Ibn Khordadbeh

Abu'l Qasim Ubaid'Allah ibn Khordadbeh (Persian: ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خردادبه) (c. 820 – 912 CE), author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography,^[1] was a Persian geographer and bureaucrat of the 9th century. The son of a wealthy Persian family in northern Iran, he was appointed "Director of Posts and Intelligence" for the province of Djibal in northwestern Iran under the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutammid (ruled 869–885 CE). In this capacity ibn Khordadbeh served as both postmaster general and the Caliph's personal spymaster in that vital province.

Around 870 ibn Khordadbeh wrote Kitāb al Masālik w’al Mamālik (The Book of Roads and Kingdoms). In this work, ibn Khordadbeh described the various peoples and provinces of the Abbasid Caliphate. Along with maps, the book also includes descriptions of the land, people and culture of the Southern Asiatic coast as far as Brahamputra, The Andaman Islands, peninsular Malaysia and Java. The lands of Tang China, Unified Silla (Korea) and Japan are referenced within his work. It is one of the few surviving sources that describes the Jewish merchant company known as the Radhanites.

[edit] References

1. ^ Bosworth, C. Edmund "EBN KORDADBEH". Encyclopedia Iranica. Retrieved on 2008-02-07. 

[edit] Sources

• Adler, Elkan. Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages. New York: Dover Publications, 1987.
• Bendiner, Elmer. The Rise and Fall of Paradise. New York: Putnam Books, 1983.
• Bareket, Elinoar. "Rādhānites". in Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Norman Roth, ed. Routledge, 2002. pp 558-561.
• Fossier, Robert, ed. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages, vol. 1: 350-950. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Gil, Moshe. "The Radhanite Merchants and the Land of Radhan." in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 17:3 (1976). 299-328.
• Israeli, Raphael. "Medieval Muslim Travelers to China" in Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 2000

[edit] See also

• List of Iranian scholars

[edit] External links

• A Review of Muslim Geography

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