Hudud al-'Alam

The Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (Arabic: حدود العالم, lit. "Boundaries of the World," "Limits of the World," or also in English "The Regions of the World"^[1]) is a 10th-century geography book written in Persian by an anonymous author from Guzgan (present day northern Afghanistan),^[2] possibly Šaʿyā bin Farīghūn.^[1] The title in full is حدود العالم من المشرق الی المغرب (Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam min al-Mashriq ilá l-Maghrib, lit. "The Boundaries of the World from the East to the West").

The sections of its geographical treatise which describes the margins of Islamic world, are of great historical importance, including early descriptions of the Turkic peoples in Central Asia.^[3] Also noteworthy is the archaic language and style of the Ḥudud, which makes it a valuable Persian linguistic document as well.^[1]

In regards to the title, Vladimir Minorsky commented on it in his 1937 translation as follows: "The word ḥudūd (properly 'boundaries') in our case evidently refers to the 'regions within definite boundaries' into which the world is divided in the Ḥ.-'Ā., the author indicating with special care the frontiers of each one of these areas, v.i., p. 30."

Finished in 982 CE, it was dedicated to Abu'l Haret Muhammad, the ruler of the Farighunids. Its author is unknown, but Vladimir Minorsky surmised that it might have been written by the enigmatic Šaʿyā bin Farīghūn.^[1] The available text of Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam is part of a larger manuscript which contains other works:

A copy of the Jahān-Nāma ("Book of The World") by Muḥammad ibn Najīb Bakrān;
A short passage about music;
The Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam;
The Jāmiʿ al-ʿUlūm ("Collection of Knowledge") by Fakhr al-Din al-Razi;

The Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam contains information about the known world at the time. The anonymous author reports about different countries (nāḥiyat), people, languages, clothing, food, religion, local products, towns and cities, rivers, seas, lakes, islands, the steppe, deserts, topography, politics and dynasties, as well as trade. The inhabited world is divided in Asia, Europe and "Libya" (i.e. the Maghreb). The author counts 45 countries north of the equator.^{[citation needed]} Among other things, Hudud al-Alam appears to mention a Rus' Khaganate; it refers to the Rus' king as "Khāqān-i Rus".^[4]

The author never visited those countries personally, but rather compiled the book from earlier works and tales.^[5] He did not indicate his sources, but researchers deduced several 9th-century sources.^[5] Minorsky (1937) reconstructed them as follows:

Non-literary sources, including yādhkird-i haklmān ("memories of the sages"), akhbār ("information [heard]"; more fully ha-akhbār-hā ba-shanidim, "the information that we have heard"), and dhikr ("mention").^[6] It is unclear whether or not these non-literary sources included the author's personal experiences, which were probably limited to his home region of Guzganan, and maybe Gilan.^[7]
Books, called kitāb-hā-yipīshīnagān ("books of the predecessors").^[5]

(a) Ibn Khordadbeh (I.Kh.), Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Arabic: كِتَاب ٱلْمَسَالِك وَٱلْمَمَالِك, romanized: Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik).^[6] This work shows overlap with the similarly titled now-lost book Kitāb al-Masālik wal-Mamālik written by Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Jayhani, and therefore these books were sometimes confused with each other.^[8]

(b) An unknown source also used by Ahmad ibn Rustah, Al-Bakri, Gardizi, Muhammad Aufi, and others.^[9] This unknown source is usually identified as the lost book Kitāb al-Masālik wal-Mamālik written by Jayhani.^[9]

(c) Istakhri (Ist.), Masālik al-Mamālik (مسالك الممالك, "Routes of the Realms") or kitab al-masalik wa-l-mamalik (Arabic: كتاب المسالك والممالك "Book of Roads and Kingdoms", or "Book of the Paths and Provinces"^[10]).^[11] As his source, Istakhri used the work of Abu Zayd al-Balkhi, the Figures of the Regions (Suwar al-aqalim), and thus he belonged to the Balkhī school.^[12] The Balkhī school also included Ibn Hawqal and Al-Maqdisi, whose works show significant overlap with the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, but they appear to have directly copied their content from Istakhri rather than via Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam.^[13]

(d) Al-Masudi, The Meadows of Gold. According to Minorsky (1937), as Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam contains more details about the same topics, the author probably did not directly copy from Masudi's work, but they both drew from a common source 'of which Mas'udī possessed only an abstract. Possibly the same source is responsible for the interesting details on Gīlān.'^[14]

(e) Some contents about Arabia appear to derive from Hamdani's Geography of the Arabian Peninsula (Arabic: صفة جزيرة العرب, romanized: Sifat Jazirat ul-Arab), perhaps a more complete version of Ibn Khordadbeh's work, or a yet unknown source.^[14]

Chapters

Preface
The disposition (nihādh) of the Earth; the amount of (its) cultivation and lack of cultivation (miqdār-i ābādhānī va vīrānī) and its countries (nāḥiyat-hā)
The Seas
The Islands
The Mountains
The Rivers
The Deserts
The countries (nāḥiyat-hā) of the World
The country (nāḥiyat) of Chīnistān
The country of Hindūstān
The country of Tibet
The country of the Toghuzghuz and Tātār
The country of the Yaghmā
The country of the Khirkhīz
The country of the Khallukh
The country of the Chigil
The country of the Tukhs
The country of the Kīmāk
The country of the Ghūz
The country of the Pechenegs (Cumans)
The country of the Khifjākh
The country of the Majgharī
The country of Khurāsān
The country of the Marches (ḥudūd) of Khurāsān
The country of Transoxania
The country of the Marches (ḥudūd) of Transoxania
The country of Sind
The country of Kirmān
The country of Fārs
The country of Khūzistān
The country of Jibāl
The country of Daylamān (all the Iranian Caspian region)
The country of 'Irāq
The country of Jazīra
The country of Ādharbādhagān
The country of Armīniya and Arrān
The country of the Arabs
The country of Syria (Shām)
The country of Egypt
The country of Maghrib
The country of Spain (Andalus)
The country of Byzantium (Rūm) (Includes all of christian Europe, including France, Rome and Britain)
The country of the Slavs (Ṣaqlāb)
The country of the Rūs
The country of the Inner Bulghār
The country of the Mirvāt
The country of the Khazarian Pechenegs
The country of the Alān
The country of the Sarīr
The country of the Khazar
The country of the Burṭās (Bolghar and Suvar)
The country of the Barādhās
The country of the V.n.nd.r (The Volga Bulgarian tribes of Esegel, Barsil and Bulgar)
Southern Inhabited Lands
The country of Zangistān
The country of Zābaj
The country of Abyssinia
The country of Buja
The country of Nubia
The country of the Sūdān
Epilogue of the book

Rediscovery and translation

The Orientalist scholar Alexander Tumansky found a manuscript with a copy of this text in 1892 in Bukhara. The copy from the original was made by the Persian chronographer Abu l-Mu'ayyad ʿAbd al-Qayyūm ibn al-Ḥusain ibn 'Alī al-Farīsī in 1258.^[2] The facsimile edition with introduction and index was published by Vasily Bartold in 1930; a thoroughly commented English translation was made by Vladmir Minorsky in 1937, and a printed Persian text by Manouchehr Sotudeh in 1962.^[15]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Hudud al-'Alam" at Encyclopædia Iranica
^ ^a ^b C. E. Bosworth in: Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, s.v. ḤUDŪD AL-ʿĀLAM
^ Bosworth & Asimov 2003, p. 221.
^ Minorsky 1937, p. 159.
^ ^a ^b ^c Minorsky 1937, p. xiv.
^ ^a ^b Minorsky 1937, p. xvi.
^ Minorsky 1937, p. xiv–xv.
^ Minorsky 1937, p. xvi–xvii.
^ ^a ^b Minorsky 1937, p. xvii.
^ Fr. Taeschner in Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition, s.v. Djughrāfīya
^ Minorsky 1937, p. xviii.
^ Minorsky 1937, p. xviii–xix, 5.
^ Minorsky 1937, p. xviii–xix.
^ ^a ^b Minorsky 1937, p. xix.
^ The Hejri-ye Shamsi date on the title page of Sotudeh's edition reads in Persian "esfand-mah 1340"; on the 4. cover page, which is in English, the year "1962" is written.