The Arab Geographer Al-Muqaddasi’s Reports on the 10th Century Qabq

Abstract

This paper provides information on the 10th century Qabq history on the basis of translation, commentary and comparative analysis of excerpts in relation to the history of Caucasian peoples from the Arabic geographical works Aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm (The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions) of al-Maqaddasī who undertook in a period of twenty years a series of journeys throughout the Muslim world. For this study al-Maqaddasī’s work might be considered as a valuable source because it contains information on the eastern Caucasus (Dagestan, in particular) like: the characteristics of cities, religious trends, distance between various settlements of the region etc. Moreover, I compared some reports on Qabq by al-Maqaddasī and al-Istakhri’s Kitab masalik al-mamalik (“Book of Kingdoms’ Roads“) in order to find out whether the origin of the material is the same for both authors. Also, I noted that N.A. Karaulov’s translation of fragments from al-Maqaddasī’s work on the history of Caucasus people which contains not just stylistic flaws and interpretational errors, but some fragments are missing from the Arabic texts. The results of this research can further the source study in writing the medieval history of Caucasus.

Keywords

• al-maqaddasī
• medieval history of dagestan
• aḥsan al-taqāsīm fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm
• kitab at-tanbih wa-l-ishraf
• arabic geography
• islamic historiography
• source study
• caucasus