Ibn Khordadbeh

Ibn Chordadhbeh (c. 820; † about 912) was Postmaster General in media in western Persia.

Life

He wrote 847 geographically insightful work Kitāb al - Masālik wa l - Mamālik (book of the paths and country ), a route book for traders, in the trafficking routes and courier routes of the Islamic world, along with the post stations from the Caspian Sea and European Russia to Northwest Africa and Spain were documented. The occasion was probably the training of subordinates. The collection of his travel descriptions is exceptionally extensive and precise. Center of the Itinerariums is the city of Baghdad Caliph.

Ibn Chordadbeh had an Arab- pictorial, not dry clay. A special chapter is devoted to Jewish merchants subject who took as an intermediary between the warring Christians and Muslims a crucial role in land and sea trade the barbaric and economically moribund West with the Islamic world and the Orient linked to China, so that in the Occident since the 8th century took a continuing into the 11th century economic boom. To them, it says under the heading "The Way of the Jewish merchants, the so-called Radhaniten ":

" These merchants speak Persian, Romanesque (Greek and Latin ), Arabic, Franconian languages, Spanish and Slavic. Guests traveling from the West to the East and from east to west, soon to land and soon to water. From the Occident they bring eunuchs, female slaves and boys, silk, fur goods and swords. They embark in the land of the Franks on the Mediterranean and control Farama at (near the ruins of ancient Pelusium located ); there they load their goods on pack animals and embark at a distance of 20 farsakhs (unit of about 5.6 miles) in five days' march after Kolzoum ( = Suez ). On the eastern sea ( = Red Sea ) they go to El- Djar ( port of Medina ) and after Djeddah; then they go to Sind ( = Persia ), India and China. On their way back they have musk, Aloe, camphor, cinnamon and other products loaded from the Oriental regions and achieve Kolzoum, then Farama, where they re-embark on the Mediterranean. Some set sail to Constantinople Opel in order to sell their goods; others go into the land of the Franks. Sometimes the Jewish merchants take on the Mediterranean heading for Antioch. After three days' march they reach the banks of the Euphrates and come to Baghdad. There they drive on the Tigris to Basra, from where they sail to Oman, Persia, India and China. So you can travel without disruption. "

The original text of the route book is preserved in a codex at Oxford.