Table Of ContentLIBRARY OF MIDDLE EAST HISTORY
Series ISBN: 978-1-84885-242-6
See www.ibtauris.com/LMEH for a full list of titles
10. Confronting an Empire, Constructing a Nati~n: 19. Mu/iammad ibn J\bd al-Wahhab: The Man
Arab Nationalists and Popular Politics in Mandate and his Works
Palestine 'Abd Allah $ali[:i al-'Uthaymin
Weldon C. Matthews 978 1 84511 791 7
978 I 845ll 173 I
20. Jerusalem: From the Ottomans to the British
II. Post-colonial Syria and Lebanon: The Decline of Roberto Mazza
Arab Nationalism and the Triumph of the State 978 I 84511 937 9
Youssef Chaitani
21. Mamluk History Through Architecture:
Introduction by Patrick Seale
Monuments, Culture and Politics in Medieval
978 I 84511 294 3
Egypt and Syria
12. Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country Nasser Rabbat (ed.)
Peter Sluglett 978 I 845ll 964 5
978 I 85043 769 7
22. Islam, Orientalism and Intellectual History:
13. Islamic Jerusalem and its Christians: A History Modernity and the Politics of Exclusion since Ibn
of Tolerance and Tensions Kha/dun
Maher Abu-Munshar Mohammad R. Salama
978 1 84511 353 7 978 I 84885 005 7
14. Berber Government: The Kabyle Polity in Pre 23. The Travels of Ibn al-Tayyib: The Forgotten Journey
colonial Algeria of an Eighteenth Century Traveller to the Hijaz
Hugh Roberts Mustapha Lahlali, Salah Al-Dihan and
978 I 84511 251 6 Wafa Abu Hatab
978 1 84885 006 4
15. Islam and the Victorians: Nineteenth-Century
Perceptions of Muslim Practices and Beliefs 24. Patronage and Poetry in the Islamic World: Social
Shahin Kuli Khan Khattak Mobility and Status in the Medieval Middle East
978 184511 429 9 and Central Asia
Jocelyn Sharlet
16. Transforming Damascus: Space and Modernity
978 I 84885 369 0
in an Islamic City
Leila Hudson 25. Hardship and Deliverance in the Islamic Tradition:
978 I 84511 579 I Theology and Spirituality in the Works ofA l-Tanfi.ki
Nouha Khalifa
17. Diplomacy in the Early Islamic World: A Tenth
978 I 84885 117 7
century Treatise on Arab-Byzantine Relations
Maria Vaiou 26. Religion and Mysticism in Early Islam: The
978 I 84511 652 I Theology, Sufism and Legacy ofA hmad Ibn J\lwun
Muhammad Ali Aziz
18. The Almohads: The Rise of an Islamic Empire
978 I 84885 450 5
Allen J. Fromherz
978 1 84511 651 4 27. Mapping Frontiers across Medieval Islam:
Geography, Translation, and the 'Abbasid Empire
Travis Zadeh
978 I 84885 451 2
MAPPING FRONTIERS
ACROSS
MEDIEVAL ISLAM
Geography, Translation, and
the cAbbasid Empire
Travis Zadeh
Published in 2011 by l.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright© 2011 Travis Zadeh
The right of Travis Zadeh to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the
author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and .Patent Act 1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may
not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior written permission of the publisher.
Library of Middle East History 27
ISBN 978 1 84885 451 2
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham
Edited by Valerie J. Turner, www.valeriejoyturner.com
Typeset by Muhammad I. Hozien, www.scholarlytype.com
CONTENTS
Plates, Figures, and Maps vii
Note on Conventions ix
Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
SECTION ONE: GEOGRAPHY, TRANSLATION, AND THE APOCALYPSE
1. Routes and Realms 15
2. Models of Translation 34
3. Al-Wathiq and the Translators 49
SECTION Two: MARVELOUS ALTERITY
4. A Geography of Neighbors 67
5. A Wondrous Barrier 97
SECTION THREE: BEYOND THE WALL
6. To Live to Tell 129
7. Beyond the Walls of the Orient 148
Conclusion 179
Postscript: Royal Graffiti 188
vi MAPPING FRONTIERS ACROSS MEDIEVAL !SLAM
Appendix 1: The Dissemination of the Adventure 193
Appendix 2: The Vienna Recension 195
Appendix 3: The Bodleian Recension 201
Appendix 4: The Idrzsi Recension 205
List of Abbreviations 208
Notes 211
Bibliography
Index of People
Index of Places
Index of Subjects and Terms
Index of Scriptural Citations
PLATES, FIGURES, AND MAPS
Plates
Plate 1: People of Gog and Magog sighted by merchants, Shahmardan
b. Abi '1-Khayr, Nuzhat-niima-i 'alii'i.
Plate 2: The expedition of Alexander the Great in the Encircling Ocean,
Zakariyya' al-Qazwini, 'Ajii'ib al-makhluqiit.
Plate 3: Khusraw Anushirwan's dream of the creature from the Caspian
Sea, Zakariyya' al-Qazwini, 'Ajii'ib al-makhluqiit.
Plate 4: Qibla map, Zakariyya' al-Qazwini, Athiir al-biliid.
Plate 5: Iskandar builds a wall against the people of Gog and Magog,
Abu '1-Qasim al-Firdawsi, Shiih-niima.
Plate 6a: Mappa mundi, Abu 'Abd Allah al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-mushtiiq.
Plate 6b: Detail of mappa mundi, Abu 'Abd Allah al-Idrisi, Nuzhat
al-mushtiiq.
Plate 7: Magnified view of the gate to Dhu '1-Qarnayn's wall, from Abu
'Abd Allah al-Idrisi's Nuzhat al-mushtiiq.
Plate 8: Detail of Dhu '1-Qarnayn's gate in a mappa mundi, from an
anonymous Egyptian manuscript, entitled Kitiib gharii'ib
al-funun wa mula~ al-'uyun.
Plate 9: Sallam al-Tarjuman observing a maiden, Zakariyya' al-QazwinI,
'Ajii'ib al-makhluqiit.
Plate 10: Sallam al-Tarjuman shown the wall of Gog and Magog in a
compilation entitled 'Ajii'ib al-buldiin.
viii MAPPING FRONTIERS ACROSS MEDIEVAL !SLAM
Plate u: Mappa mundi, with the gate and wall of Gog and Magog,
Abu '1-Qasim al-Zayyani, Ri~lat al-~udhdhaq.
Plate 12: Mappa mundi attributed to Abu Yusuf al-Kindi and Atmad b.
al-Tayyib al-Sarakhsi.
Plate 13: Detail of emended section of Ibn Khurradadhbih, al-Masdlik
wa '1-mamdlik.
Plate 14: Ibn Fa~lan shown a dead giant from the people of Gog and
Magog, Mutammad b. Matmud al-Tusi, 'Aja'ib-nama.
Figures
Figure 1: The Early 'Abbasid Caliphs xiv
Figure 2: Kishwar map 85
Figure 3: Recensions ofSallam's Adventure 194
Maps
Map 1: The 'Abbasid World circa 225/840 xiii
Map 2: The Khazar and Neighboring Regions
Map 3: Transoxiana and Central Asia 122
NOTE ON CONVENTIONS
Arabic and Persian transliterations follow a modified system based on
the standard of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IfM ES).
Syriac transliteration largely parallels Gotthelf Bergstrii6er, Einfuhrung in
die semitischen Sprachen (1928); eastern pronunciation is used, with the
spirantization marked, but without notation of the schwa. The transcrip
tion of Middle Persian follows the system developed by D. N. Mackenzie.
Unpointed or otherwise illegible graphemes, such as an undotted tooth
(the base for 'b; 't; etc.), or an unvocalized consonantal form, are indicated
with a period. Chinese characters are Romanized using simplified pinyin
transcription. Names and toponyms from non-Latin alphabets are transliter
ated unless common to English. The genealogical sequence Zayd ibn Zayd,
etc., is abbreviated with 'b: for ibn (son); the definite article on the nisba
and the laqab is dropped after its first appearance, i.e., from 'al-Bukhari' to
'Bukhari:; or 'al-JaJ:ii:f to 'JaJ:ii?-; and so forth. However, definite articles are
maintained for honorifics and formal titles, i.e., al-Man~ur. Dates preceding
the start of the Islamic calendar are given according to the common era;
dates pertaining to Islamic history are indicated both in hijri and Common
Era forms. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
"La Biblioteca es ilimitada y peri6dica"
- Jorge Luis Borges
The bulge-eyed literary luminary ofBasra, Abu 'Uthman al-Ja\:ii'.? was never
known to have been much of a traveler, at least according to the geographical
authorities, though he clearly enjoyed compiling entertaining anecdotes
from far-off lands. In popular legend, he is said to have been crushed to
death in old age when his library collapsed upon him. Such has been the
fate of bibliophiles. As for their books, in a pattern of seemingly chaotic
dispersal, they have traveled along crossroads on camelback, pausing at
the remnants of abandoned campsites in the stretching dunes of history;
they have been put up for sale in book markets, copied along the way from
hand to print to critical editions, translated into, at times, not so willing
forms, stacked into archives and libraries, and ultimately lost altogether.
While this is a book for travelers, or at least made up of them, it, too,
will undoubtedly share a similar fate of dispersal and loss-though that
is another story altogether. For this is a tale not only of the effacement
of knowledge, but of its dissemination and re-creation. Much of the
groundwork for this tour through the archives was prepared in the service
of my doctoral research, which traced the formation of frontiers, as well
as their maintenance and dissolution in acts of translation. This current
book fits into a larger project on translation and knowledge in medieval
Islamic intellectual history. For now, this leads us to the exotic world of
geography with its own attachment to imperial archives. The companion to
this book follows the problem of mediating alterity, not in the realm of the
monstrous and the mundane, but through the sublime word of revelation.
This project has developed through the support of many mentors,
friends and librarians. I would like to express particular gratitude to Luis
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi
Giron-Negron, Wolfhart Heinrichs, Roy Mottehadeh, and Wheeler Thackston,
who, during my doctoral research at Harvard University (2007), helped to
illuminate this long and tortuous path with their overflowing erudition.
Special thanks goes to Katharine Park for introducing me to the wondrous
world of Latin paleography; Mary Gaylord for helping me get started on
this quixotic adventure; the late Mohammad Arkoun for his advice on 'ajii'ib
literature; Shawkat Toorawa for even more wonders upon wonders; James
Montgomery, whose work has been a constant inspiration; Todd Lawson
for his input on Islamic apocalyptic; Sidney Griffith and Alexander Treiger
for their philological expertise; Susan Halpert at Houghton Library, who
made the collection all the more accessible; Mary Mc Williams, Curator of
the Islamic and Later Indian Art Collection at the Harvard Sackler Museum,
for her gracious support during a Mellon fellowship in Islamic art working
with the Sadder collection; Jeffrey Spurr and Andras Riedlmayer from the
Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard's Fine Arts Library;
James Gulick, Rob Haley, and the library staff at Haverford College; Betsy
Kohut at the Smithsonian Institution; Nicole Fiirtig at the Staatsbibliothek
of Berlin; Andreas Fingernagel at the bsterreichische Nationalbibliothek;
Sinead Ward at the Chester Beatty Library; Dorothy Clayton at the John
Rylands Library; Gillian Evison at the Special Collections of the Bodleian
Library, as well as Colin Barker and Muhammad Isa Waley in the Arabic
and Persian archives of the British Library, all of whom were extremely
solicitous and helpful in the course of my research; Christian Lange for
the many years of friendship and for our discussion of the Ifu dud al-'iilam
on a Swiss chairlift; Matthew Melvin-Koushki for leading me through
the archives of Rabat; Dan Sheffield for his encyclopedic knowledge of
pre-Islamic Iran; shaykh Isam Eydoo at the University of Damascus; the
year-long Humanities Center workshop, "Exploring frontiers in the histories
oflslamicate Societies (2005-6);' run by Supriya Gandhi and Aliya Iqbal,
which offered a sustained and lasting forum consistently germane to the
development of my research. Furthermore, I would also like to acknowledge
the invaluable advice and suggestions offered by various colleagues-Blain
Auer, Jason Clower, Alexander Key, Luke Leafgren, Elias Muhanna, Martin
Nguyen, and Naseem Surhio. Particular gratitude also goes to Valerie
Turner for her patient and watchful eye.
My work has benefited from the generous support of a Fulbright-Hays
dissertation research grant, a Harvard Sheldon travel grant, a TAARII
summer grant for archival work in Europe, as well as a year-long Mellon
Humanities Center fellowship at Harvard University. Faculty research
grants from the Provost's Office at Haverford College have made possible
