The Arab geographer al-Idrisi (XII century) about the Turkic peoples of Central Asia

Abstract

The author of the article presents translations of the fragments of the 12th century geographer al-Idris composition "Nuzhat al-mushtak fi ikhtirak al-afak" ("Entertainment of the exhausted in wandering through the regions") concerning the peoples of Central Asia (the Kazakhs, Kirghizs, Turkmensi) from Arabic into Russian. Among other similar medieval geographical works, it is still poorly studied or even didn’t studied at all – there are no complete translations into Russian of source materials related to the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Despite the fact that the composition of al-Idrissi is geographical, in reality it carries a lot of information concerning the life of many Turkic tribes and peoples of Middle Asia in the Middle Ages. Therefore, it can rightly be called a historical and ethnographic composition, reflecting the spirit of the medieval era. Moreover, this work, among other Arab-Muslim ones, is one of the most informative geographical sources about the peoples of Central Asia. This translation will serve as a source for the development of archaeology, because it is connected with the determination of the ancient Turkic peoples places of settlement in the Central Asia. The translations were made by the author of the publication on the basis of the Italian edition of 1970–1984, which most correctly reflects the name of ethnonyms and geographical names of Central Asia.

Keywords

• regional studies
• archaeology
• al-idrisi
• peoples of central asia
• kimaks
• karluks
• oguzes