Shboul notes that al-Mas‘udi rewrote Muruj adh-dhahab. My aim has been to trace the lands and the histories of many peoples, and I have no other. The author of this work compares himself to a man, who having found pearls of all kinds and colours and gathers them together into a necklace of and makes them into an ornament that its possessor guards with great care. The information we have gathered here is the fruit of long years of research and painful efforts of our voyages and journeys across the East and the West, and of the various nations that lie beyond the regions of Islam. Near the ending of the The Meadows of Gold, al-Mas‘udi wrote: Lunde and Stone speculate that like many travelers he may have been involved in trade. There is not much known about how he supported himself during such extensive travels within and beyond the lands of Islam. In Egypt he found a copy of a Frankish king list from Clovis to Louis IV that had been written by an Andalusian bishop. He spent his last years in Syria and Egypt. From him the historian received much of his information about Byzantium. Leo was a Byzantine admiral who converted to Islam.
Lunde and Stone in the introduction to their English translation state that al-Mas‘udi received much information on China from Abu Zaid al-Sirafi whom he met on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Other writers include Sri Lanka and China among his travels.
He also sailed on the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and the Caspian.
He also travelled to the Indus Valley, and other parts of India, especially the western coast and he voyaged more than once to East Africa. His journeys took him to most of the Persian provinces, Armenia, Georgia and other regions of the Caspian Sea as well as to Arabia, Syria and Egypt. Although Ahamd Shboul questions the full extent of al-Mas‘udi's travels, even his more conservative estimation is impressive:Īl-Mas‘udi's travels actually occupied most of his life from at least 303/915 to very near the end. However, most of what is known of him comes from his own works. He mentions his association with many scholars in the lands through which he travelled. However, little else is known about his early years. Al-Mas‘udi states that he was born in Baghdad and that he was a descendant of Abdullah Ibn Mas'ud, a companion of the Prophet Muhammad.
0 kommentar(er)
