LIBRARY 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