Al-Mas'udi writes ‘The Meadows of Gold’
In Fustat in the 940s the historian and traveller al-Mas'udi, sometimes called ‘the Herodotus of the Arabs’, wrote The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems, a universal history from the Creation to his own day combined with a description of the lands and peoples of the known world. Drawing on decades of travel from India to the Caspian, it is a key source on the Abbasid court and also on the Rus, the Khazars and Byzantium.
- Date
- between 943 and 947exact date unknown: an interval is given
- Place
- Fustattoday: Old Cairo, Cairo, Egypt · Middle East and Egypt
- Participants
- Al-Mas'udi
- Threads
- Middle East and Egypt (6th–10th c.)
- Also known as
- The Meadows of Gold; Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems; Muruj al-dhahab; Prairies d'or; Золотые луга; Мурудж аз-захаб; Золотые копи
Born in Baghdad around 890–896, al-Mas'udi spent much of his life travelling. His first recorded journey, in 915–916, took him through Khuzistan, Fars and Kerman to Sistan and Khorasan, across the Indus valley to the Punjab and Sind and down the western coast of India; later voyages took him to Oman and East Africa, to Yemen and the Hejaz, to Syria and northern Iraq, and to the lands around the Caspian and the Caucasus. Around 942 he settled in Fustat, the capital of Egypt, where he spent his last years.
Of the many works ascribed to him only two certainly survive. His great history, the Akhbar al-zaman, is lost; The Meadows of Gold (Muruj al-dhahab), conceived as a supplement to it, has come down in a draft of 943–944 or 947, while his revision of 956 is lost. It opens with the creation of the world, the shape of the earth and its seas and the histories and customs of the ancient nations — beginning with India — and then narrates Islamic history caliph by caliph down to the reign of al-Muti, mixing documented facts with anecdotes and poetry. Al-Mas'udi prized his own observation: ‘one who has spent his days roaming the earth’, he wrote, is a better authority than ‘one who huddles by the censer at home’.
The book is valued above all for what al-Mas'udi learned about the world beyond Islam. He wrote about India and China — for China drawing on Abu Zayd al-Sirafi, whom he met on the Persian Gulf — about the Turks and the Khazars, about Byzantium, whose affairs he probably learned from the convert admiral Leo of Tripoli, and about the Rus, whom he described as a numerous and varied people who traded and sailed on the Black Sea and the Caspian; his account of their raid on the Caspian shores ‘after the year 300’ (912–913) is the main source for it. His other surviving work, the Kitab al-tanbih wa-l-ishraf, finished shortly before his death in 956, corrected and supplemented The Meadows of Gold.
Connections
Related events
- Accounts of China and India: merchants’ reports on the sea route to Guangzhoubetween 851 and 852 · Middle East and Egyptal-Mas'udi drew on the Accounts and on what he heard from Abu Zayd al-Sirafi, who continued them
- Great Rus’ raid on the Caspianbetween 913 and 914 · Middle East and EgyptThe Meadows of Gold is the main source for the great Rus raid on the Caspian shores
- Al-Farabi completes ‘The Virtuous City’between September 942 and September 943 · Middle East and Egyptin his later Kitab al-tanbih (955/956) al-Mas'udi is the source for the date and place of al-Farabi's death
Same place
- Arab conquest of EgyptDecember 639 – September 642 · Middle East and Egypt
- Ahmad ibn Tulun rules Egypt: al-Qata'i and the Mosque of Ibn Tulun15 September 868 – 10 May 884 · Middle East and Egypt
- The Fatimids conquer Egypt and found Cairo6 February 969 – 10 June 973 · Middle East and Egypt
- Battle of Ridaniya22 January 1517 · Middle East and Egypt
- Battle of the Pyramids21 July 1798 · Middle East and Egypt
- French invasion of Egypt and Syria19 May 1798 – 2 September 1801 · Middle East and Egypt
- Muhammad Ali becomes ruler of EgyptMay 1805 · Middle East and Egypt
Adjacent events in the thread
- The Buyids take Baghdad19 December 945 · Middle East and Egypt
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Eastern Europe
- Drevlian uprising and death of Igor945
- Olga’s revenge on the Drevlians945–946
- Gnezdovo inscriptionbetween 925 and 960
- Constantine VII describes the Rus’ route to Constantinoplebetween 948 and 952
- Saltovo-Mayaki culturec. 750 – between 900 and 950
Balkans and Anatolia
- Rus’–Byzantine Treaty of 944between 944 and 945
- Igor’s campaigns against Byzantium11 June 941 – 944
Africa
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
Central and Northern Asia
- Samanid Bukhara and the rise of New Persian literature900–999
- Satuq Bughra Khan and the conversion of the Karakhanids to Islambetween 932 and 955 – 960
- The Samanid Mausoleum in Bukharabetween 892 and 943
South Asia
- Yashovarman builds the Lakshmana temple at Khajurahobetween 930 and 955
East Asia
- Fall of the Tang: the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms1 June 907 – 3 February 960
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Koh Ker, the capital of Jayavarman IVbetween 921 and 928 – 944
North America
- Pueblo II: stone pueblos and the Chaco worldc. 900 – c. 1150
- Plum Bayou Mounds: a planned ceremonial centre in the Arkansas valleyc. 650 – c. 1050
- The Late Woodland period in eastern North Americac. 500 – c. 1000
Latin America
- Middle Sicán: the Lambayeque culture at its height at Batán Grandec. 900 – c. 1100
- Classic Maya collapse in the southern lowlandsc. 800 – c. 950
- Rise of Chichén Itzá in northern Yucatánc. 800 – between 900 and 1000
- Tula and the Toltecs: the leading city of central Mexicoc. 900 – c. 1150
- Wari culture and the Middle Horizon state in the Central Andesc. 600 – c. 1000
+ 1 event
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Al-Masudi
- Wikipedia (English): The Meadows of Gold
- Wikipedia (Russian): Аль-Масуди
- Wikipedia (Russian): Золотые копи и россыпи самоцветов
- Cooperson M. Masʿudi // Encyclopaedia Iranica. — 2000
- Shboul A. M. H. Al-Masʿūdī and His World: A Muslim Humanist and His Interest in Non-Muslims. — London: Ithaca Press, 1979.
- Khalidi T. Islamic Historiography: The Histories of Masʿūdī. — Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975.
- Wikidata: Q1247744