, but
he who has never left his hearth and has confined his
researches to the narrow field of the history of his own
country cannot be compared to the courageous traveller
who has worn out his fife in journeys of exploration to
distant parts and each day has faced danger in order to
persevere in excavating the mines of learning and in
snatching precious fragments of the past from oblivion.
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2. Mas'udipraises his birthplace
I was born in the central clime of the world, and

although the passing of days has separated us and my
travels have taken me far away, I feel a great nostalgia
for it in my heart, for it is my native land and my home.
It is in the clime of Babil [Lower Iraq, ancient
Babylonia]. This region was greatly esteemed by the
kings of Persia and was the object of their solicitude.
They passed their winters in Iraq and most of them
spent the summer in the Jibal [the mountainous region
north-east of Baghdad], moving alternately from hot
country to cold, depending on the season. Similarly,
fashionable Muslims, such as Abu Dulaf al-Qasim ibn
‘Isa al-‘Ijli, passed the winter in the warm area - that
is to say, Iraq - and summer in the cool region - that
is to say, the Jibal. This is why Abu Dulaf said:
I do as Chosroe did:
summer in the Jibal
and winter in Iraq.
Indeed, this region unites every advantage: the earth

is fertile, life is easy and everything is available in
abundance. Its two benefactors, the Tigris and the
Euphrates, bring it wealth; all its people are secure,
knowing no ills. Lastly, it is the mansion of the sun,
situated in the centre of the earth in the midst of the
seven climes. Thus, the ancients compared its position
in the world to that of the heart in the human body,
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for the world extends all around the clime of Babil,

whose inhabitants spread light in every direction on
the meaning of things, just as knowledge emanates
from the heart.
Thanks to this, its inhabitants have a smooth com
plexion and well-proportioned bodies. Among them
one does not find the fair tones of the Byzantines and
the Slavs, nor the black skin of the Abyssinians, nor the
stockiness of the Berbers. Freed from the coarseness of
other peoples, on the contrary, they unite what is best
in every country; and just as they are distinguished by
their outward beauty, so are they pre-eminent for their
refinement and love of beautiful things.
The noblest position in this clime belongs to the city
of Baghdad. How cruel Fortune was when she drove
me from this noble city where I was born and from
whose womb I sprang! But destiny loves to force these
separations upon us and it is fate which imposes such
exiles.
j. The lighthouse ofHercules
At the place where the Mediterranean joins the Atlan

tic Ocean there is a lighthouse of stone and copper
built by the giant king Hercules. It is covered with
inscriptions and statues whose hand gestures proclaim
to those coming from the Mediterranean who wish to
enter the Atlantic Ocean: ‘There is no way beyond me.’
Indeed, there is no way forward for those who enter it
from the Mediterranean. Nothing moves upon it; there
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are no inhabited lands there or rational beings. Neither

its extent nor where it ends are known; no one knows
how far it reaches. It is called the Sea of Darkness, the
Green Sea or the Encircling Sea. It is said that this
lighthouse is not on this strait, but on one of the islands
in the Encircling Sea, close to the coast.
Some people have gone so far as to claim that this
sea is the source of all other seas. Wondrous tales are
told of it, which we have set down in our Historical
Annals: tales of men rash enough to risk their Eves by
setting sail on it, of those who died and those who
survived, and what they saw and reported.
One of these was a man from al-Andalus called
Khashkhash, one of the young bloods of Cordoba. He
gathered together a group of young men from that
city and sailed with them in a number of ships fitted
out for sailing the Encircling Sea. After quite a long
absence, they returned laden with booty. Their story is
well known to the inhabitants of al-Andalus.
4. Driftwood proves all oceans are one
In the eastern Mediterranean, near the island of Crete,

teak planks from ships have been found, pierced with
holes and held together with fastenings made of coco
nut fibre. They come from wrecked vessels and have
been driven there by the waves. This technique of boat
construction is only found in the Sea of Abyssinia [the
western Indian Ocean], for the vessels that sail the
Mediterranean and those of the west all have nails,
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while in the Sea of Abyssinia iron nails do not hold

because the water eats them away, making them corrode,
until they become extremely weak. Hence, in order to
join the planks, the boat builders use, instead of nails,
coconut fibres soaked in tallow and lime.
This indicates - but God knows best - that all the
seas intercommunicate and that the sea that lies off
the coasts of China and al-Slla [Korea] turns past the
regions occupied by the Turks, and flows towards the
seas of the west through some channel of the surround
ing Ocean.
5. The Galicians
Among the nations that border al-Andalus, the strong

est is that of the Galicians. Although the Franks are
also at war with al-Andalus, the Galicians are a much
fiercer foe.
‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad [‘Abd al-Rahman
III, 912-61], the present ruler of al-Andalus, had a
vizier who was his half-brother, named Ahmad ibn
Ishaq. This vizier was guilty of a deed, which accord
ing to religious law demanded punishment. ‘Abd al-
Rahman therefore had him arrested and put to death.
That vizier had a brother called Umayya, who
lived in one of the Andalusian frontier towns, called
Santarem. When he was told what had happened to
his brother, he rebelled against ‘Abd al-Rahman and
went over to Ramiro [Ramiro II, King of Leon, 932-50],
the king of the Galicians, offering him his support
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against the Muslims and pointing out their weaknesses.

One day, when Umayya had ridden out of the town
to hunt in one of his pleasure gardens, some of his
freedmen seized the city, prevented him from entering
it and wrote to inform ‘Abd al-Rahman what was going
on. So Umayya ibn Ishaq, the brother of the vizier who
had been put to death, went to Ramiro, who received
him with all honour, appointed him minister and made
him a member of his entourage.
Meanwhile, ‘Abd al-Rahman, the ruler of al-
Andalus, attacked Zamora, the Galician capital. ‘Abd
al-Rahman was at the head of more than 100,000 men.
The battle which he fought with Ramiro, the king of
the Galicians, took place in the month of Shawwal
in the year 327/July 939, three days after the solar eclipse
that was visible in that month.
The Muslims prevailed at first; but the Galicians,
finding themselves besieged and brought to bay within
the town, returned to the charge and slaughtered 50,000
Muslims who had already crossed the moat.
It is said that it was Umayya ibn Ishaq who prevented
Ramiro from pursuing those that fled, for he put it to
the king that there was the danger of an ambush and
inspired in him the desire to seize the valuables, equip
ment and treasure to be found in the Muslim camp.
But for this, not a single Muslim would have survived.
Umayya later asked pardon of ‘Abd al-Rahman and
broke with Ramiro. ‘Abd al-Rahman received him
most graciously.
After this battle, ‘Abd al-Rahman, the ruler of al-
Andalus, sent troops against the Galicians under a
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number of commanders. There were wars in which the

Galicians lost half as many men as had the Muslims in
the first battle, and it is with the Muslims that the
military advantage has rested until the present day.
As for Ramiro, he is still ruling the Galicians in this
same year, 336/947. His predecessor on the throne was
Ordono [Ordono II, 914-24] and before Ordono was
Alfonso [Alfonso III el Magno, 866-910]. The Franks
and the Galicians belong to the Christian religion and
follow the Melkite rite.
6. The Franks
The Franks, the Slavs, the Lombards, the Spaniards,

Juj Majuj [Gog Magog, the ‘Enclosed Nations’, who
will be released upon the world on the Last Day], the
Turks, the Khazars, the Burjan [the Bulghars], the
Alans, the Galicians and all the other nations which
we have mentioned as inhabiting the northern regions
are descended from Japhet, the youngest son of Noah,
according to the uncontested opinion of thoughtful
and learned men who study revealed scripture. Of all
these people, the Franks are the most warlike, un
assailable and numerous. They have the most extensive
kingdom and many cities, and are the best organized
and the most obedient to their rulers. The Galicians,
however, are even more bellicose and to be feared, since
a single Galician is the equal of a number of Franks.
The Franks are united under the authority of one
king, and this system of rule is accepted by all, with no
10
opposition or dissent. The capital of their empire at

the present time is a large city named Bariza [Paris].
Furthermore, they possess some 150 towns, not count
ing the villages and provinces. Before the coming of
Islam, the first land to be occupied by the Franks in
the Mediterranean was the island of Rhodes, which I
have already mentioned as near Alexandria and having
in our times a shipyard belonging to the Byzantines;
then the Island of Crete, which the Muslims took from
the Franks and still control at present.
The Franks also possess the lands of Ifriqiya
[Tunisia] and the island of Sicily. We have already
mentioned these islands and in particular that which is
known as al-Burkan. It is a volcano which throws up
pieces of burning matter, looking rather like men’s
bodies, but headless. They are hurled into the air at
night and then fall back into the sea and float on the
surface of the water. These are the stones used to erase
the writing from notebooks and burnish the sheets
of paper used for official documents. They are cube
shaped, white and full of little holes, like a honeycomb
or a small wasp’s nest. This volcano is known as ‘the
Sicilian volcano’. On the same island is to be found the
tomb of Porphyry the Wise, the author of the Isagogus
or Introduction to the Science of Logic - the book and
the man are both well known.
I have written on all the volcanoes of the world, such
as that of Wadi Barahut in the Hadramaut and the
land of al-Shihr; the volcano of Zabaj in the Sea of
China; and the volcano in the land of Asak, which lies
between Fars and the Ahwaz, in the governorship of
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Mas'udi
Arrajan, which is a part of Fars. The fires of this last

volcano can be seen at night from a distance of some
20 farsakhs [a farsakh is about 3 miles] and they are
famous throughout the Muslim world.
The word atma (‘volcano’) actually means a source
of fire rising up from the ground.
I found in a book which came into my hands in
Fustat in Egypt in the year 336/947, presented by God-
mar, bishop of Gerona, one of the cities of the Franks,
to al-Hakam, the heir apparent to his father ‘Abd
al-Rahman, ruler of al-Andalus at this time, referred
to in his dominions by the title ‘Commander of the
Faithful’, that the first king of the Franks was Clovis,
and that he was a pagan converted to Christianity by
his wife Clotilde.
7. The Lombards
We have already mentioned that the Lombards are

descended from Japhet, the son of Noah. Their country
extends to the west, but their homeland lies to the
north. They possess many islands inhabited by various
ethnic groups. They themselves are strong and power
ful and very hard to subdue. They have many cities and
are united under a single king. Their kings are always
called adakis [dukes].
The largest of all their cities and the seat of their
kingdom is Benevento. A great river crosses the city
and divides it into two principal quarters. This river is
one of the most considerable in the world and one of
12
the most wonderful. It is called Sabato. It is mentioned

by numerous earlier writers who have dealt with the
subject.
The Muslims in al-Andalus and the Maghrib, who
were neighbours of the Lombards, took a number of
towns from them by force - Bari, Taranto, the city of
Sardinia and other large cities - and occupied them for
a time. Then the Lombards took courage once again
and counter-attacked, casting out the Muslims after a
long series of battles. At the present day, 336/947, the
towns which we have mentioned above are once more
in the hands of the Lombards.
The Galicians, Franks, Slavs, Lombards and other
peoples we have mentioned above live in lands which all
adjoin one another. Most of these peoples are currently
in a state of war with the inhabitants of al-Andalus.
The ruler of this last country is, in our day, a very
redoubtable and powerful ruler [‘Abd al-Rahman III].
‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu’awiya ibn Hisham [‘Abd al-
Rahman I, 756-88] went to al-Andalus at the begin
ning of the ‘Abbasid dynasty, and the story of how he
reached that country is filled with remarkable incidents.
The capital of al-Andalus is Cordoba, as we have
mentioned above. The Muslims possess many towns,
and their cultivated lands extend without interruption
over a vast area, all the way to the frontier towns along
all the borders of their territory. They have repeatedly
seen the neighbouring nations, descendants of Japhet,
join forces against them - the Galicians, Burgundians,
Franks and others. The present ruler of al-Andalus
[‘Abd al-Rahman III], who is very powerful, can mount
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100,000 men, to say nothing of foot soldiers, baggage

animals and equipment. God alone is Eternal!
8. The Norsemen
Sometime before the year 300/912-13, ships carrying

thousands of men reached al-Andalus by sea and raided
the Atlantic coasts. The people of al-Andalus claimed
that these enemies were one of the nations of the Majus
[Vikings], who came to attack them by sea every two
hundred years, and that they reach their country by
means of a strait which communicates with the Atlan
tic Ocean. This is not to be confused with the strait
upon which is the bronze lighthouse [the Strait of
Gibraltar]. Personally, I think - but God best knows
the truth - that this strait communicates with the Sea
of Azov and the Sea of Pontus [Black Sea] and that
the attackers were those Rus we have already men
tioned, since they are the only people who sail those
seas that communicate with the Atlantic Ocean.
9. The Slavs
The Slavs are descended from Madhay, the son of

Japhet, the son of Noah, and all the Slavic peoples
derive their origins and trace their genealogies back to
him, or at least this is the opinion of most of those
who have devoted themselves to the question. They
dwell in the north, whence they have spread westwards.
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The Slavs are divided into several different peoples

who war among themselves and have kings. Some
of them belong to the Christian faith, being of the
Jacobite sect, while the others are pagans and have no
scripture and know nothing of divine law.
Among the different peoples who make up this
pagan race, there is one that in ancient times held
sovereign power. Their king was called Majik, and they
themselves were known as Walltiba [Wiltzes?]. In the
past, all the Slavs recognized their superiority, because
it was from among them that they chose the paramount
ruler, and all the other chieftains considered themselves
his vassals.
Among the Slavic peoples of the second rank should
be mentioned in the following order: the Istrana, whose
king in our own times is called Basqlabij [Vasclav?];
then the Dulaba [western Dulebians?], whose pre
sent king is called Wanjslaf. Next are the Namjln
[Niemczyn, ‘Germans’], whose king is called Gharand
[Conrad]; among all the Slavs these are the bravest and
the best horsemen. After, come the Manabin, whose
king is called Ratimir; the Sarbin [the Serbs], a Slavic
people much feared for reasons that it would take too
long to explain and whose deeds would need much too
detailed an account. They have no particular religious
affiliation.
Then there is the people called the Murawa [the
Moravians] and another known as the Kharwatin
[the Croats], and yet another called the Sasin [either
the Saxons or the Czech ‘Cacin’], then the Khashanin
and the Baranijabln. The names of some of their
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kings which we have given are in fact dynastic titles.

The Sarbin, whom we have just mentioned, have
the custom of burning themselves alive when a king or
chieftain dies. They also immolate his horses. These
people have customs similar to those of the Indians.
In the land of the Khazars there are, as well as the
Khazars themselves, a Slav and a Rus population and
that these last also burn themselves. These Slavs and
other related peoples extend to the east rather than to
the west.
The foremost of the Slav kings is the ruler of Aldayr,
whose domains include great cities and much cultivated
land, vast troops and countless armies. Muslim mer
chants make their way to his capital with all kinds of
merchandise.
After this, on the borders of this Slavic king, comes
the king of al-Afragh [Prague], who has a gold mine,
towns, extensive well-cultivated lands, numerous sol
diers and a large population. He is at war with the
Byzantines, the Franks, the Bazkard [the Magyars]
and other nations besides; the hostilities among them
are continuous.
Neighbouring this Slavic king is the king of the
Turks. These people are the handsomest, the most
numerous and the most warlike of all. The Slavs com
prise many different peoples and are very far-flung, but
this work is not the place for a detailed description and
classification of them.
I began by mentioning the king whose suzerainty
has been recognized by all the other rulers since ancient
times, that is to say Majik, king of the Walitaba, who
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are the original, pure-blooded Slavs, the most highly

honoured and take precedence over all the other
branches of the race.
Later, dissent having established itself among these
peoples, their original organization was destroyed and
the various families formed isolated groups, each
choosing a king, as we have said above. An account of
all these events would take too long, all the more so
since I have already related them in a general way and
with great detail in my earlier works, the Historical
Annals and the Intermediate History.
io. Viking raiders
The Rus [Vikings who were established on the Russian

river systems] are many nations, divided into different
groups. One of them, the most numerous, is the al-
Ludhana. They separate and travel far and wide,
trading with al-Andalus, Rome, Constantinople and
the Khazars. It was just after the year 300/912-13 that
some five hundred of their ships, each manned by a
hundred men, entered the Strait of Pontus, which joins
the river of the Khazars [the Volga]. Men are posted
there by the king of the Khazars, and from their well-
fortified positions they are under orders to bar the way
to anyone coming from the Sea of Pontus or by land
adjoining any branch of the river of the Khazars that
communicates with the Sea of Pontus.
This is because the nomadic Ghuzz [Oguz] Turks
set up their winter camps in these parts. As the water
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courses that link the river of the Khazars with the Strait
of Pontus are often frozen, the Ghuzz cross them with
their horses, for there is so much water and it is frozen
so solid that there is no danger of it breaking under
their weight, and thus they raid into the land of the
Khazars. On several occasions, the guards having failed
to repel them, the king of the Khazars has been com
pelled to march out against them in force, so as to
prevent them from crossing the ice, and thus he has
saved his kingdom from invasion. In summer, there is
no way the Turks would be able to cross.
When the Rus vessels reached the Khazar check
point that guards the entrance to the strait, they sent
to ask the king for permission to cross his kingdom
and make their way down the river of the Khazars and
so enter the Khazar Sea [the Caspian Sea], which is
also known by the names of the barbarian peoples who
live by it - the Sea of Jurjan, the Sea of Tabaristan,
and so forth. The Rus contracted to give the king half
of anything they managed to pillage from the people
along the shores of that sea. The ruler agreed to their
request, and they entered the strait and reached the
mouth of the river [the Don], continuing upstream
until they reached the river of the Khazars. Then they
went down that river, passed through the city of Itil,
and at last arrived at its mouth, where it flows into the
Khazar Sea. The river of the Khazars is wide and the
volume of water it carries very great. The Rus ships
spread out across this sea. Raiding parties then rode
against Jil [Gilan], Daylam, Tabaristan and Abaskun
on the coast of Jurjan. They invaded the lands of
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Naphtha [Baku] and harried as far as Azerbaijan -

indeed, the city of Ardabll in Azerbaijan is three days’
journey from the sea.
The Rus spilled rivers of blood, seized women and
children and property, raided, and everywhere de
stroyed and burned. The people who lived on these
shores were in turmoil, for they had never been
attacked by an enemy from the sea, and their shores
had been visited only by the ships of merchants and
fishermen. Fighting ceaselessly with the people of Jil,
Daylam, the Jurjan coast, the frontier region of Bard-
ha‘a, Arran, Baylaqan and Azerbaijan, and also against
a general sent by Ibn Abi al-Saj, the Rus pushed on to
the Naphtha Coast, which is known by the name of
Baku and forms part of the kingdom of Shirwan.
On returning from these expeditions, they took
refuge among the islands only a few miles off the
Naphtha Coast. At that time, ‘Ali ibn al-Haytham was
king of Shirwan. Troops were marshalled. They em
barked on boats and merchant ships and set out for these
islands. But the Rus turned on them, and thousands of
Muslims were killed or drowned. The Rus stayed many
months doing the deeds we have described without any
of the peoples who live around this sea being able to
oppose them. The inhabitants ofthese shores, which are
very densely populated, did what they could to prepare
themselves and remained in a state of high alert.
Gorged with loot and worn out by raiding, the Rus
returned to the mouth of the Khazar River and sent a
message to the king of the Khazars together with the
share of the spoils they had promised him. This prince
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has no ships and his subjects are not familiar with the art
of navigation, otherwise it would be a calamity for the
Muslims.
Meanwhile, the Arsiyya and other Muslims who live
in the lands of the Khazars learned what had happened
and said to the Khazar, ‘Let us do what we want to
these people who have sacked the lands of our Muslim
brothers, spilt their blood and dragged their women
and children away into slavery.’
The king was unable to stop them, so he sent to the
Rus and warned them that the Muslims had decided
to attack them. The Muslims gathered an army and
went out to meet the Rus going downstream. When
the two armies were within sight of each other, the
Rus left their boats. The Muslims numbered about
15,000; they had horses and were well equipped, and
they were accompanied by a certain number of Chris
tians resident in Itil.
The two sides fought for at least three days, and
God gave the victory to the Muslims. The Rus were
put to the sword or drowned. The number killed on
the banks of the Khazar River numbered 30,000. Some
5000 managed to escape and crossed to the other side
with their boats to Rurtas [a branch of the Volga], or
else abandoned their boats and entrusted themselves
to dry land. Some of them were killed by the inhabi
tants of Burtas; others reached the Muslim Bulghars,
who massacred them. Some 30,000 were thus slain on
the banks of the Khazar River. Since that year, the Rus
have never tried anything of the kind again.
' 20
n. The Khazars
The king, his court and all those of the Khazar race
practice Judaism, to which the king of the Khazars was
converted during the reign of Harun al-Rashid. Many
Jews from Muslim and Byzantine cities came to settle
among the Khazars, particularly since Romanus I, the
king of the Byzantines in our own time, 332/943, forced
the Jews in his kingdom to convert to Christianity.
Further on in this volume we shall give the history of
the rulers of Byzantium, which we shall set out in
order, and shall speak of this king as well as the two
other rulers who shared power with him. A great
number of Jews therefore fled from the land of the
Byzantines and sought refuge with the Khazars. This
is not the place to speak of the conversion of the Khazar
ruler to Judaism, as we have already discussed this
subject in our previous works.
The pagans who live in this country belong to many
different races, among which are the Slavs and the Rus,
who live in one of the two parts of the city. They burn
their dead on pyres along with the deceased’s horses,
arms and equipment. When a man dies, his wife is
burned alive with him, but if the wife dies before her
husband, the man does not suffer the same fate. If a
man dies before marriage, he is given a posthumous
wife. The women passionately want to be burned
because they believe they will enter paradise. This is a
custom, as we have already mentioned, that is current
21
Mas'udi
in India but with this difference: there, the woman is

not burned unless she gives her consent.
The Muslims are dominant in the land of the
Khazars because they make up the king’s army. They
are known by the name Arsiyya. They originally came
from the region around Khwarizm, and settled in the
Khazar kingdom a long time ago, shortly after the
appearance of Islam, when they fled the double ravages
of famine and plague that devastated their homeland.
These are strong, courageous men, in whom the king
of the Khazars places his confidence in the wars which
he wages. When they established themselves in his
kingdom they stipulated, among other things, that
they be allowed the free exercise of their religion, that
they might have mosques and publicly give the call to
prayer, and that the king’s chief minister should be
chosen from among their number. In our days the one
who occupies this post is a Muslim named Ahmad
ibn Kuyah. He has made an agreement with the king
whereby he and his army will not fight against
Muslims, but will march into battle against the infidel.
Today, around 7000 of them serve as the king’s
mounted archers. They carry a shield and wear helmets
and chain mail. They also have lancers equipped and
armed like other Muslim soldiers.
They also have their own qadis. It is a rigid custom
in the Khazar capital that there should be seven judges:
two for the Muslims; two for the Khazars, who make
their decisions in accordance with the Torah; two for
the Christians, who make theirs according to the
Gospels; and one for the Slavs, Rus and other pagans.
22
This latterjudge follows pagan law, which is the product

of natural reason. When a serious case comes up that
the judges cannot decide, the parties involved consult
the Muslim qadis and obey the decision made in accord
ance with Islamic law. The king of the Khazars is the
only ruler of these eastern countries to have a paid
army. All the Muslims who live in the country are
known as Arsiyya.
The Rus and the Slavs, who are pagans as we have
said, served as mercenaries and slaves of the king.
Besides the Arsiyya there are a certain number of
Muslim merchants and artisans who have emigrated to
this country because of the justice and security with
which the king rules. In addition to the congregational
mosque, whose minaret towers over the king’s palace,
there are many other mosques to which are attached
schools where the Qur’an is taught to children. If the
Muslims and the Christians united, the king would
have no power over them.
12. The Bulghars
The Khazars have ships which they sail on a river

which flows, above their city, into the great river which
traverses it [the Volga and its tributaries]. This river is
called the Burtas, and its banks are inhabited by many
sedentary Turkish peoples who form part of the Khazar
kingdom. Their settlements are continuous and ex
tend from the land of the Khazars to the land of the
Bulghars. This river, which flows from the land of the
23
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Bulghars, carries vessels from both kingdoms. Burtas,

as we have already said, is also the name of a Turkish
people who live along the banks of this river, from
which they have taken their name. The pelts of black
and red foxes called burtasi are exported from their
country. Some of these furs, above all the black, are
worth ioo dinars or more. The red furs are worth less.
The black furs are worn by the Arab and non-Arab
kings, who esteem them more than they do sable,
ermine and other similar furs. They make hats, kaftans
and fur coats out of them. There is no king who does
not possess a fur coat or a kaftan lined with the black
fox fur of Burtas.
The upper reaches of the Khazar River communicate
by one of its branches with a gulf of the Sea of Pontus,
also called the ‘Sea of the Rus’ because the Rus, who
are the only ones to sail it, live on one of its shores.
They form a numerous pagan nation that doesn’t
recognize authority or revealed law. Many of their
merchants trade with the Bulghars. In their country
the Rus have a silver mine comparable to the one in
the mountain of Banjhir in Khurasan.
The Bulghar capital is located on the Sea of Pontus.
If I am not mistaken, these peoples, who are a kind of
Turk, inhabit the seventh clime \iqlinr, geographers
divided the world for mapping purposes into seven
climes’, or regions]. Caravans continually pass back
and forth between the Bulghars and Khwarizm, which
is a dependency of the kingdom of Khurasan. Because
the route passes through the encampments of other
1 urkish nomads, they are constrained to place them
24
selves under their protection. At the present moment,

332/943, the king of the Bulghars is a Muslim, con
verted as the result of a dream during the caliphate of
Muqtadir [908-32], sometime after the year 310/922.
One of his sons has made the pilgrimage to Mecca,
and when he passed through Baghdad the caliph gave
him a standard, a black robe of honour and a gift of
money. This people have a congregational mosque.
Their king invaded the territories of Constantinople
at the head of at least 50,000 cavalry. From there he
dispatched expeditions which reached all the way to
Rome, then to Spain, the territories of the Burgundians,
Galicians and the Franks. In order to reach Constanti
nople, this king had to travel for two months along a
route which passed through both cultivated and desert
lands. In 312/924 a Muslim expedition set out from
Tarsus on the Syrian frontier under the command of
the eunuch Thamal, known as al-Dulafi, commander
of the frontier. He was admiral of a fleet made up of
vessels from Syria and Basra. After having crossed the
mouth of the channel that leads to Constantinople and
then another gulf [the Adriatic] of the Mediterranean,
which has no outlet, the Muslims reached Venice. A
detachment of Bulghars who had travelled overland
*• joined them to reinforce them and told them that their
king was a short distance away. This proves the truth
of our statement that some units of the Bulgarian
cavalry reached the Mediterranean coast. A number of
them embarked on the ships from Tarsus and returned
with them.
The Bulghars are a large, powerful and warlike
25
Mas'ildi
nation which has subjugated all the neighbouring

peoples. One of the Bulghar cavalrymen who had em
braced Islam along with their king held off one or even
two hundred infidel horsemen. It is only thanks to
their defensive walls that the inhabitants of Constanti
nople are able to resist them. It is the same with all
those who live in this country: the only way they can
defend themselves from the attacks of these formidable
enemies is by fortresses and defensive walls.
zy. Land of the midnight sun
In the land of the Bulghars the nights are extremely

short during part of the year. They even say that
between nightfall and dawn a man barely has time
to bring his cooking pot to the boil. In our previous
works we have explained this phenomenon from the
astronomical point of view and have shown why, at a
point on the earth in the Polar Regions, there are
six consecutive months of darkness, succeeded by six
months of daylight. The scientific explanation for this
is given by the astronomers in their astronomical tables.
14. The iron gates
The Caucasus is a great chain of mountains. This huge

area contains a large number of kingdoms and peoples.
There are no less than seventy-two different peoples,
each with their own king and speaking a language
26
different from their neighbours. The mountains are

seamed with valleys and ravines. At the head of one of
these passes is the city of Derbend, built by Chosroe
Anushlrwan [Sasanian ruler of Iran, 531-79] in a place
between the mountains and the Sea of the Khazars
[the Caspian Sea]. The same ruler built the wall, one
end of which extends for a mile into the sea and the
other reaches into the Caucasus, following the rise and
fall of the mountain crests and descending into the
valleys for a distance of some 40 farsakhs until it ter
minates at a fortified point called Tabarsaran. Every
three miles or so, depending on the importance of the
route upon which it opens, he placed an iron gate;
nearby, inside the walls, guards were stationed to pro
tect and watch that portion of the wall. This rampart
formed an impassable barrier against the evil intentions
of the peoples inhabiting the mountains: the Khazars,
Alans, various Turkish peoples, Avars and other infidel
tribes.
The high peaks of the Caucasus cover such a large
area that it would take two months or more to traverse
their length or breadth. Only the Creator can number
the peoples that live there. One of the passes through
these mountains, near Derbend, leads to the Sea of the
*■ Khazars, as we have said. Another leads to the Black
Sea, into which flows the channel of Constantinople.
Trebizond is located on this sea. Every year many
markets are held there, frequented by a large number
of Muslim, Byzantine, Armenian and other merchants,
without counting those who come from Circassia.
If God, Mighty and Exalted, had not, in His wisdom
27
Mas'ildi
and great power and compassion for the perilous situ

ation of His servants, aided the rulers of Iran in
founding the city of Derbend and constructing these
ramparts, which extend both into the sea and over the
mountains as we have said, and in building castles
and establishing colonies ruled by properly constituted
kings, there is no doubt that the rulers of Georgia, the
Alans, the Avars, the Turks and other nations we have
named would have invaded the territories of Bardhaa,
Arran, Baylaqan, Azerbaijan, Zanjan, Abhar, Qazwin,
Hamadan, Dinawar, NihJwand and the frontiers of
the dependencies of Kufa and Basra, thereby reaching
Iraq, had God not blocked their advance in the way
we have described.
This is especially true now that Islam has weakened
and declined. The Byzantines are making inroads
against the Muslims, the Pilgrimage is in peril, Holy
War has ceased, communications have been inter
rupted and roads are insecure. Every local military chief
has taken power in his region and made himself in
dependent, just as the ‘party kings’ did after the death
of Alexander the Great, until Ardashir ibn Babak,
the Sasanian, re-established political unity and put
an end to endemic warfare, restoring security to the
people and cultivation to the land. This lasted until
Muhammad, May Prayers and Peace Be Upon Him,
received his mission from God and effaced the vestiges
of unbelief and the traces of other doctrines. Islam has
always been triumphant, until this year 332/943, when
under the caliphate of the Commander of the Faithful
Muttaqi [the Caliph Muttaqi, 940-44], its supports
28
are shaking and its foundations crumbling. We seek

help from God for the state we find ourselves in.
zj. The Alans
The kingdom of the Alans borders on the Avars and

its king is called Karkundaj, which is the general title
for all its rulers, just as those of the Avars are called
Filan-Shah. The capital of the kingdom of the Alans
is called Maghas - a word which means ‘flies’. In this
country too there are castles and pleasure gardens out
side the towns, where the king goes from time to time.
The king of the Alans and the ruler of the Avars have
very recently made an agreement to give each other
their sisters in marriage.
After the appearance of Islam, during the ‘Abbasid
dynasty, the riders of the Alans, who had been pagans,
converted to Christianity, but after the year 320/931
they foreswore their new beliefs and chased out the
bishops and priests sent to them by the Byzantine
emperor.
Between the kingdom of the Alans and the Caucasus
there is a castle and a bridge built over a great river.
The castle is called the Gate of the Alans and it was
built in times long past by one of the ancient rulers of
Persia, Isfandyar ibn Bistasf. He stationed a garrison
there to prevent the Alans from reaching the Caucasus.
There was no other way, except by this bridge, pro
tected by this castle, that they could get there. The
castle was built on an impregnable rock and could not
Masudi
be taken or even approached without the permission

of those who held it. Inside the castle, on the rock
upon which it was built, a spring of fresh water rose.
This is one of the most famous castles in the world for
its unconquerable position. The Persian poets often
mention it and tell the story of its building by Isfandyar
ibn Bistasf.
Isfandyar fought many wars against the different
peoples of the east. He penetrated to the farthest
reaches of the lands of the Turks and destroyed the
city of Sufr - the City of Brass - a place almost imposs
ible to reach and so positioned as to seem to defy
attack; its strength has become proverbial among the
Persians.
These exploits of Isfandyar, which we have just men
tioned, are told in full detail in the work entitled Kitab
al-Baykar, which has been translated into Arabic by
Ibn al-Muqaffa‘.
When Maslama ibn ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan
[son of the Umayyad Caliph ‘Abd al-Malik, 685-705]
reached this region and had reduced the inhabitants to
submission, he stationed an Arab garrison in the castle,
and their descendants continue to hold this vital post.
Most of the time they receive their provisions overland
from Tiflis, which is five days’ march away. A single
man in this castle could bar the way to all the kings of
the infidels, thanks to its position, almost hanging
suspended in the air, commanding at one and the same
time road, bridge and river gorge.
The king of the Alans can put 30,000 horsemen into
the field. He is a powerful king, strong and highly
30
respected among kings. His lands are so densely popu

lated, the houses so close together, that the cocks call
to each other from village to village, which are almost
contiguous throughout the country.
In the neighbourhood of the Alans, between the
Caucasus and the Mediterranean, are to be found the
Kashak [Circassians]. They are a specific ethnic group,
following the Zoroastrian religion. Among the nations
we have mentioned as inhabiting this region there is
not one which produces a more perfect physical type,
fairer complexion, handsomer men or more pleasing
women. No people are taller, with slimmer waists
and hips, more shapely buttocks, or with better-
proportioned figures.
The women are famous for the delights they bring
to the bedchamber. They wear white dresses and over
them brocades from Byzantium, or scarlet cloth, or
other materials worked with gold. In this country a
linen cloth called tala is made, finer and more closely
woven than the kind known as dabiqi, and a piece of
clothing in this material costs ten dinars. It is exported
to the neighbouring Islamic lands. Their neighbours
also export this material, but it cannot compare with
that produced by the Kashaks.
The Alans dominate this people, who can withstand
them only because they have fortresses along the coast
to protect them. This sea, over which there is a certain
disagreement, is considered by some to be the Mediter
ranean, while according to others it is the Sea of
Pontus. In any case, the Kashaks are close by sea to
Trebizond, and merchandise from this city is brought
3«
Mas'udi
to them by ship, and they in turn send goods there.

Their weakness compared with the Alans comes of
their not being united under one rule. It is certain that
if all those who spoke their language formed a single
closely united nation, neither the Alans nor any other
race would be able to do anything against them. Their
name is Persian and means ‘pride, boasting’. Indeed,
among the Persians the word hash is applied to an
arrogant, vainglorious man.
On the shores of the same sea, and near the Kashaks,
live another people whose territory is called al-Saba
Bulditn, ‘The Seven Countries’. They form a powerful
nation, well able to enforce respect, and their authority
extends over a wide area. I do not know what ethnic
group they form, and no one has been able to inform
me of their religion.
Next, one comes to a very numerous people, whose
lands are separated from those of the Kashaks by a river
as great as the Euphrates, which flows into the Sea of
Pontus, on the shores of which stands Trebizond. This
people is called Iram, and is a very strange-looking race
and is pagan. It is said that a peculiar thing happens
along these shores. Every year, a fish comes and places
itself at the disposal of the inhabitants, who cut off a
piece. Later, it comes back a second time and offers
them another part of its body, which they slice off; new
flesh has already replaced that which was removed the
first time. This fact is well known to all the infidels
who live in these lands.
' 32
16. Jewish scholars and the Bible
The translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Greek

was done by seventy-two learned men at Alexandria in
Egypt. This text has been translated into Arabic by
many scholars, ancient and modern, among them
Hunayn ibn Ishaq [809-73, a Nestorian scholar - the
most important of the early translators of Greek scien
tific texts into Arabic]. It is commonly considered the
most accurate recension of the Bible.
The Jews, both those called the Ashma'at [Rabbinical
Jews], who form the great majority of the nation, and
the Ananites [the non-Rabbinical Jews], who all pro
fess the doctrines of justice and the unity of God, use
it as a commentary on the Hebrew text of the Torah,
the Prophets and the Psalms - in all, twenty-four
books. This translation is held in great esteem by them.
I have met many of their scholars, including Abu
Kathir Yahya ibn Zakariya, the Scribe of Tiberias, who
belonged to the sect of the Ashma'at and died towards
the year 320/932; and Said ibn Ya ‘qub al-Fayyumi,
also of the sect of the Ashma'at and a disciple of Abu
Kathir, whose translation is the most esteemed by his
co-religionists. He came into conflict in Iraq with the
exilarch Da ud ibn Zakka, a descendant of David, dur
ing the caliphate of Muqtadir [908-32]. This conflict
caused turmoil among the Jews. He was summoned to
the presence of the vizier ‘All ibn ‘Isa and other minis
ters, qadis and men of learning in order to iron out the
disputes among the Jews. A large party of them had
33
Mas'iidi
chosen al-FayyOml as their leader, and obeyed him.

He died in the year 330/942. Da’ud, called al-Qumisi,
who died in Jerusalem in 334/946, is numbered among
these learned men, as well as Ibrahim al-Baghdadi.
I never met either man. I did have numerous con
versations in Palestine and Jordan with Aba Kathir;
we discussed the abrogation of laws, the difference
between law and works and other subjects. 1 also held
discussions with Yahudha ibn Yusuf, known as Ibn
Abi al-Thana, a student ofThabit ibn Qurra the Sabian
[826-901, the leading scientist and mathematician of
the tenth century, and a prolific translator from Greek
into Syriac and Arabic], on philosophy and medicine
at Raqqa in the province of Diyar Mudar; and with
Sa‘ld ibn 'Ah, known as Ibn Ishlamiya, also at Raqqa.
I also met many of their theologians at Baghdad, men
such as Ya'qub ibn Mardawayh and Yusuf ibn Qayuma.
The last of these men that I met, some time after
the year 300/913, was Ibrahim al-Yahodhi al-Tustari.
He had the subtlest mind and was the most versed
in speculative questions of the learned men of recent
times.
17. The journey ofthe Three Magi
King Cyrus, who reigned at the time the Messiah was

born, sent him three messengers [King Cyrus was not
the ruler of Persia at the time of Christ’s birth]. He
gave one of them a bag of frankincense, the second a
bag of myrrh, and to the third a bag of gold dust. Their
' 34
way was guided by a star the king described to them.

They journeyed until they reached Syria and finally
came to the Messiah and His mother Mary. The Chris
tians embroider the story of these men, but it is found
in the Gospels. Thus it is said that King Cyrus saw the
star, which rose at the time of the birth of the Messiah,
and that it moved along while the king’s messengers
were travelling and halted when they halted, and so on.
All this can be found in greater detail in our Historical
Annals, where we have set down both the Persian and
the Christian versions of this legend. There can be read
the story of the two loaves Mary gave them and what
happened when they hid them under a rock, and how
these loaves sank into the depths of the earth in the
province of Fars, and how wells were dug at the site
and two flames of fire burst out and shone above the
surface of the earth.
18. The Empress Helena and the Invention

ofthe True Cross
After the death of Diocletian, Constantine became the

ruler of Rome [Constantine I the Great, 306-37]. He
worshipped idols. He was the first of the Roman kings
to move his capital from Rome to Byzantium, that is,
to Constantinople. He built this city and gave it his
name, by which it is still known today. While he was
founding Constantinople and under threat of an attack
by the Sasanian ruler of Persia, he entered into relations
with the barbarians, the full story of which would be of
35
Mas'udi
some interest. After having been on the throne for ayear,

he left Rome and became a Christian. His mother
Helena visited Syria and founded many churches, then
went to Jerusalem and discovered the cross upon
which, according to the Christians, the Messiah had
been crucified. Once she had it, she covered it with
gold and silver and commemorated the discovery by a
feast day called the Feast of the Cross, which falls on
14 September. It is on this day that in Egypt the dykes
and canals are opened, as we shall explain further on
in the chapter devoted to the description of Egypt.
The same queen built the church in Emesa [modern
Homs] which rests upon four pillars and is one of the
most marvellous buildings in the world. She dug up
the riches and treasures hidden in Egypt and Syria
and used them to found churches and strengthen the
Christian faith. All the churches of Syria, Egypt and
the land of Byzantium owe their origin to this Queen
Helena, the mother of Constantine. Her name is writ
ten on the cross of each church she built. The letter h
does not exist in the Greek alphabet, so the name
‘Helena’ is composed of only five letters. The first
corresponds to our long a, pronounced as if it were e\
its numerical value is 5. The second letter is /, with the
value of 30; the third is another long a, pronounced
like an e, again with the value of 5; the fourth is an n,
with the value of 50; and the fifth is a y, with the value
of 10. So the letters all add up to make 100. This is
what the word representing the value of 100 looks like
in the Greek alphabet: EXlvq.
' 36
19. Constantine's vision of the cross
This is how Constantine, the son of Helena, entered

into the Christian faith. He had gone out to fight a
war with the Burjan [the Goths] or some other nation,
and the fighting between them had gone on for almost
a year. Then things began to turn against him. A large
part of his army was killed, and he feared defeat. Then
he saw in a dream lances decorated with banners and
flags descend from heaven; at their tips were crosses of
gold, silver, iron, copper and different kinds of precious
stones. A voice said, ‘Take these spears and fight your
enemies and you will prevail!’ In his dream he took up
these arms against his enemies, and thanks to their
help defeated them and put them to flight. When he
awoke, he ordered the sign he had seen in his dream
fastened to the ends of lances, which were carried
before his army. He attacked the enemy army, defeated
it and put it to the sword. He then returned to Nicaea
and asked men who were well informed if such a sign
existed in any refigion or sect. He learned that the sect
that had adopted this sign gathered in Jerusalem in
Syria, and was told of the persecutions it had under
gone under the kings who had preceded him. He
immediately sent messengers to Syria, in particular to
Jerusalem, summoning 318 bishops to join him at
Nicaea. He told them what had happened, and they
instructed him in the doctrines of the Christian
religion. Such was the aim of the first Synod, or as
we shall explain, the first council. Others believe that
37
Mas'udi
Helena, his mother, had already embraced Christian

ity, but hid her faith from her son until the moment
he had his dream.
20. The Church ofthe Virgin at Nazareth
When Mary, the daughter of Amram, was seventeen

years old, God sent Gabriel who breathed the Holy
Spirit into her and she became pregnant with the
Messiah, Jesus, May Peace Be Upon Him! Jesus was
born in a village called Bethlehem, a few miles from
Jerusalem, on Wednesday, 24 December. His history
is recounted by God in His book, in clear words by the
tongue of His Prophet Muhammad, May Prayers and
Peace Be Upon Him! The Christians claim that Jesus
of Nazareth, that is the Messiah, followed the religion
of His ancestors and studied the Torah and other
ancient writings for thirty, or it is said, twenty-nine
years in a synagogue called al-Midras in the city of
Tiberias, in the region ofJordan. One day, while read
ing the Book of Isaiah, He saw these words traced in
letters of light: ‘You are My son, the particular object
of My affection; I have chosen you for My soul.’ He
closed the book and returned it to a servant of the
synagogue, saying, ‘Now the word of God is fulfilled
in the son of man.’ It is said that the Messiah lived in
a village called Nazareth in the territory of al-Lajjun
in the district of Jordan, and it is from this village that
the Christians take their name of ‘Nazarenes’.
I visited a church in this village which is held in great
38
■ From The Meadows of Gold
veneration by the Christians. In it are stone sarcophagi

containing the bones of the dead from which runs an
oil thick as syrup. The Christians anoint themselves
with it to receive its blessing. When the Messiah passed
by Lake Tiberias, He saw some fishermen, the sons of
Zebedee, and twelve fullers. He called upon them to
follow God, saying, ‘Follow me, and fish for men.’
Three of the fishermen, the sons of Zebedee, and all
twelve fullers followed Him.
Matthew, John, Mark and Luke are the four apostles
who have transmitted the Gospels in which they have
written the history of the Messiah, His birth, the way
in which He received baptism from John, son of
Zacharia, that is, John the Baptist, in Lake Tiberias -
or according to others, in the River Jordan, a river that
issues forth from Lake Tiberias and runs towards the
Dead Sea. They recount the wonders and miracles He
performed, the treatment He received from the Jews,
until the time, when He was thirty-three years old,
that Almighty God lifted Him up to heaven. The
Gospels give extensive information about the Messiah,
Mary and Joseph the Carpenter, but we shall pass over
them in silence, for neither Almighty God nor His
Prophet Muhammad, May Prayers and Peace Be Upon
Him, speaks of them.
21. The decline of Greek science
From the days of the ancient Greeks through early

Byzantine times, scientific knowledge continued to
39
Mas'udi
grow and develop. Learned men and philosophers were

held in great esteem, and investigated the natural world,
the human body, reason and the soul, as well as the
quadrivium-. that is, arithmetic, the science of numbers;
geometry, the study of space and figures; astronomy,
the science of heavenly bodies, and music, which is the
science of ordering sounds.
The sciences were financially supported, honoured
everywhere, universally pursued; they were like tall
edifices supported by strong foundations. Then the
Christian religion appeared in Byzantium and the
centres of learning were eliminated, their vestiges
effaced and the edifice of Greek learning was obliter
ated. Everything the ancient Greeks had brought to
light vanished, and the discoveries of the ancients were
altered out of recognition.
22. Christian historians
A large number of Christians - Melkites, Nestorians

and Jacobites - of all periods have written historical
works. The best I have seen by Melkite authors on the
history of kings, prophets, peoples and countries are:
the book of Mahbub, son of Constantine, of Manbij;
and the book of Sa‘id ibn Bitriq [877-940, the earliest
Christian Arab historian], known as Ibn al-Faraj, the
Egyptian, Patriarch of the See of Mark at Alexandria.
I met this author in Fustat. His history ends with the
caliphate of Radi [934-40]. Another Melkite historian
is the Egyptian monk Athenius, whose book covers
'4°
the history of the Byzantine rulers and other nations

and recounts all that concerns the history of the Chris
tians from the time of Adam to that of Constantine,
son of Helena. I saw a book in the hands of the Nestor-
ians of the east by the scribe Ya'qub ibn Zakariya of
Kaskar. I also saw copies in Iraq and Syria. It includes
learned remarks on these matters and other infor
mation of a similar nature on Christian affairs. The
Jacobites also have a book which deals with the Byzan
tine rulers, the ancient Greeks, and the lives and actions
of their philosophers; it was written by Abu Zakariya
Dankha, the Christian. This author was powerful and
subtle in disputation. I had numerous discussions with
him on the Trinity and other dogmas in the Umm
Ja'far quarter of Baghdad, in the western part of the
city, and in Takrit, in the Green Church, in the year
313/926. I have spoken of these in the book Questions
and Causes on Doctrines and Creeds and in the book The
Secret ofLife.
23. The transmission of Greek science
Aristotle was the student of Plato, Plato of Socrates

and Socrates of Archelaus, whom he followed for the
natural sciences, but not for the other sciences. The
name Archelaus means ‘head of wild beasts’. Archelaus
was the pupil of Anaxagoras. In our book On the
Different Sorts of Knowledge and the Events of Past
Ages we spoke of philosophy and its definition, of the
number of topics into which it is divided, and the views
41
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of Pythagoras, Thales of Miletus, the Stoics, Plato,

Aristotle and others, and the definitions they have
given to the word and the qualities which distinguish
the true philosopher, his way of life, comportment,
manners and dress. We described the categories of
philosophies, how they were established, the methods
of teaching philosophy down to the present day and its
goals. We explained the aim of treatises on logic, their
composition, why they were written and the use to
which they can be put, as well as why they are composed
in eight books and what the aim of each book is, and
above all how the reader who proposes to read one
of these treatises on logic should proceed. We have
shown in which branch of art the craft of philosophy
should be placed, the number of different definitions
that have been given to it, and how these definitions
were arrived at, and what they mean. We described the
number of divisions of both early and later philosophy,
how these divisions were arrived at and why they have
prevailed, and why political philosophy, which takes
its point of departure from Socrates, passed from him
to Plato, then to Aristotle, from Aristotle to his nephew
Theophrastus, and finally to Eudemus and those who
came after him, one after another.
We described how the Academy was transferred
from Athens to Alexandria in Egypt, and how the
Emperor Augustus, after having killed Cleopatra,
founded two centres of learning, Alexandria and Rome.
Theodosius, the king who ruled during the time of the
People of the Cave [the ‘Seven Sleepers of Ephesus’],
moved the Academy from Rome back to Alexandria.
42
' From The Meadows of Gold
We have also explained why, in the days of‘Umar ibn

‘Abd al-‘Aziz [the Ummayad caliph ‘Umar II, 717-20],
it was moved to Antioch, and then to Harran in the
days of Mutawakkil [the ‘Abbasid caliph Mutawakkil,
847-61].
Its work was continued under Mutadid [the
‘Abbasid caliph Mutadid, 892-902] by Quwayri and
Yuhanna ibn Haylan, who died in Baghdad during the
caliphate of Muqtadir, and Ibrahim of Merv, then Abu
Muhammad ibn Karnib and Abu Bishr Matta ibn
Yunis, both pupils of Ibrahim of Merv. In our day
the commentary of Matta ibn Yunis on the logic of
Aristotle is considered authoritative; he died during
the caliphate of Radi. The torch was then passed to
Abu Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Farabi, the
student ofYuhanna ibn Haylan, who died in Damascus
in the month of Rajab 339/950. I know no one today
as learned as he, except one man, a Christian living in
Baghdad, known as Abu Zakariya ibn ‘Adi, whose
point of departure, opinions and method are those of
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi [C.854-C.925]; this
system is that of the Pythagoreans with regard to the
‘first philosophy’, as we have explained previously.
24. Persefohs
The Persians have a fire temple revered by the

Mazdaeans in Istakhr [ancient Persepolis] in Fars. In
ancient times it was filled with idols; they were removed
by Humay, daughter of Bahman ibn Isfandiyar, who
43
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transformed it into a fire temple. Later the fire was

removed, and the structure fell into ruins. Today, in
the year 336/947, they claim that it is the mosque of
Solomon, son of David, so it is known as the Masjid
Sulayman. It is located about a farsakh from the city
of Istakhr. I visited it and saw an amazing building, a
great temple with huge stone pillars surmounted by
stone sculptures of horses and other animals of gigantic
size. It is surrounded by a great empty space enclosed
by a strong stone wall upon which human figures are
carved with great skill and delicacy. The people who
live nearby say they are the images of prophets. The
temple stands in front of a mountain, and the winds
that blow night and day make a noise like thunder.
The Muslims say that Solomon imprisoned the wind
here, and that he breakfasted in Ba'lbakk in the land
of Syria and dined in this mosque, breaking his journey
at the city of Palmyra, in the desert between Iraq and
Damascus and Homs in the land of Syria. It is about
a six-days journey from Damascus. It is beautifully built
of stone, as is the amphitheatre. It is now inhabited by
Arabs of the tribe of Qahtan.
25. Iram ofthe Columns
The great temple known as Jayrun in the city of

Damascus was built by Jayrun ibn Sa‘d of the tribe of
‘Ad, who supplied the marble columns which support
it. This monument is identical to the Iram of the
Columns mentioned in the Qur’an.
44
A different story is told on the authority of Ka‘b

al-Ahbar. When he came to the court of Muawiya ibn
Abl Sufyan, Muawiya asked him about Iram. Ka‘b
described a wonderful building covered with gold and
silver and cemented with saffron and musk. He said
that an Arab searching for his two lost camels would
rediscover Iram, and he described the man. Then, turn
ing to the assembly, he cried out: ‘There’s the man
I just told you about!’
And indeed, this Arab had found Iram while looking
for his lost camels. So Muawiya rewarded Kab’s truth
fulness and reliability. If the story related on Ka‘b’s
authority were true, it would be a good thing; unfortu
nately it is suspect, both for the chain of transmission
and for other reasons. It must be considered the
invention of the professional storytellers.
The site of Iram of the Columns, and indeed its very
existence, has given rise to much discussion. None of
the experts in tradition at the court of Muawiya, men
who knew most about the history of the Arabs and
other ancient peoples, accepted the legend of Iram,
with the exception of ‘Ubayd ibn Sharya, who gave
Muawiya much information on the battles and events
of the past. The work of this ‘Ubayd is available to the
"public and well known.
Many learned men believe stories of this sort to be
apocryphal: lies invented by the storytellers to gain
favour with kings. It is these men who gave their
contemporaries the idea of preserving these tales and
repeating them in their turn.
Among these collections are works which have come
45
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down to us in translations from Persian, Indian or

Greek originals. We have already mentioned the way
they were composed. One such book is entitled Hazar
Ffsaneh, ‘The Thousand Tales’, for that is what efianeh
means in Persian. This book is known to the public as
The Thousand and One Nights. It is the story of a king,
his vizier, the vizier's daughter and her slave, Shirazad
and Dinazad. A similar book is called Farzi u Simas,
which includes information on the kings and viziers of
India. Another is the Book of Sindhad, and there are
other compilations of the same kind.
26. The wine-cups ofAlexander
There is a fishery in the sea around the Pharos of

Alexandria in which are found precious stones from
which they make the stones of rings. They are like the
varieties of stones called karkand, adhrak and asab-
adhjusham. It is said they are fragments of Alexander’s
drinking vessels. When he died, his mother broke them
and threw the pieces into the sea at this place. Others
say that Alexander collected these stones and threw
them into the sea so that there would always be people
in the vicinity of the Pharos, for it is the nature of
precious stones always to be sought, whether on land
or sea, and the place where they are found is always
full of people. The stone most commonly found around
the Pharos is jasper.
I have seen many jewellers and men who cut the
stones called ‘occidental’ working on jasper to make
' 46
the stones of rings and other things, especially the

stone known as baqalamun, which is iridescent, shining
with the colours red, green and yellow. The iridescence
comes from the colour and clarity of the stone, as well
as the angle from which it is seen.
The iridescence of the bdqalamun is like that of the
plumage of the peacock — I mean the male not the
female bird - whose tail and wings are iridescent. I saw
these in India. They displayed colours the sight could
not identify or number, colours unlike any others,
resulting from the mix of colours in their plumage.
This results from the size of their bodies and the length
of their feathers, because the peacock in India is won
derfully beautiful, while those that are brought to the
lands of Islam and lay eggs produce small chicks with
dull plumage which does not dazzle the eyes. They
only remotely resemble the Indian bird. This is true
only of the male bird.
The same is the case with the orange and round
citron. They were brought from India after the year
300/912 and transplanted, first to Oman, then to Basra,
Iraq and Syria, becoming common in Tarsus and other
cities of the Syrian frontier as well as in Antioch, the
Syrian coast, Palestine and Egypt, all places where they
were previously unknown. They lost the penetrating
sweet smell and beautiful colour they had in India
because they lacked the air, soil and water of their
native land.
47
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27. The pyramids
The temples of Egypt are very curious structures, like

the one standing at Arsinoe in Upper Egypt, that of
Ikhmlm, which is one of the most famous in the
country, or that of Samannud, and others as well.
Then there are the pyramids, which are very high
and built in a very remarkable way. Their sides are
covered with all kinds of inscriptions, written in the
scripts of ancient nations and of kingdoms which no
longer exist. No one can read this writing or knows
what was intended by it.
Those who have tried to work out the dimensions
of the pyramids estimate their height at 400 cubits or
even more. As the pyramid rises, it tapers. The width
at the base is roughly equal to the height. As we have
already said, these buildings bear inscriptions, relating
to the sciences, to the properties of things, to magic
and to the secrets of nature. They say that one of the
inscriptions reads as follows:
‘We built them. Let he who wishes to equal us in
dominion and attain a fame and power as great as ours
destroy these buildings and obliterate their every trace:
it is easier to destroy than to create and to scatter than
to heap up.’
It is said that one of the Muslim kings began to
demolish one of these pyramids, but that all the rev
enues of Egypt and other lands would not have sufficed
to pay for tearing down the blocks of stone and marble
of which it was built.
48
28. The hippopotamus
When the hippopotamus, which Eves in the Nile, gets

out of the water and heads for some place on dry land,
the inhabitants of Egypt conclude that the flood will
reach that very point, neither exceeding it nor falling
short. It never fails, for their conclusions are derived
from long and constant experience.
The hippopotamus, when he leaves the water, is very
harmful to the interests of the landowners and to the
harvests, for he devours the crops. He comes out of the
water at night and heads at once for the farthest point
that he intends to reach. Then he returns to the river,
grazing on the crops he had previously inspected, as if
he had planned in advance exactly what he would eat.
After having grazed, he returns to the Nile and drinks;
then he leaves his droppings in various places and these
give rise to a secondary growth of vegetation.
When his depredations are extensive and the estates
are harmed, the landowners scatter several measures of
lupin seeds around the place where he emerges. The
creature eats them and goes back to the river, but the
lupins expand in his belly, which swells and eventually
bursts, and he dies. His body floats on the surface of
the water and is hauled to shore. One almost never
finds crocodiles in the areas inhabited by hippopota
muses. They resemble a horse, but the hooves and tail
are different, and forehead is broader.
49
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29. Electric catfish
The Nile and the land of Egypt are inhabited by some

very strange animals and fish. Among the latter is the
fish called ra'ada, which is about a cubit long. When
one is caught in the net, the fisherman feels his hands
and arms shaking and knows that it is there; then he
quickly takes it and throws it out of the net. The
quivering can be felt even if the creature is touched
only with the end of a wooden pole or reed. Galen
mentions the electric fish and says that it can be used to
provide instant relief from the pain of a severe migraine
by being applied live to the head of the sufferer.
jo. The Night ofthe Bath
The Night of the Bath is one of the major festivals of

Egypt. It falls on the night of the 9th to 10th of the
Coptic month of Tubeh, (corresponding to the 6th to
7th ofJanuary), and no one sleeps. I was present at the
Night of the Bath in the year 330/941, during the period
when the Ikhshid ruler Muhammad ibn Tughj was
living in his palace called ‘The Chosen One’ on the
island that separates the two branches of the Nile. He
ordered one side of the island and the river bank at
Fustat illuminated with a thousand candles, in addition
to the candles and torches lit by the people of the city,
Muslim and Christian, to the number of hundreds of
thousands, some in boats on the river, others in the
' 50
houses along the river banks, others on the shore.

Everyone took part in the celebration and displayed all
the food, drink, fine clothing and vessels of silver and
gold that they could, feasting to the sound of musical
instruments. It is the most beautiful night in Egypt,
the most animated and joyful. The gates of the quarters
of the city are unlocked, and everyone bathes in the
Nile, for they believe that it will preserve them from
all disease and maladies.
ji. The secrets of Egyptian temples
At Ikhmlm in Upper Egypt, more than one person

has told me that Abu al-Fayd Dhu al-Nun al-Misri
al-Ikhmimi, the ascetic, a wise man who founded his
own sect and had a personal creed which he followed,
was one of those who could explain the secret of these
temples, having often visited them and examined a
number of the sculptures and inscriptions that they
contain [Dhu al-Nun al-Misri, 796-861, was a very
early Sufi master, ascetic and Gnostic, who also wrote
on alchemy and related subjects]. He said:
‘In one of these temples, I found an inscription
which I have deciphered. It read:
“Beware of freed slaves, young people with no
experience, an army made up of slaves, and Copts
turned Arab.”
‘In another temple I read the following inscription:
“Fate is sealed and Destiny laughs.” ’
He claimed to have seen elsewhere another inscription
5i
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written by the same hand as the first and said, after

having studied it, that it read:
‘Man is ruled by the stars and does not know it. He
who commands the stars does what he wishes.’
The people who built these temples were obsessed
with astrology and explored the secrets of nature. In
particular, they had learned from the study of astrology
that a catastrophe threatened the earth, but they could
not decide whether fire would destroy the world, or a
flood swallow it or, again, whether its inhabitants
would perish by the sword. Fearing that learning would
be annihilated with mankind, they built these temples
and there preserved their knowledge in the form of
figures, statues and inscriptions. They built in both
stone and earth, keeping the two types of construction
separate.
‘If the catastrophe foretold’, they said, ‘is fire, the
buildings made of clay will harden like pottery and
thus our sciences will be preserved. If, on the other
hand, it is a flood, the water will carry away anything
built of clay, but the stone will survive. In the case of
destruction by the sword, stone and clay buildings will
survive.’
According to what is said - but God knows best
- these temples date from before the Flood. Others
consider them to have been constructed afterwards.
As regards the catastrophe which the Egyptians
awaited without knowing for certain whether it would
be fire, water or the sword, it is said that it was in fact
the sword: a foreign nation and their king invaded
Egypt and slaughtered all its inhabitants. Some think
" 52
it was a lethal epidemic which spread throughout the

country. In support of this theory, people point out the
burial mounds of the Tinnis district, known as Abu
al-Kum, where the great heaps of corpses of young and
old, male and female, are piled up like a mountain of
bones. There are also to be found in numerous places
in both Upper and Lower Egypt bodies piled upon
each other in the depths of caves, tunnels in the rock
and catacombs; but no one knows to what race they
belong, for neither the Christians nor the Jews recog
nize them as their ancestors. The Muslims do not
know who they are, and history tells us nothing of
them. These bodies are clothed and the jewels which
once adorned them are often to be found on the neigh
bouring hills and mountains.
j2. Excavations
I have questioned the most learned Copts of Upper

Egypt and other provinces on the meaning of the word
‘pharaoh’, but no one has been able to tell me anything
about it, for this name does not exist in their language.
Perhaps originally it was the general title of all their
kings and then the language changed, just as Pahlavi,
the language of ancient Iran, has become Persian,
classical Greek has evolved into modern Byzantine,
and Himyaritic and many other tongues have changed.
You will find in our previous works strange tales of the
treasures and monuments of Egypt and the wealth
which both its kings and other nations who ruled this
53
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land buried in the earth and which are sought even

today.
Among the strange anecdotes on this subject is one
told by Yahya ibn Bukayr. While ‘Abd al-‘Aziz ibn
Marwan [governor of Egypt, 685-705] was governing
Egypt in the name of his brother ‘Abd al-Malik, he
was visited by a man who wished to give him some
information. ‘Abd al-‘Aziz asked him what it was
about, and the man said, ‘Under such and such a dome
there is a great treasure.’ ‘Abd al-‘Aziz said, “What
evidence do you have of that?’
‘A pavement of different-coloured marbles will
appear to us not very far down. Digging farther, we
have to remove a door made of bronze, above which
is a golden column. On top of the column there is
a golden cock; his eyes are two rubies worth more
than the revenues of the entire world. His wings are
encrusted with rubies and emeralds, and his claws grip
plates of gold on top of the column.’
‘Abd al-‘AzIz immediately commanded him to be
given several thousand dinars to pay the wages of the
labourers hired for the excavations and all the other
necessary work.
There was a large tell at the site and the men opened
a vast trench in the earth, in which the marble slabs
which the man had mentioned were brought to light,
thus sharpening the greed of ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, who
immediately made over to him new sums of money
and increased the number of workmen.
As they went on digging, they uncovered the head
of the cock. His appearance was heralded by a light,
' 54
swift and intense as lightning, which flashed, shining

and brilliant from his ruby eyes. Then the wings and
then the claws of the cock appeared. Next, they found,
all about the column, a colonnade made of different
kinds of stone and marble. It was composed of arches
and, above the arched doors, niches with statues and
figures of people in bronze and gold. Then came sar
cophagi of stone whose lids were battened down and
enclosed in nets, locked with rods of gold.
‘Abd al-‘AzIz ibn Marwan came on horseback to
visit the scene of the excavations and look at the dis
coveries. One of those present, less patient, set foot on
the steps of a staircase cast in bronze which led down
to the finds. When he set foot on the fourth step,
two enormous swords sprang out to the left and right
of the staircase, meeting at the point where the man
stood and slicing him to pieces. His body rolled to the
bottom of the staircase. When a part of the corpse hit
a certain step, the column shook, the cock gave a
strange whistling cry, which was heard at a great dis
tance, and flapped its wings. Terrifying sounds caused
by a variety of devices and instruments were heard from
beneath him. As soon as an object fell on the steps or
only touched them, all who were present slid to the
bottom of the excavation. The labourers engaged in
digging and moving the earth, those who were super
vising and organizing the work and those overseeing
the workmen - some two thousand in all - perished to
a man.
‘Abd al-‘Aziz was seized with terror and cried, ‘Here
are ruins of the most marvellous kind to which all
55
Mas'Udi
access is forbidden! We seek refuge in God from the

evil therein!’
Then he ordered that earth from the excavations
should be flung onto the bodies of the victims and that
the place should be their tomb.
Some people, interested in excavations and such dis
coveries, and very eager to dig mounds in order to hunt
for the treasures and precious things which the kings
and people of Egypt had long ago hidden in the bosom
of the earth, found in a book written in ancient charac
ters a description of a place, only a few cubits from the
pyramids mentioned above, which promised them a
rich treasure. They told the ruler, the Ikhshid Muham
mad ibn Tughj, who gave them permission to excavate
and to use all means necessary to reach the aim of their
search.
They opened a deep trench and eventually came to
vaults, catacombs and hollowed blocks of stone cut into
the rock. Inside stood statues. They were coated with
a varnish designed to prevent them rotting or wearing
away. The figures were of all different kinds: old men,
youths, women and children. Their eyes were made of
precious stones, such as rubies, emeralds, turquoise and
topaz, and some of them had faces made of silver or
gold.
After having broken open several of these statues, it
became clear that they housed fragments of bone and
bodies crumbling into dust. Beside each one was a kind
ofjar like an amphora of emerald or marble containing
the same varnish as had been used upon the corpses
lying in their wooden coffers. The jars containing the
* 56
remains of this substance, which was made of many

ingredients, mixed and pounded, had no odour, but
when it was tested in a fire it gave off an agreeable
aroma different from any other perfume.
Each of the wooden chests had precisely the shape
of the body it enclosed, and they varied according to
the rank, age and appearance of the dead. In front of
each chest was a statue in white or green marble, which
was apparently one of the idols that the Egyptians
worshipped. Each of these statues bore a different
inscription, which no one, of any religion, could
decipher. Several learned men maintained that this
script disappeared in Egypt 4000 years ago. All of
which at least proves that the inhabitants of the country
in antiquity were neither Jews nor Christians.
The excavations took place in the year 328/939 and
led to no discoveries beyond these figures. From the
ancient masters of Egypt up until Ahmad ibn Tukln
[ruler of Egypt, 878-84] and indeed the present year,
332/944, strange circumstances have led to a series of
discoveries of buried objects: money, jewels, treasures
and hoards, hidden in tombs. We have already dis
cussed them in our preceding works and in our writings
already mentioned.
jj. Upper Egypt and the Oases
The emerald mine called al-Khirba is seven days’ march

from any habitation. The nearest towns are Quft, Qus
and various other places in Upper Egypt. Qus is on the
57
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Nile, while Quft is two miles from the river. The

origins of these two towns and their history under the
ancient Egyptians are the subject of wondrous tales,
but Quft is now threatened with ruin, while Qus is
flourishing and densely populated.
The Beja nomads control al-Allaqi, where the gold
mine is located. Al-Allaqi is fifteen stages [days’ travel]
from the Nile. The inhabitants drink rainwater, al
though there is a spring in the centre of the town. The
nearest town is Aswan, which supplies them with food.
The Nubians come with their caravans laden with
merchandise to Aswan, whose population is intermixed
with Nubians.
The Country of the Oases extends across Egypt,
Alexandria, Upper Egypt, the Maghrib and that part
of Abyssinia inhabited by Nubians and other peoples.
In the present year, 332/943, the Lord of the Oases is
called ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. He is of the tribe
of the Lawata [a major Berber tribe], but Marwanid
in sympathy. He has at his orders several thousand
cavalry, mounted on dromedaries. His lands are roughly
six days’ march from Abyssinia and about the same
from the centres of population that we have just
mentioned.
This country, which produces many specialities
and has numerous remarkable characteristics, is self-
sufficient and independent. Dates, raisins and grapes
are brought from this country.
I saw the agent of Lord of the Oases at the court of
the Ikhshld ruler Muhammad ibn Tughj [882-946,
governor of Egypt under the ‘Abbasids], 1 questioned
58
him on everything I wanted to know as regards the

peculiarities of his native land, for this is the method
which I have always used with all the people whose
countries 1 have not been able to visit in person. He
told me about the alum, and different kinds of vitriol
and other products exported from their land, as well
as the bitter springs and other waters with different
tastes.
34. The Nubians
The Nubians are divided into two peoples, depending

upon whether they have settled on the east or the west
bank of the Nile. Their country is contiguous to the
territories of the Copts in Upper Egypt, the city of
Aswan and other places. They increased their territory
by going upstream almost to the upper reaches of the
Nile. There they built the capital of their kingdom, a
large town called Dongola.
The second branch of the Nubians, called the ‘Alwa,
also built a city for their king, which they named Soba
[near present-day Khartoum].
When I had reached this point in my book at Fustat
in the month of Rabi' II 332/ December 943,1 was told
that the king of the Nubians living in Dongola was
named Kubra ibn Surur and that he was descended
from a long line of kings. He ruled the Muqurra and
the ‘Alwa. The part of his territory which touches the
Aswan region is called Maris and has lent its name to
the wind called marisi. The district of Dongola thus
59
Mas'ildi
borders the Egyptian districts of Upper Egypt and the

town of Aswan.
55. The sources ofthe Nile
The sources of the Nile are in the Mountains of the

Moon, which lies 7% degrees south of the equator,
equivalent to 141% farsakhs or 425 miles. Ten streams
of water issue forth from these sources, five falling into
one lake, five into another. These lakes are situated
south of the equator. Three rivers run out of each of
these two lakes, and then join together in a single lake
situated in the first clime. From this lake the Nile
descends into Egypt. It passes through the land of the
Blacks, then flows past ‘Alwa, capital of the kingdom
of Nubia, then through Dongola, also in Nubia. It then
leaves the first clime and enters the second at Aswan,
a city in Upper Egypt and the first Muslim city beyond
the Nubian frontier. After having passed through
Upper Egypt it reaches Fustat and then flows through
a number of mouths into the Mediterranean, in the
third clime. From the equator to the city of Alexandria
on the coast where one of its branches debouches into
the sea is a distance of 30°, equivalent to 1820 miles or
606% farsakhs. From the source of the Nile in the
Mountains of the Moon to the place where it falls
into the Mediterranean is a distance of 748% farsakhs,
equivalent to 2245 miles. Some authorities claim that
the distance from its origin to its mouth is 1130 farsakhs
and a bit.
' 60
There are many villages of the Zanj in the vicinity

of the Mountains of the Moon. After having passed
through them one arrives at the land of Sofala, also in the
territory of the Zanj, and the island of Qanbalu, whose
inhabitants are Muslim, then to the lands of Berbera and
Hafanl. In our previous works we have explained why
these mountains are called the Mountains of the Moon,
the remarkable influences the phases of the moon have
on them and the opinions of the philosophers, as well as
the Manicheans and others on this point.
j6. The Red Sea
All of the Abyssinian coast of the Red Sea west

of Yemen, from Jiddah to the Hijaz, is barren and
wretched, producing no trade goods, except tortoise
shell and panther skins. The same is true of the oppo
site shore, the land of al-Shihr and al-Ahqaf from the
coast of Hadramaut to Aden. The whole of this coast
is without resources, and its one export today is the
incense called kundur [frankincense].
This sea, which ends at Qulzum [the ancient port
of Clysma, near Suez], is to the right of the Indian
Ocean, although in fact their waters form part of the
same whole. The Red Sea is the most dangerous of the
seas and gulfs that make up the Abyssinian Sea; none
has more reefs, and nowhere is one more prone to be
seasick. No sea is more sterile and less productive, both
as regards its shores and the depths of the sea itself
than the Red Sea.
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Mas'udi
During the sailing season, ships voyage night and

day in the rest of the Sea of Abyssinia. In the Red Sea,
on the other hand, ships sail only by day. When night
falls they drop anchor in known anchorages (just as
caravans stop for the night at known campsites)
because of its reefs, its darkness and the fear it inspires.
Far from sharing in the riches of the Indian Ocean,
this sea is completely unendowed.
57- Socotra
In this sea which washes the land of Aden is an island

called Socotra, which has lent its name to the Socotran
aloe, for this is the only place where it is found and the
only place from which it is exported.
Aristotle, the son of Nicomachus, wrote to Alex
ander, son of Philip, when he set out for India, to tell
him about this island and advised him to send a party
of Greeks there to settle and exploit the aloes, which
are much used as purgatives and other things. So
Alexander sent a certain number of Greeks to this
island, for the most part natives of Stagira, the home
town of Aristotle, in ships with their families via the
Red Sea.
They overcame the Indians who had previously
settled on that island and gained control. The Indians
had a huge idol which they worshipped, and in a
story too long to relate, it was carried off. The Greek
population of the island increased and multiplied.
Alexander died, the Messiah came and the inhabi
62
tants adopted Christianity, which they still profess

today. There is no other place in the world - but God
knows best—where the Greek population has preserved
its racial purity, without ever intermarrying with the
Byzantines, or any other people.
Socotra is at present one of the provisioning points
for the Indian pirate ships that harry the Muslim
vessels bound for China, India and other places, just
as the Byzantine galleys chase the Muslim ships in the
Mediterranean along the coasts of Syria and Egypt.
The type of aloes known as Socotran aloes and other
medicinal plants are exported from Socotra. A number
of details about this island and the medicinal plants
and drugs produced there are to be found in our earlier
works.
j8. The 7.anj
To return to the Zanj [East Africa and its inhabitants]

and their kings: the name given to the kings of that
country is waflimi, which means ‘son of the Great
Lord’, because it is He who has chosen the king to
govern and administer justice. As soon as the king
begins to exercise his power in a tyrannical manner,
departing from the true way, they kill him and his
descendants are forbidden to succeed to the throne, for
by behaving in this way he ceases to be the ‘son of the
Lord’, who is the King of Heaven and Earth. They
give the Creator the name Mkulunjulu, which means
‘Great Lord’.
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Mas'iidi
The Zanj express themselves eloquently in their own

language and have orators in their own tongue. Often
a holy ascetic of the country will gather a numerous
crowd about him and exhort his listeners to draw close
to God and submit themselves to His will. He warns
them of the terrible penalties for disobedience and
reminds them of the example of their kings of old and
their ancestors. These people have no written religious
code of law to which they can refer, but follow the
decrees and rulings of their kings by which they are
governed.
The Zanj eat bananas, which are common there as
they are in India, but the staple food of the Zanj is
sorghum and a plant called kaladi, which is pulled from
the ground like truffles, and the root of the rasin, which
is to be found in great quantities in Aden and in those
areas of Yemen near that town. Kaladi resembles taro,
which is found in Egypt and Syria. They also eat honey
and meat.
Anyone among them who particularly likes some
thing, be it animal, vegetable or mineral, worships it.
Their islands in the sea are innumerable. The coco
nut palm grows in them and provides one of the foods
eaten by all the Zanj peoples. One of these islands,
called Qanbalu [either Zanzibar or Pemba], a day or
two distant from the coast, has a Muslim population
with inherited kingship.
64
39. The Indian Ocean
The size of the Indian Ocean, which is also called the

Sea of Abyssinia, has been calculated. Its length from
west to east, from the farthest point of Abyssinia to
the farthest point of India and China, is 8000 miles,
while its width is 2700 miles, although another source
gives 1900. Some authorities give a smaller width,
others a greater. The figures we have given for its
length and breadth differ in other sources, but we will
pass over these estimates because they are not based on
convincing figures supplied by professionals.
This sea contains a gulf which extends to the land
of Abyssinia, passing the district of Berbera in the land
of the Zanj and the Abyssinians. It is called the Berbera
Gulf and is 500 miles long and its two shores are 100
miles apart. This Berbera should not be confused with
the country of the Berbers in Ifriqlya in North Africa,
which is completely different, and has nothing in
common with this Berbera except its name. Sailors
from Oman cross this gulf to reach the island of
Qanbala, which lies in the Sea of Zanj. This island is
inhabited by a mixed population of Muslims and pagan
Zanj.
The Omani sailors mentioned above maintain that
the Berbera Gulf, which they call the ‘Sea of Berbera
and the land of HafUni’, is larger than we have said.
They say its waves are like great mountains. They form
troughs like deep valleys, but never break and are never
covered with the foam one sees when waves break in
65
Mas'tidi
the middle of the sea. They say these waves are crazy.
The Omani sailors who voyage in this sea are from the
tribe of Azd. When they are in the middle of the
sea and find themselves among the waves we have
mentioned, rising and falling, they sing these verses as
they manoeuvre:
Berbera and Hafani

And your crazy waves!
Berbera and Hafilni
Its waves are as you see!
Their destination in the Sea of Zanj is the island of

Qanbalu, as we have said, and the lands of Sofala and
Waqwaq [probably Madagascar], which are on the
farthest reaches of the land of Zanj and the lower
reaches of this sea. The people of Siraf [a major port
on the Persian Gulf in the tenth century] sail this sea
and so did I, voyaging from the city of Suhar, capital
of the land of Oman, in the company of ships’ captains
from Siraf. Among them were mariners such as
Muhammad ibn al-Zaydabud and Jawhar ibn Ahmad,
known as Ibn Sira, who perished in this sea along with
his entire ship’s company.
My last crossing from the island of Qanbalu to
Oman was in 304/916-17-1 was on a ship belonging to
Ahmad and ‘Abd al-Samad, both brothers of ‘Abd
al-Rahim ibn Ja'far al-Sirafi of Mikan, a quarter of
Siraf. They went down with their ship in this sea, along
with everyone who was with them, I mean Ahmad and
‘Abd al-Samad, the two sons of Ja'far. At the time of
' 66
my last voyage, the emir of Oman was Ahmad ibn

Hilal, son of the sister of al-Qaytal.
I have sailed many seas, the Sea of China, the Medi
terranean, the Sea of the Khazars, the Red Sea and the
Sea of Yemen, and 1 have been afflicted with terrors
past numbering, but I have never seen any sea more
terrifying than the Sea of Zanj I have just described.
40. Brahman the Great
Scholars of discernment and judgement, who have

pondered the nature and origin of the world, have
stated that the Indians in ancient times were particu
larly endowed with righteousness and wisdom. When
societies began to be formed and political divisions
came into being, the Indians sought to unify the king
dom and to take control of power, so that they might
become the rulers. Their leaders said, ‘We were the
people of the beginning; to us belong the limit and the
ultimate object; in us is contained the beginning and
the end. It was from among us that the father of
mankind originated and went out to populate the earth.
We shall not tolerate rebels or resistance and shall
overpower and annihilate anyone who impedes us,
unless he once again becomes obedient.’
Having taken this decision, they chose a king,
Brahman the Great, who was the mightiest of their
kings and the foremost of their lawgivers. During his
reign, wisdom flourished and learned men were
favoured. They extracted iron from the mines, and
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Mas'udi
swords, daggers and a variety of the implements of

war were manufactured. Brahman constructed temples
and embellished them with shining precious stones,
depicting the spheres, the twelve signs of the zodiac
and the stars. He not only depicted the nature of the
universe, but explained with the help of pictures how
the celestial bodies act upon this world and produce
living things, rational and otherwise. Brahman also
explained the workings of the prime mover, namely
the sun. He set down the evidence for all this in his
book, in such a way that it could be understood by the
common people, while the notion of a superior being
was at the same time implanted in the minds of the
educated classes, a ‘prime mover’ which gives rise to
everything in existence and penetrates everything with
its beneficence.
The Indians submitted to this king, and their
country flourished as he showed them ways to improve
their lives. During his reign, men of wisdom colla
borated and produced the treatise entitled al-Sindhind
\Siddhanta\, which means ‘the age of ages’. From this
work were derived others, such as al-Arjabhad \Aryab-
hatiya\ and al-Majisti\Almagest\. From al-Arjabhadwas
derived al-Arkand [Khandakhadyaka], and al-Majisti,
the book of Ptolemy, from which they calculated astro
nomical tables. Then they invented the nine numerals
which comprise the Indian number system.
Brahman was the first to define the apogee of the
sun. He stated that the sun remains in each sign of
the zodiac for 3000 years and traverses the whole sphere
of the heavens in 36,000 years. According to the
’ 68
Brahmans the apogee of the sun in our own time,

which is the year 332/943, lies in the sign of Gemini;
when it passes into the southern signs of the zodiac, the
face of the earth will change accordingly, the inhabited
regions becoming barren and the barren regions
becoming inhabited. North will become south and
south become north.
Brahman deposited calculations in the House of
Gold pertaining to the date of the appearance of the
Buddha and the chronology which the Indians use for
calculating his subsequent appearances in the land of
India, to the exclusion of other countries. The Indians
have elaborate theories about this, which we shall not
mention here, for ours is a book on history, not a book
of theory and opinion. In any case, we have given a
survey of the subject in our Intermediate History.
41. Multan
The ruler of Multan is a descendant of Sama ibn Lu’ayy

ibn Ghalib, who was commander of a powerful army.
Multan is an important frontier region for the Muslims
with an official census of 120,000 villages and hamlets.
It has, as we have already said, an idol known as
Multan, and people come from the farthest reaches of
Sind and India to bring offerings of money and of
precious stones, aloes-wood and all kinds of scents;
thousands of people make this pilgrimage. The king of
Multan derives the largest portion of his revenues from
the valuable aromatic woods that are brought to this
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idol, especially the pure aloe-wood of Cambodia, a

mam [about 13 pounds] of which is worth 200 dinars,
and which takes the imprint of a seal-like wax — not to
mention the other marvels that are offered. Every time
the infidel kings march against Multan and the
Muslims find themselves in no condition to resist, they
threaten to break the idol or mutilate it, which is
enough to convince their enemies to retreat. When I
arrived in that city some time after the year 300/
912-13, the ruling prince was called Abu al-Lahhab
al-Munabbih ibn Asad al-Qurashi al-Samiyy.
42. War elephants
An agile, well-trained, brave elephant, ridden by a good

mahout, its trunk armed with the kind of sabre known
as a qartal and covered with chain mail, while the rest
of its body is protected by sheets of bark and iron,
surrounded by 500 men to defend it and protect it to
the rear, can fight against 6000 men on horseback.
There is not one that with an escort of 500 could not
attack at least 5000, penetrating their ranks and then
drawing back to harass them from every direction, just
as a horseman might. This is the usual way they deploy
elephants in all their wars.
The king of Mansflra has eighty war elephants. It is
the custom that each elephant should be surrounded
by 500 foot soldiers and thus he can fight thousands of
cavalry, as we have already explained. I saw two ele
phants in this ruler’s possession of the most enormous
70
size, famous among all the kings of Sind and India for
their strength, courage and daring in combat. One was
called Manfarqalas and the other Haydara. All kinds
of remarkable deeds and outstanding characteristics are
attributed to Manfarqalas. They are famous in those
lands and in the neighbouring countries. Once, when
one of his mahouts died, he remained for days without
eating or drinking, showing his grief and sorrow like a
man bereaved, tears flowing ceaselessly from his eyes.
Another time, Manfarqalas, followed by Haydara
and the other eighty elephants, left his stable. On
passing through a narrow street in Mansura, he found
himself face to face with a woman who was completely
taken aback by the sight. Struck with terror, the unfor
tunate woman panicked and fell backwards in the
middle of the street, revealing her private parts. When
Manfarqalas saw that, he stopped and stood sideways
across the street, presenting his right flank to the other
elephants who were following him, to prevent them
from advancing. Then, waving his trunk as if signing
to the woman to get up, he pulled down her dress with
his trunk, thus covering the parts of her body that had
been revealed. It was only after she had got up, come
to her senses and got out of the road that he continued
on his way, followed by his companions.
43. The Balhara ofManklr
The reign of Balhit lasted 80 years, or, according

to other versions, 130 years. His successor, Kurush,
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Mas'Udi
abandoned the doctrines of his predecessors and intro

duced to India religious innovations more suited to the
times and interests of his contemporaries. During his
reign lived Sindbad, the author of The Book ofthe Seven
Viziers, the Young Slave and the Wife of the Ring, that
is, the book known as the Book of Sindbad. It was in
the library of this king that a great work on pathology
and therapeutics was composed, with illustrations and
drawings of various plants. He died after a reign of 120
years.
At his death, discord broke out among the Indians.
They divided into a number of nations and tribes, each
ruled by its own chief. This is how kings came to reign
in Sind, Kanauj and Kashmir. Mankir [Malkhed, south
of Gulbarga in Andhra Pradesh], the leading city of
India, was taken by a king named Balhara [Vallabha
Raja, ‘beloved king’]; this was the name of the first
ruler of this kingdom, but it became the dynastic title
of his successors on the throne of Mankir and has
remained so until our days, 332/943.
The most powerful king now reigning in India is
the Balhara, king of the city of Mankir. Most of the
kings of India turn their faces towards him when pray
ing and bow before his ambassadors when they arrive
at their courts. The territories of the Balhara are sur
rounded by many principalities. Some of these kings
live in mountainous regions, far from the sea; among
them are the Raja of Kashmir and the king of Thakka.
Other states are both continental and maritime. The
capital of the Balhara is 80 Sindi farsakhs from the sea
[the Sindi farsakh is equivalent to 8 miles]. His armies
'72
and elephants are innumerable, but almost all his troops

are infantry, because his capital is in the mountains.
44. The tide at Cambaya
This is something I saw in the land of India, in the

region of Cambaya, known for its noisy sandals of the
sort known as ‘Cambayan sandals’, which are made
there in the neighbouring towns, such as Sandan and
Sufara. I arrived at Cambaya in the year 303/915-16,
when a Brahmin called Baniya was governing in the
name of Balhara, the lord of Mankir. This Baniya was
very interested in having debates with Muslims and
the followers of other faiths who arrived in his country.
The city of Cambaya stands on a deep bay, a gulf
wider than the Nile, the Tigris or the Euphrates, whose
shores are covered with cities, estates, cultivated fields,
gardens and coconut plantations. Between these gar
dens and the water are to be seen peacocks, parrots and
other kinds of bird that are found in India. It is a little
less than two days’ journey from the city to the sea
which forms this inlet. Nevertheless, the tidal bore
makes itself felt with such force that the sand at the
bottom can be clearly seen. I saw a dog lying on this
sand, which the water had left dry and which resembled
a desert. Suddenly the tide rushed in, as fast as horses
during a race. The dog, scenting danger, began to run
as fast as it could to escape the water and reach the
land above the tide line, but the swiftly moving waves
engulfed it as it ran and drowned it.
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Mas'udi
45. The rhinoceros
In this country lives the animal known as the dappled

bishan, called karkaddan by the common people. It has
a single horn on its forehead and is smaller than an
elephant, but larger than a water buffalo; it is blackish
in colour and chews the cud, as do oxen and other
ruminants. The elephant flees from it and no creature
- but God knows best - is stronger than it. That is
because most of its bones are fused together, so that
its legs cannot bend and it can neither kneel nor lie
down to sleep, and so it sleeps leaning against trees in
the jungle.
The Indians eat its flesh, and so do the Muslims
who live in their countries, because it is of the same
species as the cow and water buffalo, the latter being
very numerous in India and Sind. The rhinoceros is
found in most of the wooded areas of India, but
nowhere in such great quantity as within the confines
of the kingdom of Dahram, where its horn is of a
special beauty and lustre. The horn of the rhinoceros
is white with a black figure in the centre, which re
presents the form of a man or a peacock, showing the
outline and the shape of the tail, or a fish, or the
rhinoceros itself, or some other creature of these
regions.
They saw up these horns and make them into belts
using thongs, just as is done with gold and silver orna
ments. The kings and their courtiers in China wear
them, rivalling each other in the amount they will pay
74
for them, spending as much as 2000 and even 4000

dinars for one. The clasps are of gold, and the whole
is of an extraordinary beauty and strength. Often,
different sorts of precious stones are attached to them
with golden nails. The figures we have mentioned are
usually traced in black on the white part of the horn,
but sometimes they are in white on a black ground.
Rhinoceros horn does not have these figures we have
mentioned in all countries.
Jahiz [the leading writer of his time, a master of
Arabic literal)' prose and a notable polymath, 776-869]
claims that the female carries her offspring for seven
years, during which time the young animal pushes his
head out of his mother’s belly in order to graze and
then goes back in. He has mentioned this fact as
a remarkable and amusing peculiarity in his Book of
Animals. Wishing to clear up this point for my own
interest, I questioned the inhabitants of Siraf and
Oman who have often been in these countries, as well
as the merchants whom I met in India; all were equally
surprised at the question. They stated very positively
that the rhinoceros gives birth exactly like a cow or a
buffalo. I do not know where Jahiz got his story,
whether he copied it from a book or heard it from
some informant.
46. Saymur
In 304/916 I was in the district of Saymur [present-day

Chaul] in India; it is in the province of Lar, which
75
Masudi
forms part of the kingdom of the Balhara. The reigning

prince was named Janj. There were some 10,000
Muslims, both bayasira and natives of Siraf, Oman,
Basra, Baghdad and other cities who had married there
and permanently settled. Among them were wealthy
merchants, such as Musa ibn Ishaq al-Sandaburi and
the hazma of the time, Abu Sa‘id Ma‘ruf ibn Zakariya;
hazma means leader of the Muslim community. In this
country the king appoints one of the most distin
guished members of the community to this position,
and delegates responsibility for its affairs to him. The
word bayasira, singular baysar, means someone born in
India of Muslim parents; this is what they are called.
47. Betel
The betel leaf is found in these countries. It is the size

of a small basil leaf. It is chewed with a mixture of lime
and areca nut. This habit has spread in our days to the
Meccans, as well as other people of the Hijaz and
Yemen; it has replaced the chewing of mastic. It can
be found in pharmacies and is used against swollen
gums and similar ills. Some call it fawfal. l\xe.c?L nuts
crushed with betel leaves and lime reinforces the gums,
strengthens the teeth and gives the breath an agreeable
odour. It counters cold humours, excites the appetite
and is an aphrodisiac. It stains the teeth the colour of
the ripest pomegranate seeds, provokes gaiety and good
humour, strengthens the body and spreads a delicious
and delicate scent. The Indians, rich and poor, dislike
76
white teeth and avoid the society of those who do not

use the mixture we have described.
48. The banyan tree
There is a tree in this country which can be considered

one of the marvels of nature and prodigies of the vege
table kingdom. It spreads over the ground with inter
laced branches of the most beautiful appearance and
richest foliage; it reaches up in the air to the height of
the tallest palm trees, then its branches curve down in
the opposite direction, forcing themselves into the
earth, which they penetrate little by little to a depth
equal to the height they had grown above ground,
disappearing from view. Then they reappear with new
branches, which rise up like the first, descend and open
a passage through the earth. The branches that rise up
into the air and grow there and those that hide them
selves from view under the ground are the same size.
If the Indians did not employ men to prune them, and,
for religious reasons having to do with the next life,
look after these trees, they would cover the country,
completely invading it. The trees have a number of
other peculiarities that it would take too long to men
tion here, but which are known to all travellers who
have visited these countries and seen them with their
own eyes and listened to all they have been told on this
subject.
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Mas'udi
49. Ivory
The kings and civil and military officers in China carry

ivory canes. No functionary or notable is allowed to
enter the king’s presence with an iron object, but only
with one of these ivory canes. They therefore search
for the straightest elephant tusks, those with the least
curve, to make the canes of which we speak. They also
burn ivory in their idol temples and use it to perfume
their altars, as the Christians use ‘Mary’s incense’ and
other aromatics in their churches.
The Chinese do not use elephants and consider it
bad luck to acquire them and use them for war. This
fear has its origin in a tradition which dates back to
one of their most ancient military expeditions.
In India ivory is used a great deal. They employ it
for the pommels of the knives called jarri, plural jararl,
as well as the hilts of the curved swords called qartal,
plural qaratil.
But the most frequent use of ivory is in the fabri
cation of chesspieces and backgammon checkers.
Many chesspieces are human and animal figures, a span
high and wide, or even more. A man is employed to
move the pieces from one square to another during the
game.
When the Indians play chess or backgammon, they
bet lengths of cloth or precious stones. Sometimes a
player, having lost all he has, bets one of his body parts.
For this purpose a little copper pot filled with a red
salve peculiar to the country is placed beside each player
78
on a brazier. The salve heals wounds and staunches the

flow of blood. If a player has bet one of his fingers and
loses, he cuts it off with the sort of knife we mentioned,
and it cuts like fire. Then he plunges his hand into the
salve and cauterizes the wound. Then he plays again.
If he loses, he cuts off a second finger. Sometimes, if
the game goes against him, he cuts off all his fingers,
his hand, forearm, elbow and other parts of his body.
He cauterizes the wound after each amputation with
the salve, which is a wondrous mixture of drugs and
ingredients indigenous to India, whose effects are re
markable. What I have just related of their behaviour
is well known.
50. Backgammon
It was at this time that backgammon was invented and

began to be popular. It is a kind of paradigm of how
wealth is acquired, which in this world is not the reward
of intelligence or ability, just as luck is not a product of
skill. Ardashlr, son of Babak [founder of the Sasanian
dynasty, 224-42], is also credited with the invention
and playing of this game, which was inspired by the
spectacle of the vicissitudes of fortune and the caprices
of destiny. He divided the board into twelve ‘houses’,
according to the number ofmonths, with thirty checkers
to represent the days. The two dice represent fate and
its effect on men. If luck favours the player, he gets
what he wants; if it doesn’t, a skilled and prudent man
cannot win that which fortune only bestows on whom
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Mas'udi
it likes. It is thus that the good things of this world are

apportioned by chance.
5/. The Invention ofchess
Bahbud was succeeded by Zaman, who reigned 150

years. The main events of this reign and his wars with
the kings of Persia and China have been outlined in
our previous works. He was succeeded by Porus, who
did batde with Alexander and was killed by him in
single combat. He had reigned 140 years.
He was succeeded by Dabshalim, the author of
the Panchatantra, translated into Arabic by Ibn al-
Muqaffa1. Sahl ibn Harun composed a work with the
title Tha'la wa Afra for the caliph Ma’mun, which is
an imitation, both in plan and the nature of the fables,
of Kalita wa Dimna, but is superior to it because of the
elegance of its style. Dabshalim reigned no years, but
there is no agreement about this.
He was succeeded by Balhit. It was at this time
that the game of chess was invented, which eclipsed
backgammon by demonstrating how intelligence
brings success and ignorance failure. The king worked
out mathematical models for chess and composed a
book on this subject called Taraq Janka, still popular
among Indians. He often played chess with the wise
men of his court, and it was he who gave the pieces
human and animal shapes, assigned them grades and
ranks, and made the king the one who rules all the
other pieces. He also made this game an allegory of
80
the heavenly bodies, that is to say, of the seven planets

and the signs of the zodiac. He consecrated each piece
to a star and made it the guardian of the kingdom.
When one of their enemies employed a ruse of war
against them, they consulted the chessboard to see from
which point they would sooner or later be attacked.
52. The kings ofIndia and Sarandib
In India, a king cannot ascend the throne until he

reaches the age of forty. He shows himself to the people
only briefly, at specified times and then exclusively to
examine the condition of his subjects, for according to
their ideas a king would harm his dignity and no longer
inspire the same respect if he appeared before the
common people all the time. Leaders are chosen for
their qualities, with due respect for their position in
the political hierarchy.
This is what I saw in the land of Sarandib [Sri
Lanka], one of the islands in the Indian Ocean. When a
king dies they place him on a low cart with small wheels,
intended for the purpose, in such a way that his hair
trails on the ground. A woman with a broom in her
- hand throws dust on the head of the dead man, crying:
‘People! Behold your king of yesterday! He was your
master; his slightest whims were obeyed. Now he has
become what you see before you! He has left this world
and his soul is in the hands of the King of Death, the
Living, the Eternal, He who dies not! Therefore do
not yield to the illusions of this life!’
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Mas'udi
She continues exhorting the people in this vein,

inspiring them with fear and urging them to detach
themselves from worldly pleasures. Then, having taken
the body through all the streets of the city, they cut it in
four pieces and burn it on a pyre made of sandalwood,
camphor and other aromatics. Then they scatter the
ashes to the winds.
These are the ceremonies which almost all the
Indians perform for their kings and great men, and for
which they give reasons connected with their beliefs
about the afterlife.
Kingship is confined to a single royal lineage and
never passes to another. The same is true of ministers,
judges and all the high officials, who are always from
the same families.
The Indians forbid the drinking of wine and blame
those who do so, not because their religion forbids it,
but because they are afraid it will trouble their reason
and deprive them of the use of this faculty. If one of
their kings is found to have drunk wine, he is thought
to deserve to be deposed, for it would be impossible
for him to govern the state when his reason is clouded.
They are very fond of singing and music and have a
variety of musical instruments, which evoke a whole
range of emotions in men, from laughter to tears. Often
they have young slave girls drink and dance before
them, in order to rouse themselves to a state of joy at
the sight of their gaiety.
82
' From The Meadows of Gold
53. Kashmir
Another river [the Kabul River] has its source in Kash

mir, whose king generally bears the title raja. Kashmir
is one of the mountain kingdoms of Sind. It is a very
large kingdom, with no less than 60,000 or 70,000
towns and villages. It is only accessible on one side,
and can be entered only via a single pass. It is enclosed
by steep, impassable mountains that no one can climb.
Even wild beasts cannot reach their summits; only
birds can fly that high. Where the mountains cease
there are hidden valleys, forest, jungles and swift,
unfordable rivers. What we have said here about the
impossibility of crossing the mountains of Kashmir is
well known in Khurasan and elsewhere, and makes
Kashmir one of the wonders of the world.
54. Tibet
Tibet is a kingdom distinct from China. The majority

of the population is of Himyarite origin and includes
some descendants of the Tubba‘[the Himyarite kings,
- the pre-Islamic rulers of Yemen], as we shall explain
further on in this work, when dealing with the kings
of Yemen, and as may also be found in the History of
the Tubba'. Some of the Tibetans are sedentary, while
others are nomads. The second group are Turks by
origin and innumerable; no other Turkic people can
equal them. They are much honoured by all the nomad
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tribes of their race, because they once held sway over

all the rest, and the Turkic peoples believe that one
day they will do so again.
Tibet is unique and strange in its climate, water,
earth, mountains and plains. Its inhabitants are always
happy and laughing; they are never to be seen sad, down
cast or depressed. The marvellous varieties of fruit
and flowers found in this kingdom cannot be numbered,
nor can the richness of its pasturelands and rivers be
described. The climate strengthens the nature of the
blood of all living things, whether men or beasts, and
it is very rare to meet with a sad old man or woman.
As a general thing, good humour seems to reign there
in middle and advanced age, just as in adolescence and
in youth. The innate sweet nature, gaiety and liveliness
with which all Tibetans are endowed leads them to culti
vate music with great passion and give themselves over
to every kind ofgame and different kinds of dancing.
Even death itself does not inspire relatives with that
profound grief which other men must feel when their
beloved is snatched away and they lament one who was
most dear. Nevertheless, they feel great affection for
each other, and the adoption of orphans is very general
among them. The animals likewise are endowed with
natural goodness.
Tibet borders China on one side and on the other
India, Khurasan and the steppes of the Turks. There
are many densely populated, flourishing, well-defended
towns.
In ancient times, the kings bore the title of tubba
after Tubba', king of Yemen. Then, the erosion of time
* 84
wore away the language of the Himyarites, putting in

its place the tongue of the neighbouring people, and
the kings were given the title of khaqan.
The Silk Road
China is watered by rivers as large as the Tigris and

the Euphrates, whose sources lie in the country of the
Turks, in Tibet and in Sogdiana, between Bukhara and
Samarkand, where the mountains of sal ammoniac are
located. During the summer, fires can be seen at night
rising from these mountains from a distance of ioo
farsakhs. During the daytime, only the smoke can
be seen, due to the brightness of the sun’s rays and
the light of day. Sal ammoniac is exported from
these mountains. When winter comes, the traveller
who wishes to go from Khurasan to China comes
to this district, where there is a valley between the
mountains which extends for 40 or 50 miles. At the
entrance to the valley, the traveller encounters people
who for a high price will carry his baggage on their
shoulders. They carry a stick in their hands with which
they prod the traveller in the sides for fear that drop
ping with fatigue he will stop and perish from the
torments of this valley. They walk in front of him
until they reach the end of the valley, where they find
thickets and stagnant water into which everyone throws
themself to recover from the torments of the journey
and the heat of the sal ammoniac.
The beasts of burden do not follow this route,
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because the sal ammoniac catches fire during the sum

mer and makes it impassable. In the winter, the great
quantity of snow which falls in these places and the
dampness extinguish the burning, so men can cross it,
but the animals cannot endure the unbearable heat.
The same violent attacks with the stick are inflicted on
travellers coming out of China.
The distance from Khurasan to China along the
route we have been describing is around forty days’
march across cultivated and desert land, with soft sandy
soil. There is another route, accessible to pack animals,
which takes around four months, but there the travel
lers are under the protection of the Turkish tribes. I
met a handsome old man in Balkh, known for his
discernment and intelligence, who had made the jour
ney to China many times, without ever taking the sea
route. I also met many people in Khurasan who had
travelled from Sogdiana to Tibet and China, passing
by way of the mountains of sal ammoniac.
56. Pearlfishing in the Gulf
Pearl fishing in the Persian Gulf takes place only

between the beginning of April and the end of Sep
tember. It ceases completely during the other months.
In our earlier works, we have named all the places in
this sea where there are pearl fisheries, for pearls are
found exclusively in the Indian Ocean, in the lands of
Khark, Qatar, Oman and Sarandib, and other points
along these shores. We have also discussed the manner
86
in which the pearl forms and the different theories

advanced on this subject. Some say it is produced by the
rain, while others attribute to it an altogether different
origin. We have also explained how a distinction is
made between old shells and new, which are known as
al-mahdr and also under the name of al-balbal.
The flesh and fat which is inside the oyster shell is
a living creature, which at the approach of divers, fears
on behalf of its pearl as a mother would fear for her
child.
We have also explained how the diving is done.
The divers, as we have said, do not eat meat and live
exclusively on fish and dates. They have their ear lobes
split to allow them to expel air, since their nostrils are
plugged with a gadget shaped like an arrowhead and
made out of tortoiseshell — that is, the same kind of
sea-turtle shell which is used for combs. It may also be
made of horn, but not ofwood. They put cotton soaked
in a little oil in their ears, and when they are at the
bottom of the sea they squeeze some out, which gives
them a little fight. They rub their feet and thighs with
a black substance, and this causes the monsters of the
deep, by which they fear to be dragged down, to flee
far away. When they are at the bottom of the sea, they
make sounds like the barking of dogs, and this piercing
noise serves as a means ofcommunication among them.
The Sea of Persia begins in the region of Basra,
al-Ubulla and Bahrayn [eastern Arabia], just after the
Basra watchtowers. Then comes the Sea of Larwl,
which washes the coastal cities of Saymur, Sopara,
Tana, Sandan, Cambaya and other ports of India and
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Sind. Then comes the Sea of Harkand, then the Sea

of Kalahbar, which is the sea of Kalah, and the islands.
Then follows the Sea of Kanduranj, then the Sea of
Sanf and, finally, the Sea of China, or Sanjl, which is
the last of all.
57. Thefirst sea: the Sea ofPersia
As we have said, the Sea of Persia [the Persian Gulf]

begins at the watchtowers of Basra, in the place called
al-Kankala. These are pilings driven into the seabed
which serve as signals for ships. It is 300 farsakhs along
the coast of Fars and Bahrayn to Oman. The capital
of Oman is Suhar, called Mazun by the Persians. It is
a distance of 50 farsakhs from Suhar to Muscat, a city
which has wells where ships’ captains can take on fresh
water. It is 50 farsakhs again from Muscat to Ra’s
al-Jumjuma, the end of the Sea of Persia, whose length
is 400 farsakhs, according to the estimation of sailors
and pilots. Ra’s al-Jumjuma is a mountain which
extends into Yemen, to al-Shihr and al-Ahqaf. In the
form of a sandbar it extends under the sea an unknown
distance. In the Mediterranean when a mountain
extends like this under the sea it is given the name
sufala, like the one that extends under the sea in the
direction of Cyprus from the area known as the coast
of Seleucia in the land of the Byzantines; it is upon
this sufala that so many Byzantine ships have run
aground and been destroyed. We use the terms current
in each sea among sailors.
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58. The second sea: the Sea of Larwi
After passing Ra’s al-Jumjuma, ships leave the Sea of

Persia and enter the second sea, the Sea of Larwi
[Arabian Sea], Its depth is unknown and its limits
cannot be exactly defined because of the extent of its
waters and its immensity. Many mariners maintain that
it is difficult to give it an exact geographical description
because it has so many ramifications. Ships usually take
two or three months to cross it, but only one month
when the wind is favourable and navigation safe,
although this is the largest and stormiest of all the seas
collectively known as the Indian Ocean. It joins the
Sea of Zanj and the Zanj coast to the south. There is
little ambergris in this sea, for most of it is found on
the Zanj coast and in al-Shihr in the land of the Arabs.
5p. Ambergris
The best ambergris is found in al-Shihr and on the

coasts of the islands of Zabaj [Sumatra and the other
islands of the Indonesian archipelago]. It is round,
pale blue, and sometimes the size of an ostrich egg or
smaller. Some pieces are swallowed by whales, of which
we have already spoken. When the sea is rough, the
whale vomits pieces of ambergris, sometimes the size
of a piece of mountain, sometimes of the smaller size
we have mentioned. Swallowing the ambergris kills the
whale, and its corpse floats on the water. The men of
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Zabaj and elsewhere hunt it in little boats and attack

it with harpoons attached to cables, cut open its belly
and remove the ambergris. The ambergris found in its
entrails has a sickening smell; the druggists of Iraq and
Persia call it nadd. That which is found near its back
is much purer; the longer it has been inside its body,
the purer it is.
60. The third sea: the Sea ofHarkand
Between the third sea, which is the Sea of Harkand

[the Bay of Bengal] and the Sea of Larwi there are a
great many islands, which serve to separate the two
seas. It is commonly said that there are 2000 of these
islands [the Laccadives and Maldives]; a more precise
figure is 1900. They are all densely populated and are
governed by a woman, for since the most remote times
the inhabitants of these islands have had the tradition
of never allowing themselves to be governed by a man.
Ambergris is found in these islands as well, thrown
up on the shore by the sea; the lumps are the size of
the largest rocks. More than one ship’s captain from
Siraf and Oman, and many merchants who have often
sailed to these islands, have told me that ambergris
grows in the depths of this sea and is formed like black
and white mushrooms, truffles or other plants of the
same type. When the sea is rough and violent, it throws
rocks and pebbles, as well as pieces of ambergris, up
from its depths.
The inhabitants of these islands are all governed by
one power. Their number cannot be counted, nor can

the troops of this queen. Each island is a mile from its
neighbour, or one, two, or three farsakhs. The islands
are all planted with coconut palms, which closely
resemble date palms but do not bear dates. Many
scholars who have specialized in the growth of animals
and the grafting of trees claim that the coconut palm
is nothing more than the palm called muql, which
under the influence of the soil of India, where it was
transplanted, was transformed into the coconut palm.
61. Craftsmen and cowries
Nowhere among the islands of this sea can such skilled

craftsmen, whether it is a matter of textiles, utensils,
or other objects, be found as among the people of
Dibajat [the Maldives and Laccadives]. The queen’s
treasure consists of cowries, which are shells that con
tain a type of living creature. When her funds run
low, she orders the islanders to cut branches from the
coconut palms with all their leaves and to throw them
on the surface of the water. The shellfish climb on to
them as best they can and they are collected and laid
out on the sand along the shore, where the sun burns
them up, leaving only the empty shells with which the
treasury is replenished.
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62. Camphor
These islands are known as the Dibajat. Their main

export is coconut, which they call ranaj. The last of
these islands is Sarandib. About 1000 farsakhs from
Sarandib there are yet more inhabited islands called
al-Ramni [western Sumatra], ruled by kings and rich
in gold mines. They are close to the land of Fansur
[Barus in western Sumatra], from which comes the
type of camphor known as fansuri. In the years in
which there are many thunderstorms, lightning flashes,
earth tremors, falling meteorites and earthquakes, the
camphor is abundant, but it is rare in years in which
these phenomena are few.
6j. The Nicobar and Andaman Islands
Most of the islands we have just mentioned use the

coconut for food. Baqqam [Brazil wood], bamboo and
gold are exported as well. Elephants are numerous, and
some of the islands are inhabited by men who eat
human flesh. These islands adjoin others, known as
the Lanjabalus [Nicobars], where there live a people
with strange faces who go naked. They go out in canoes
to meet passing boats with ambergris, coconuts and
other things which they exchange for iron and certain
types of clothing. They do not sell their goods for silver
or gold coins. Nearby are the Andaman Islands, which
are inhabited by strange-looking blacks with pepper
92
corn hair and feet more than a span long. They have
no ships and eat the corpses of shipwrecked sailors that
the sea throws up on their shores, as well as the crews
of boats that fall into their hands.
64. Waterspouts
Several ship’s captains have told me that in this sea

they have often seen small white clouds from which a
long white tongue extends, stretching down to join the
surface of the sea, which immediately begins to boil
and great waterspouts spiral up, engulfing everything
that stands in their way, and then fall back as rain with
a disagreeable smell and mixed with sea spray.
65. Thefourth sea: the Sea of Kalahbdr
The fourth sea is, as we have already said, that of

Kalahbar, in other words the Sea of Kalah [Kedah
on the Malaysian Peninsula]. It is shallow, and such
shallow seas are dangerous and hard to navigate. There
are many islands, and what the mariners call surr, which
refers to the place where two gulfs meet. There are
some very remarkable islands and mountains which
we shall not mention, because our aim is to give the
briefest outline and on no account to go into details.
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66. Thefifth sea: the Sea of Kanduranj
The fifth sea, known as the Sea of Kanduranj [Gulf of

Siam], also has many shoals and islands, in which
camphor and ‘water of camphor’ are found. The sea is
shallow, and it almost never stops raining. Among the
islanders, who belong to different races, there are some
called Fanjan. They have peppercorn hair and frighten
ing faces. Riding in their boats, they go out to meet
ships which sail near their shores and shoot them with
a strange type of poisoned arrow. Between the country
where this people live and the land of Kalah, there
are mines of white lead and silver-bearing mountains.
There are also gold and lead mines, but the two metals
are difficult to separate.
67. The sixth sea: the Sea of Sanf
The Sea of Sanf [South China Sea] comes next after

the Sea of Kanduranj, following the order that we
established at the beginning. Here is to be found the
kingdom of the Maharaja, the King of the Isles, who
commands a boundless realm and innumerable troops.
Even in the fastest boat, no one could sail all around
the islands that he rules in less than two years. This
kingdom produces every sort of spice and aromatic,
and no king in the world obtains so much wealth from
his country. Exported from his country are aloe-wood,
cloves, sandalwood, nutmeg, mace, cardamoms and
94
cubebs, as well as other products that we shall not

mention.
68. The ring offire
These islands are on the edge of a sea which is next

to the Sea of China, but its outer limits cannot be
reached and its extent is quite unknown. In the in
terior of the islands are many mountains inhabited by
people with white faces, split ears, faces like pieces of
shields, with hair cut in layers like the bristles on a
water bottle. Day and night fire issues from the moun
tains; by day it is red, at night its colour darkens,
the flames reaching the highest point of the heavens
because of the height of the mountains and then dis
appearing in the atmosphere. These eruptions are
accompanied by terrible rolls of thunder and often
also by a strange and terrible voice announcing the
death of their king, or when it is less powerful, the
passing of some important person. The local people
are able to understand these portents, having learned
from long experience and the regularity of the occur
rences. These mountains are to be numbered among
the great volcanoes of the earth.
6p. The island of music
Nearby is the island from which the sound of drums,

flutes, lutes and every kind of musical instrument
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Mas'udt
whose sound is sweet and agreeable is heard, as well as

the rhythmic beating of feet and clapping of hands. By
listening carefully, the sounds of each instrument can
easily be distinguished. The sailors who cross these
seas claim that the Antichrist has taken up his abode
there.
The island of Sribuza [Srivijaya] lies within the king
dom of the Maharaja; it is about 400 farsakhs in length
and entirely cultivated. He also possesses the islands
of Zabaj and al-Ramnl, as well as many others, too
numerous to be mentioned. Furthermore, his rule
extends throughout the sixth sea, which is the Sea of
Sanf.
70. The seventh sea: the Sea of China
The seventh sea, as we have said before, is the Sea of

China, also known as the Sea of Sanji. It is very danger
ous, with numerous waves and khibb-, khibb means a
violent turmoil in the sea. I use the term which is
current in the speech of the sailors of these seas. There
are large numbers of shoals among which the ships
cannot avoid passing. Every time the sea has a great
khibb and the breakers increase and multiply, small
creatures, four or five spans high, can be seen emerging
from it. They are like little Abyssinian children, all of
the same size and shape, and they climb on to the
boats, but no matter how many there are, they remain
completely harmless. When the crew sees them, they
know trouble is coming, for their appearance heralds
'96
a khibb. They prepare to meet it as best they can, some

perishing and some surviving.
77. St Elmo’sfire
Those who escape safe and sound have often seen on

the top of the mainmast — called dull by sailors in the
Sea of China and other parts of the Indian Ocean, and
sari by mariners in the Mediterranean - an object which
has the shape of a luminous bird and spreads a light so
brilliant that the observer cannot bear to look at it
directly nor distinguish its shape. As soon as the light
begins to vanish from the top of the mainmast, the sea
becomes calm, the waves and the turmoil of the sea
subsiding. Then the luminous object disappears, and
it is impossible to know whence it came or how it
vanished, but it is a sign of salvation and a proof that
safety is nigh. This fact has never been disputed by any
of the sailors or merchants who have sailed these
waters, whether from Basra, Siraf, Oman or any others
who cross these seas. What we have said about it here
is possible, and well within the power of the Creator -
May His Power Be Exalted - to rescue His servants
from disaster.
72. Crabs
In this sea there is a kind of crab more than a cubit in

length. They come up out of the water, moving swiftly,
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but as soon as they touch dry land, all animal functions

cease and they turn into the kind of stones that are
used to make collyrium and other remedies for the
eyes. This is very generally known.
The Sea of China, the seventh sea, is known as
Sanji, and there are many stories of its wonders. We
have discussed it in a general way, in those of our earlier
works mentioned above that deal with this subject. We
also relate the nature of the neighbouring seas.
yj. The Lake ofthe Ingots of Gold
The explanation of the expression ‘the Lake of the

Ingots of Gold’ is that the palace of the Maharaja
overlooks a little lake, which is linked to the largest of
the gulfs of Zabaj. The tide brings seawater into the
gulf and the ebb carries away the fresh water. Every
morning, the king’s treasurer enters with an ingot of
gold weighing a certain amount - the exact weight
escapes me - and throws it into the lake in the presence
of the king. At high tide, the water rises and covers
that ingot as well as those which were there before, but
the ebb leaves them visible and they shine in the sun
light before the king’s eyes, as he sits in his audience
chamber, which overlooks this lake.
They continue doing this, however long the king
reigns, throwing an ingot of gold into the lake each
day. No one touches them, but, at the king’s death, his
successor fishes out all the ingots, without leaving a
single one. They are counted, melted down and distrib
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From The Meadows ofGold
uted to members of the royal household - men, women,

children, officers and servants - taking into account
the rank and prerogatives of each class. The surplus is
distributed to the poor and infirm.
The number of ingots and their weight are written
down in a register, where it is said: ‘Such and such a
king lived so many years and left in the royal lake so
many ingots of gold to be distributed among his sub
jects after his death.’ It is a glorious thing in their eyes
to have lived a long time and to have left a large number
of these ingots.
74. Thefolly of the king of Cambodia
Here is an anecdote of interest for the study of the

history and customs of the ancient kings of India. It is
the story of a king of Qimar [Cambodia], which is not
an island but a kingdom that forms part of India, from
which the aloe-wood known as ‘Cambodian aloe
wood’ is exported. It is composed of a coastal strip
and mountains. Few regions of India have a denser
population, and its inhabitants are distinguished by the
freshness of their breath because, like the Muslims,
they use toothpicks. They have a horror of adultery,
avoid all indecent behaviour and refrain from alcoholic
drinks - although in this last particular they are only
conforming to the general practice of the people of
India. Their troops are, above all, made up of infantry,
because their country has more mountains and valleys
than plains and plateaux. The land of Qimar is on the
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Mas'udi
way to the state ruled by the Maharaja, Lord of the

Islands of Zabaj, Kalah [Malaysia], Sarandlb, and so
on.
They say that once upon a time a young and
thoughtless king ruled over Qimar. One day he was
sitting on his throne in a castle a day’s march from the
sea, which overlooked a great river of sweet water, like
the Tigris or the Euphrates. His vizier was standing
before him and they were discussing the rich and
powerful kingdom of the Maharaja and the large
number of islands he possessed.
The king then said, ‘I have a secret desire I would
love to have satisfied.’
‘And what is that, Sire?’ enquired his vizier, a wise
man who knew his master’s impetuousness.
‘I would love to see the head of the Maharaja, king
of Zabaj, brought before me on a trencher.’
The vizier realized that this idea of the king’s had
been inspired by jealousy, which had sprung up in his
heart, and said, ‘O King, I would never have dreamt
that Your Majesty could entertain such thoughts.
Never have we had any differences with that country,
cither in the past or in the present, nor has it ever given
us any cause for complaint. Furthermore, their islands
fie very far from our borders and they have never
coveted our countty.’ Indeed, there is a distance of ten
or twenty days’ journey by ship between the kingdom
of Qimar and that of the Maharaja. ‘It would be better
for Your Highness’, concluded the vizier, ‘if no one
knew of this project and if Your Highness did not
mention it again.’
loo
The king was annoyed and paid no attention to

this advice. He disclosed his plans to the generals and
principal courtiers. The news spread by word of mouth
until it reached the Maharaja, who was a wise ruler,
experienced and already ripe in years.
He summoned his vizier, told him what he had
heard and added, ‘This foolish plan, which rumour has
brought us, is the fruit of his arrogance and youth, but
the fact that his words have been made public forces
us to take action against him, for if he goes unpunished
it will affect our dignity and power.’
He ordered his vizier to keep this interview a secret
between them and to equip a thousand medium
capacity ships and provide each of them with the neces
sary arms and troops. A rumour was started that the
Maharaja wanted to take a pleasure cruise among the
islands, and he wrote letters to the kings of these
islands, who were vassals of the Maharaja, announcing
that he was going to take a trip for his enjoyment in
their domains. At this news, each king made prep
arations to receive the Maharaja fittingly. His orders
having been scrupulously carried out and the pre
parations completed, the Maharaja embarked and set
out with his army for the kingdom of Qimar.
Before the king had time to realize what was
happening, the Maharaja had entered the river valley
leading to the capital, defeated the army, captured the
officers and taken possession of the royal city. Thus
the whole kingdom fell into his hands. The Maharaja
proclaimed the formal end to hostilities and seated
himself on the throne of Qimar. Then he had the
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former king, who had been taken prisoner, brought

before him, together with his vizier.
“Whatever possessed you’, he asked the king, ‘to
think of a plan so much beyond your strength? A plan
which even if accomplished would not have made you
happier and did not even have feasibility to excuse it?’
The king could give no reply and the Maharaja said,
‘If you had added the desire to seize my kingdom and
put it to the sword to your wish to see my head before
you on a trencher, I would now take reprisals. But you
only made one precisely stated threat, which I myself
will carry out but at your expense. Then, I shall go
back to my own country, without touching anything
belonging to your kingdom, great or small. I want to
make an example of you to your successors, so that
they do not overstep the limits assigned to them by
Fortune and so that they learn the value of peace when
they have the good luck to possess it.’ Then he struck
off the king’s head.
He then turned to the vizier and said, ‘I know you
were a good vizier. I am well aware of the advice you
gave your master; he should have taken it. Choose
whomever you think fit to rule after this ignoramus
and place him on the throne.’
The Maharaja immediately went back to his own
country without himself or any of his companions lay
ing a hand on anything in the country of Cambodia.
When he got back to his kingdom, he sat down on his
throne, which looked over the lake known as ‘the Lake
of the Ingots of Gold’ and had the dish holding the
head of the conquered king set before him. He sum
' 102
moned all the great men of his kingdom and told them
the story of his expedition and the reason he had done
what he did. His subjects responded with congratu
lations and praise.
Then he called for the head and it was washed and
scented and put in a jar and returned to the reigning
monarch of Qimar, accompanied by the following
letter:
“The motive for our expedition was the insolence of
your predecessor and the need to teach a lesson to his
Eke. Now that we have reached our goal, we feel that
we should send you back this head, for we have no
reason to keep it — such a victory adds nothing to our
fame.’
When the kings of India and China learned of this,
it served to raise the Maharaja in their estimation, and
the kings of Cambodia, ever since that time, turn,
when they rise in the morning, towards the land of
Zabaj and bow to the ground, proclaiming their most
profound respect for the greatness of the Maharaja.
75. A merchant in China
The ancient kings of China had a regular system of

government and let themselves be guided by reason in
the fair and just judgements which they gave.
It is said that a merchant from Samarkand in the
land of Transoxiana left his country with a rich stock
of merchandise and reached Iraq. From there he went
on with local goods to Basra, where he embarked for
>03
Mas'udi
the land of Oman. Then he went by sea to Kalah,

which is about halfway to China. Today, this town is
a general meeting place for the Muslim vessels of Siraf
and Oman and the ships from China, but it was differ
ent in the past. In those days the Chinese ships sailed
to Oman, to Siraf on the Persian side of the Gulf, and
to the coast of Bahrayn, to al-Ubulla and to Basra,
while the ships from those countries went directly to
China. It is only since it has become impossible
to count on the justice of the governors and on the
honesty of their procedures that the custom of meeting
at this intermediary point has developed.
This merchant, then, sailed with a fleet of Chinese
ships from Kalah to Khanfb [Canton], the port where
ships drop anchor, as we said above. The king, having
heard of the arrival of the boats laden with merchandise
and luxury goods, sent a eunuch who was one of his
personal servants and in whom he placed great trust.
The Chinese employ eunuchs as collectors of taxes and
so on, and there are even people who have their chil
dren castrated so that they may attain such positions.
The king’s eunuch, therefore, went to Khanfu, where
he summoned all the merchants, among them the one
from Samarkand. They all displayed the merchandise
he desired. After having set aside what might be of use
to the king, the eunuch made the man from Samarkand
an offer that did not satisfy him. The dispute reached
such a point that the eunuch gave orders for the man
to be imprisoned and harshly treated to force him to
accept the price.
The man from Samarkand would not yield, however,
104
having confidence in the king’s justice. He was sent at

once to Khumdan [Xian], the royal residence, and
stood at the place where plaintiffs gathered. Whoever
wished to complain of an injustice, whether he came
from a distant country or not, put on a kind of tunic
of red silk, and went to the place intended for plaintiffs.
From there, one of the high officials of these provinces,
entrusted with taking charge of the plaintiffs who after
their arrival had gathered at this place, had them sent
by the mule-post system about a month’s journey away.
This is what happened to the merchant: he stood
before the governor of the country in charge of these
affairs, who said to him, “You are embarking on a very
serious course, in which you run considerable risk of
losing your life. Think carefully whether your charge
is well founded. If it is not, we shall consider that you
have lied and send you back to the country whence you
came.’
This statement was made to anyone lodging a com
plaint. If the plaintiff lowered his voice, or if it was
seen that he became flustered and began to retract what
he had said, he was given a hundred blows with a stick
and sent back to where he had come from. But if, on
the other hand, he proved determined, they took him
into the presence of the king, who listened to his
statement.
Since the man from Samarkand persisted in his com
plaint and they saw that he spoke with confidence
without stammering or becoming flustered, he was
taken before the king, to whom he related what had
happened. When the interpreter had explained the
i°5
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matter to the king, this latter gave orders that the man
should be taken to special quarters where he was lodged
and well looked after.
Then he summoned the vizier and the Minister of
the Right and the Minister of the Left. These high-
ranking dignitaries, who were perfectly acquainted
with both their duties and their powers, exercised their
functions during emergencies and in times of war. The
king ordered them to write separately to their represen
tatives at Khanfb, for each of them had an agent in
every province. They therefore wrote to ask for a report
on what had taken place between the merchant and
the eunuch. The king for his part wrote in the same
way to his viceroy.
Meanwhile, the affair became notorious throughout
the country, and the letters brought by the post-mules
confirmed the merchant’s statement. Along all the
roads throughout their territory, the rulers of China
have mules with docked tails to carry the post and for
official letters. The king immediately summoned the
eunuch, stripped him of all the privileges which he had
granted him and said:
You have done an injury to a merchant who comes
from a distant country and who, having crossed numer
ous kingdoms and having passed through the countries
of many rulers by land and sea, hoped to reach this
country without trouble, trusting in my justice. But
you have done to him what you have done, and it is
only by the greatest chance that he has not left my
kingdom to tell the world of my blameworthiness and
lack of honour. If it were not for the length of your
To6
service, I would have you put to death. As it is, I shall

inflict a punishment on you which, if you understand
its implications, is worse than death. I am putting you
in charge of the tombs of the ancient kings, because
you have proved yourself incapable of governing the
living and of performing the duties which I had
entrusted to you.’
Then the king treated the merchant well and had
him sent back to Canton, saying to him, ‘If you are
willing to sell us that part of your merchandise which
is of use to us, we shall give you a good price for it. If
not - you are master of your goods. Remain here as
long as you wish, sell as you want and go where you
desire.’
And the eunuch was detailed to guard the royal
tombs.
76. An Arab meets the emperor of China
Among the entertaining stories of the kings of China

is that of a man of Quraysh, a descendant of Habbar
ibn al-Aswad. At the time the rebellion of the Zanj
chieftain was taking place in Basra - something every
body knows about - he emigrated to the city of Siraf.
He had been one of the notables of Basra and was very
rich. He set sail from Siraf for the Indian Ocean,
and after taking ship after ship and travelling through
country after country, he crossed India and finally
ended up in China, and went to the city of Khanfu.
After that, curiosity led him to visit the royal residence,
Mas'udi
which at that time was in the city of Khumdan, one of

the largest and most important cities in the country.
He waited a long time at the gates of the palace,
presenting requests in which he stated that he was of
the family of the Prophet of the Arabs. At last the king
gave orders that he should be allotted a house with
everything he might need and that they should attend
to all his wants. The king then wrote to his viceroy in
Khanfu, telling him to make enquiries and find out
from the other merchants the truth concerning the
man’s claim to be related to the Prophet of the Arabs.
When the governor of Khanfij had confirmed the claim
in writing, the king admitted the merchant to his pres
ence and gave him great riches, which he brought back
with him to Iraq.
Now this merchant was an intelligent old man, and
said that when he came into his presence, the king
asked him about the Arabs and how they had managed
to destroy the Persian empire, to which he had replied,
‘It was by the help of God, May His Power Be Exalted!
The Persians worshipped fire and bowed down before
the sun and the moon, to the exclusion of God.’
The king continued, ‘The Arabs have conquered the
noblest and most extensive of kingdoms, the richest,
the most remarkable for the intelligence of its people,
and the most famous.’ Then he asked, ‘How do you
rank the rest of the kings of the world?’
‘I have no idea,’ I replied.
At this, the king addressed himself to his interpreter:
‘ Tell him that we number five kings. The most power
ful of all is he who rules Iraq, for he is located at the
108
centre of the world and the other powers are grouped

about him; also, we call him the King of Kings. After
this comes our own, which we consider as the Kingdom
of Men, for no kingdom is better governed, none is
more reliably administered and nowhere are subjects
more obedient than ours. This is why we are the Kings
of Men. After us comes the King of Wild Beasts. This
is our neighbour, the King of the Turks, for they are
among men what wild beasts are in the animal king
dom. He is followed by the King of Elephants, that is
the King of India, who is recognized as the King of
Wisdom, since all wisdom originates from that land.
The last is the King of Rum [Byzantium], whom we
consider as the King of Soldiers, for no country has
soldiers with such perfect bodies and such beautiful
faces. These are the principal kings. The others are all
subordinate to them.’
Then he said to his interpreter, ‘Ask him: Would
you recognize your master, that is to say the Prophet,
if you saw Him?’
‘How could I see Him?’ I answered, ‘since He is
with God, May His Power Be Exalted.’
‘I didn’t mean that,’ went on the king, ‘I meant his
portrait.’
‘Certainly,’ I said.
The king ordered a basket brought, and it was placed
before him and he took out a scroll and said to the
interpreter, ‘Show him his master.'
I saw on the scroll pictures of the Prophets and
moved my Bps, silently blessing them.
The king, who didn’t realize that I had recognized
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them, asked the interpreter to ask me why I was moving

my Ups.
‘I am addressing a prayer to the Prophets,’ I said.
‘How did you recognize them?’
‘By certain events in their lives which are depicted
here. This is Noah taking refuge with his family in the
Ark when God, who had ordered the waters to cover
the face of the whole earth, saved Him and those who
were with Him.’
The king began to laugh and said, ‘As to the name
Noah, you are right, but as to the whole earth being
flooded, it is something we know nothing about. The
deluge affected only part of the earth and did not reach
our country. If what you say is true of your part of the
world, the fact remains that we, the inhabitants of
China, India, Sind and many other countries and
nations as well, are ignorant of it, nor have our ances
tors handed us down any tradition like the one you
describe. And yet, such an event as the inundation of
the earth is sufficiently remarkable to strike fear into
the minds of the people, to remain engraved in their
memories and to be handed on as part of traditional
knowledge.’
I did not dare contradict him and counter his argu
ments, because I knew he would reject them, so I said,
‘Here is Moses with His staff and the Children of
Israel.’
‘Yes,’ said the king, ‘despite the smallness of his
country and the disobedience of his people.’
‘Here is Jesus,’ I continued, ‘riding on His ass, and
the Apostles are accompanying Him.’
'no
‘His ministry’, said the king, ‘lasted very little time

- hardly more than thirty months.’
Thus he went on through all the Prophets and Their
lives, and said many things of which we have reported
only a small part.
This man of the Quraysh, who is known by the
name of Ibn Habbar, even claimed to have seen a long
caption above each picture, which he assumed gave
Their name, country, age, and everything about Their
life and prophetic mission.
Then I recognized the portrait of our Prophet
Muhammad, (May Prayers and Peace Be Upon Him!),
riding a camel and surrounded by his Companions,
wearing on their feet Bedouin sandals made of camel
hide, and belts made of palm fibre from which hung
their toothpicks. I wept. The king, via his interpreter,
asked me the reason.
‘This is our Prophet and our leader,’ I answered, ‘our
cousin, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allah!’
“What you say is true,’ the king replied. ‘He and his
people reigned over the noblest of kingdoms, but he
did not live to see his empire. That was reserved to
those who succeeded him.’
Examining the portraits ofthe prophets, I saw several,
who by joining their first finger and thumb oftheir right
hand in the form of a ring seemed to be indicating,
through the position of their hands, that creation is like
a circle. Others pointed their index finger to the heavens
as if they wished to inspire Creation with the fear of
what lies above. The interpreter told me that these were
Chinese and Indian prophets.
hi
Mas'udl
Then he asked me questions about the caliphs, their

appearance and about many of their laws. I answered
insofar as I knew the answers. Then he said, “What do
your people believe is the age of the earth?’
‘Opinions differ on the subject,’ I said. ‘Some say
6000 years, others less or more.’
‘Is that what your Prophet said?’ he went on.
‘Yes,’ I said. '
He burst out laughing and so did his vizier, who was
standing there, making it clear that he didn’t think
much of my answer.
‘I don’t think your Prophet ever said that,’ the king
added.
I tried again and said, “Yes, indeed, it was the
Prophet himself.’
I saw the expression of disbelief on his face, and he
told the interpreter to speak to me as follows: “Take
care what you say. One does not address kings unless
one is absolutely certain of one’s facts. You maintain
that there is a difference of opinion among you on
this subject - you are therefore in disagreement about
something your Prophet has said. Now when it comes
to what the Prophets have said, differences of opinion
are not permissible. On the contrary, everyone must
agree without argument. Take great care, therefore,
not to mention this matter again, or anything like it.’
He talked to me also of many other matters which
time has erased from my memory. Then he asked,
“Why did you leave your king, whose dwelling place
and lineage are closer to you than ours are?’
I told him what had happened at Basra and how I
'I12
had settled in Siraf. ‘There’, I went on, ‘I conceived a

wish to see you, O king, for I had heard of the pros
perity of your kingdom, your wise rule, your justice and
the benefits you bestow upon all your subjects. I wanted
to reside in this kingdom and see it with my own eyes.
Now, God willing, I shall go back to my country, to
my cousin’s kingdom. There, I shall tell all that I have
seen of the majesty of this kingdom, the vast extent of
this country, the justice which is extended to all, and
I shall speak of your most admirable qualities, O most
excellent king! I shall tell nothing but good of it, having
nothing to say but praise.’
That pleased the king, and he ordered me to be
given rich gifts and magnificent robes of honour, and
ordered me to be taken by mule post to Khanfij. He
wrote to his governor to treat me well, to assign me a
place in the first rank among the distinguished men in
his entourage and to give me board and lodging until
I should depart. I therefore stayed with him, living in
abundance and delight until I left China.
77. The Skilfulness ofthe Chinese
The inhabitants of this kingdom are, of all God’s

creatures, the most skilful in painting and all the arts.
No other nation can compare with them in any craft
whatsoever. When a Chinese has completed a piece of
work he considers inimitable, he brings it to the king’s
palace seeking a reward for the beauty of what he has
created. The king at once orders the object placed on
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Mas'udi
view in the palace for a year. If during this time no one

finds any fault with it, the king grants its maker a
recompense and admits him to the company of his
artists; but if any blemish is found in the work, the
man is sent away without reward.
A certain man had painted on a silk robe an ear of
wheat with a sparrow perched on it. The artistry was
of such perfection that the beholder really thought it
was an ear of wheat upon which a sparrow had alighted.
This masterpiece remained on exhibition a long time.
One day, a hunchback passing before it found a flaw.
He was brought into the king’s presence, together with
the artist, and he was asked what fault he had observed.
‘Everyone knows’, he replied, ‘that a sparrow cannot
settle on an ear of corn without bending it. Here, the
painter has shown the ear straight, not bowed at all,
although he has perched a bird on it.’
The hunchback was right and the artist got no
reward.
Their objective in doing this and similar things is to
put the artists on their mettle and force them to take
infinite care and pains, and to make them reflect at
length on the execution of works they undertake.
7& Rebellion in China
China remained prosperous, thanks to the state of

justice she enjoyed, just as she had been under her
ancient kings, until the year 264/878. But then an event
took place that upset the order of things and overthrew
I14
the authority of the law, a situation which has lasted

down to the present day, 332/943.
A remarkable man named Huang Ch’ao, who lived
in a certain city in China, suddenly rose up in rebellion.
He was not a member of the royal family. Evil by nature
and seeking to foment unrest, he gathered around him
criminals and malefactors. The king and his ministers
paid no attention to him at first, because he was
unknown and of no importance. But his movement
grew in strength and his reputation spread, while at
the same time his arrogance and daring increased.
Criminals of all kinds travelled great distances to join
him, swelling the ranks of his army. Then he went
forth and began raiding the villages and towns, until
he pitched camp before Khanfij, a major city standing
on the banks of a river longer, or as long as, the Tigris.
This river [the Hsi River] flows into the China Sea,
which is six or seven days journey from Khanfii, and
ships from Basra, Siraf, Oman, the ports of India, the
island of Zabaj and Sanf and other kingdoms sail up
the river to it with their cargoes and merchandise.
Huang Ch’ao quickly moved to attack Khanfij, in
which lived a mixture of Muslims, Christians, Jews and
Fire-worshippers, as well as Chinese, laying siege to
the city. The king’s army counter-attacked, but he put
it to flight, capturing the king’s womenfolk. His army
increased in size, and he took the city of Khanfii by
storm, killing a number past counting of its inhabitants.
They estimate the number of Muslims, Christians,
Jews and Fire-worshippers who died by the sword or
were drowned fleeing the massacre at 200,000. We can
n5
Mas'udi
record this number because the kings of China have

registers in which they set down all the subjects of their
kingdom as well as those of neighbouring countries
that are under their protection. They have agents who
are in charge of this census, for they want to be kept
informed of the true state of the people over whom
they rule.
The enemy cut down the mulberry plantations that
surrounded the city of Khanfti and which are main
tained with great care, because the leaves of this tree
are used to feed the worms that make silk. The destruc
tion of the mulberry trees stopped silk production in
China and hence its export to Muslim lands.
Huang Ch’ao went from city to city, conquering
them one after another. Whole ethnic groups, some
enamoured of the idea ofwar and pillage, others fearing
for their own lives, joined the insurgents. He headed
for Khumdan, the king’s residence, at the head of
300,000 men, cavalry and infantry. The king marched
out to meet him at the head of 100,000 troops, all that
remained of his loyal followers. The two armies clashed
and fought continuously for almost a month. Both
sides held out, then fortune turned against the. king
and he retreated in defeat. The rebel pursued him, and
the king took refuge in a city on the borders of his
country.
The rebel gained control of the territory and took
possession of the capital. He seized all the wealth and
treasure that the kings of old had set aside in case
of disaster. Then he devastated the countryside and
conquered the cities. Knowing that his low birth dis-
'116
qualified him from rule, he gave himself over to laying

waste to the country, looting and pillaging and spilling
blood.
On the borders of Tibet, which has already been
mentioned, is the city of Mdo. The king shut himself
up within its walls and wrote to the Uighur Khan, the
ruler of the Turks, to ask for help. He told him what
had happened and reminded him of the duties that
bind kings to each other, so that when one seeks help
from a brother, the other cannot refuse to come to his
aid.
The Uighur Khan helped him by sending one of his
sons at the head of some 400,000 cavalry and infantry.
Meanwhile, Huang Ch’ao’s advance became increas
ingly threatening. The two armies met and the war
between them lasted almost a year. A great number
from both sides perished, and Huang Ch’ao dis
appeared; it is said that he either was killed in battle
or drowned.
During this war, the governors of the various regions
made themselves independent rulers of their provinces,
just like the rulers of the various satrapies after Alex
ander the Great, the son of Philip of Macedon, killed
Darius, king of Persia, and indeed, as is happening in
our own country today, in the year 332/943.
The king of China had to make do with the nominal
obedience accorded him by the governors and the title
of king which they granted him in their correspon
dence. He therefore resigned himself to demanding no
more than minimum homage from them, and although
they paid him no tribute he allowed them to live in
117
Masudi
peace. Each of these new rulers attacked his neighbours

insofar as his strength and power enabled him to do
so. As a result, the order and harmony which had
reigned under the kings of old ceased to exist.
79. Korea
Beyond the coastal regions of the country of China

there are no known kingdoms or countries which have
been described, except al-Sila [Korea] and the islands
belonging to it. Only the rare stranger who arrives
there from Iraq or any other country ever departs,
because the air is so healthy, the water so clear, the
land so fertile and goods of all kinds are in such great
abundance. The inhabitants live on good terms with
the people of China and their kings, with whom they
are continually exchanging gifts.
80. The author addresses his readers
I finished writing this book in the month of Jtimada I

of the present year, 336/947, while staying at Fustat in
Egypt. The present holders of power in Baghdad are:
Aba al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Buwayh the Daylamite,
known by the title Mu'izz al-Dawla; his brother Hasan
ibn Buwayh, with the title Rukn al-Dawla, the master
of Isfahan and the districts of the Ahwaz and other
provinces; and their elder brother, the head of the
family, ‘Ali ibn Buwayh, with the title of ‘Imad al-
'118
Dawla, who is based in Fars. But the one who controls

the government of the caliph Muti‘ is Mu'izz al-Dawla.
It is he who, accompanied by the caliph, is waging war
against the Baridls in the region of Basra, according to
the latest news that has reached us.
In this book, I have in very few words set down
numerous happenings and have briefly mentioned
events of considerable importance. In any case, each of
my works contains information omitted in the book
that preceded it, indispensable information of the
greatest importance and utility. Thus I have reviewed
every century, together with the events and deeds
which have marked them, up until the present. Fur
thermore, there is to be found at the beginning of this
book a description of the seas and continents, of lands
inhabited and uninhabited, the lives of foreign kings,
their histories and those of all the different peoples. If
God gives me life, if He extends my days and grants
me the favour of continuing in this world, I shall follow
this book with another, which will contain information
and facts on all kinds of interesting subjects. Without
limiting myself to any particular order or method of
setting them down, I shall include all sorts of useful
information and curious tales, just as they spring to
mind. This work will be called The Reunion of the
Assemblies — a collection of facts and stories mixed
together, to provide a sequel to my earlier writings and
to complement my other works.
As to the events set down here, they are of the kind
that a wise man cannot ignore and which it would be
inexcusable to omit or to neglect. If one does no more
119
Mas'ildi
than enumerate the chapters of this book, without

reading each one carefully, the truth of what I am
saying will not be appreciated, nor will its erudition be
given its due. The knowledge I have gathered together
here has cost me long years of painful effort and
research and journeys and voyages across the lands of
east and west and to a number of countries not under
Muslim rule.
May the reader, therefore, be kindly in his perusal
of this book and have the goodness to correct such
copyist’s errors and faults in transcription as may offend
him; and bearing in mind the deference and good
relations which should exist among scholars and which
the intellectual world demands, let him take my situ
ation into account! The author of this book compares
himself to a man who, having found pearls of every
kind and every shade scattered here and there, gathers
them into a necklace and makes them a precious piece
of jewellery, an object of great worth which its pur
chaser will cherish with care.
Lastly, may the reader rest assured that I have not
here taken up the defence of any sect, nor have I given
preference to this doctrine or that. My aim has been
to relate the most notable events in man’s history, and
I have pursued no other.
THE ANCIENT CITY OF BAGHDAD, AD 915
Persian pearl fishers, raiding Norsemen, kings draped in fox fur,

Turkish nomads crossing frozen rivers, chess players, astronomers,
warring elephants, jewel-filled tombs, spitting volcanoes and ter
rifying seas: these are juft some of the incredible sights Masudi
has discovered since he left his beloved Iraq as a young man,
bound for a lifetime of adventure. Now, exiled from his homeland,
he sits down to write the greatest history the work! has seen ...

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MAS'UDI

From The Meadows of Gold

We beg our readers’ indulgence for any mistakes or

He has travelled the world in all directions;

During our travels we have consorted with several

2. Mas'udipraises his birthplace

I was born in the central clime of the world, and

Indeed, this region unites every advantage: the earth

for the world extends all around the clime of Babil,

j. The lighthouse ofHercules

At the place where the Mediterranean joins the Atlan­

are no inhabited lands there or rational beings. Neither

4. Driftwood proves all oceans are one

In the eastern Mediterranean, near the island of Crete,

while in the Sea of Abyssinia iron nails do not hold

Among the nations that border al-Andalus, the strong­

against the Muslims and pointing out their weaknesses.

number of commanders. There were wars in which the

The Franks, the Slavs, the Lombards, the Spaniards,

opposition or dissent. The capital of their empire at

Arrajan, which is a part of Fars. The fires of this last

We have already mentioned that the Lombards are

the most wonderful. It is called Sabato. It is mentioned

100,000 men, to say nothing of foot soldiers, baggage

Sometime before the year 300/912-13, ships carrying

The Slavs are descended from Madhay, the son of

The Slavs are divided into several different peoples

kings which we have given are in fact dynastic titles.

are the original, pure-blooded Slavs, the most highly

io. Viking raiders

The Rus [Vikings who were established on the Russian

Naphtha [Baku] and harried as far as Azerbaijan -

in India but with this difference: there, the woman is

This latterjudge follows pagan law, which is the product

12. The Bulghars

The Khazars have ships which they sail on a river

Bulghars, carries vessels from both kingdoms. Burtas,

selves under their protection. At the present moment,

nation which has subjugated all the neighbouring

zy. Land of the midnight sun

In the land of the Bulghars the nights are extremely

14. The iron gates

The Caucasus is a great chain of mountains. This huge

different from their neighbours. The mountains are

and great power and compassion for the perilous situ­

are shaking and its foundations crumbling. We seek

zj. The Alans

The kingdom of the Alans borders on the Avars and

be taken or even approached without the permission

respected among kings. His lands are so densely popu­

to them by ship, and they in turn send goods there.

16. Jewish scholars and the Bible

The translation of the Bible from Hebrew into Greek

chosen al-FayyOml as their leader, and obeyed him.

17. The journey ofthe Three Magi

King Cyrus, who reigned at the time the Messiah was

way was guided by a star the king described to them.

18. The Empress Helena and the Invention

After the death of Diocletian, Constantine became the

some interest. After having been on the throne for ayear,

19. Constantine's vision of the cross

This is how Constantine, the son of Helena, entered

At the place where the Mediterranean joins the Atlan

Among the nations that border al-Andalus, the strong

and great power and compassion for the perilous situ

respected among kings. His lands are so densely popu

Helena, his mother, had already embraced Christian