Chinese, Soghdian and northern Indian (Sindi) scripts. The author mentions that a
trustworthy informant had been sent by one of the kings of Mount al-Qabq (the
Caucasus) to the king of al-Rusiyya and had brought back to Ibn al-Nadim a sample of
‘writing through incision on wood’.
Bibliography: Arabic text: Al-Fihrist, R. Tajaddud (ed.), Teheran: Maktabat
Danishkah, 1971 ; English trans. by B. Dodge, The Fihrist of al-Nadim, New York:
Columbia University Press, 1970 ; R. Sellheim and M. Zakeri, Al-Fehrest, EIr,
vol. 9 : 475 – 7.[b] In his history, the Experiences of the Communities, the philosopher, bureaucrat
and librarian Miskawayh (d. 1030 ) describes the Rus assault on Bardhaa in the year
943 – 4. His description is vivid and is accompanied by intriguing observations on the
appearance of the Rus; their ethnic traits (ferocity, courage, willingness to die rather
than be taken prisoner); their weaponry; their insatiable hunger for spoils; and their
burial customs: Miskawayh notes that after the Rus had been driven from the town, the
Muslims disturbed the Rus graves and retrieved the valuable swords which had been
buried with the warriors. Miskawayh also describes how the Rus tried to coerce the
inhabitants of Bardhaa into cooperation and how they were defeated because of a
disease which spread when the Rus ate too much of the local fruit (diarrhoea?).
Bibliography: Arabic text with English trans.: The Eclipse of the Abbasid Caliphate,
by A.H.F. Amedroz and D.S. Margoliouth, Oxford: Blackwell, 1921 ; M. Arkoun,
Miskawayh, EI 2 , vol. 8 : 143 – 4.[d] In The Book of Instruction in the Elements of the Art of Astrology, the great scientist
al-Biruni is the first author in Arabic to mention the Warank, a people who live in the
northernmost reaches beyond the seventh clime. They have a sea, which is connected
with the Encircling Sea (i.e. the Okeanos of the Greeks) and passes the lands of the
Saqaliba and approaches the lands of the Bulghar (presumably Volga Bulgharia), and a
capital, Balyd (which has been identified as Poland); it is not to be confused with the
Bnts (the Black Sea) which flows past the lands of the Saqaliba and the Rus; that those
who live in the seventh clime as far north as Thwly are more like wild beasts than men:
this is where some Turkish tribes live, along with the Volga Bulghar, the Rus and the
Saqaliba. Beyond the seventh clime, live the likes of the Warank, the Ysw (the people
Ibn Fadlan refers to as Wysw: the Ves), and the Bardah (or possibly the Ywrah,
the Ugrians?). The Warank and the Rus are also located on a map in the principal
manuscript of the work.
Bibliography: Arabic text with English trans.: The Book of Instruction in the Elements
of the Art of Astrology, R. Ramsay Wright (ed.), London: Luzac, 1934 ; C.E. Bosworth
et al., Biruni, EIr, vol. 4 : 274 – 87.And so to our ‘false’ sources: the Andalusi Yahya ibn al-Hakam al-Ghazal (?) and
al-Jayhani. The bibliographers credit three generations of al-Jayhanis with the com-
position of a work entitled the Treatise on the Highways and the Kingdoms, a work which
al-Masudi and al-Muqaddasi say they consulted. The work was a family composition
–– J.E. Montgomery––