Mission to the Volga by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan

Author:Ahmad Ibn Fadlan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2017-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

IBN FAḌLĀN’S LOGBOOK: AN IMAGINED RECONSTRUCTION

[4] We traveled from Baghdad, City of Peace, on Thursday, the twelfth of Safar, 309 [June 21, 921]. We stayed one day in Nahrawān, then rode hard until we reached al-Daskarah, where we stayed three days. Then we traveled without delay or diversion and came to Ḥulwān, where we stayed two days. From there we traveled to Qirmīsīn, where we stayed another two days, and next arrived at Hamadhān, where we stayed three days. We traveled to Sāwah and, after two days, on to Rayy, where we stayed eleven days, until Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī, the brother of Ṣuʿlūk, had left Khuwār al-Rayy. Then we traveled to Khuwār al-Rayy itself and three days later to Simnān, then on to al-Dāmghān, where our caravan happened to encounter Ibn Qārin, who was preaching on behalf of the dāʿī. We concealed our identity and hurried to Nishapur, where we met Ḥammawayh Kūsā, the field marshal of Khurasan. Līlī ibn Nuʿmān had just been killed. Then we proceeded to Sarakhs, Marw, and Qushmahān, at the edge of the Āmul desert. We stayed three days there and changed camels for the desert journey. We crossed the desert to Āmul and then reached Āfr*n, the outpost of Ṭāhir ibn ʿAlī, on the other side of the Jayḥūn. [5] We traveled via Baykand to Bukhara, where we went straight to al-Jayhānī, the chancellor of the emir of Khurasan, known there as the chief shaykh. He had ordered a residence for us and had appointed someone to attend to all our needs and concerns and make sure that we experienced no difficulty in getting what we wanted. After a few days, he arranged an audience with Naṣr ibn Aḥmad…. [6] Al-Faḍl ibn Mūsā al-Naṣrānī, Ibn al-Furāt’s agent, got wind of this and came up with a plan to deal with Aḥmad ibn Mūsā. He wrote to the deputies of the superintendent of the Khurasan highway, in the military district of Sarakhs-Baykand…. Aḥmad ibn Mūsā was later arrested in Marw and put in chains. We stayed twenty-eight days in Bukhara. [8] … We left Bukhara and returned to the river, where we hired a boat for Khwārazm, more than two hundred farsakhs from where we hired the boat. We were able to travel only part of the day. A whole day’s travel was impossible because of the cold. When we got to Khwārazm, we were given an audience with the emir, Muḥammad ibn ʿIrāq Khwārazm-Shāh…. We sailed downriver from Khwārazm to al-Jurjāniyyah. The distance, by water, is fifty farsakhs. [10] We stayed several days in al-Jurjāniyyah. The River Jayḥūn froze over completely, from beginning to end…. [12] We were in al-Jurjāniyyah for a long time: several days of Rajab, and all of Shaʿban, Ramadan, and Shawwal…. [13] Halfway into Shawwal, 309 [February, 922], the season began to change and the river Jayḥūn melted. We set about acquiring the items we needed for our journey. We purchased Turkish camels, constructed the camel-skin rafts for crossing all

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