conducted research are an invaluable account of the Rus, second only to Ibn Fadlan’s
more famous (and more dramatic) description. Of al-Masudi’s works, only two have
survived: The Meadows of Gold and Mines of Jewels, written originally in 943 (only the
author’s revision of 947 has survived: it was revised by him once more in 956 ) (MG); The
Treatise of Reference and Supervision, his last work written in 955 – 6 , a reformulation of
many of his earlier works (RS). A third work which has survived (and from which
Seippel quotes two excerpts: The Treatise of the Accounts of the Age) attributed to
al-Masudi is in fact a work of popular geography written in the eleventh century.
[b] According to al-Masudi, on the authority of Ptolemy and Marinus, the island of
Thwly is the most northerly inhabited region of the earth (RS), and it forms part of
Brytanya (MG), situated in a lake, the Mayts (the Sea of Azov). Lake Mayts is connected
with the Bnts (i.e. the Pontus, the Black Sea), the sea of the Bulghar, the Rus (RS), the
Petchenegs and the Bashjirt (RS and MG). The Bnts Sea stretches from the lands of
al-Ladhqah (for which a plethora of suggestions exist: see Shboul, p. 174 : it is ortho-
graphically cognate with Wdhana, and may be a scribal corruption of Kwyaba,
Kiev), and is fed by the Don (Tnys), the river along which many of the descendants of
Yafith b. Nuh ( Japheth the son of Noah) live: they include the Franks, the pre-Islamic
Andalusians and the Rus (MG). The Saqaliba in particular are the descendants of
Madhay b. Yafith (MG) (see Said ibn al-Bitriq above and Ibrahim ibn Yaqub below).
Al-Masudi suggests that some of his predecessors may have confused the Rus with the
Khazar, because the Rus vessels use the River Atil as their sole means of access to the
Caspian (MG). The Rus, along with the Bulghar, the Ifranja and the Saqaliba, inhabit
the vicinities of al-Qabq Mountains (RS); the Rum (Byzantines) call them Rwsya,
meaning ‘red’ (RS), and have built a settlement on the Black Sea and forts along the
Hellespont to repulse the vessels of al-Kwdhkanah (another scribal corruption of al-
Kwyabah, Kiev?) and other types of al-Rus (RS and MG); [c] in the 950 s the Byzantines
used the Rus who had settled in their lands to garrison the fortresses along their
northern marches (RS).
According to the MG, the Rus have a sea which only they use (presumably the Bnts
and its contiguous lake the Mayts); they are a mighty, pre-scriptural people with no
revealed law, and do not recognise the sovereignty of any king; their merchants frequent
the king of the (Volga) Bulghar; and they have a silver-mine in their territory; they
are made up of many kinds, the most numerous among whom are al-Lwdhana who
frequently sail to al-Andalus, Rome, Constantinople and Khazaria; around the year
912 – 13 , the Rus raided the Caspian Sea with dramatic consequences for the geo-
political organisation of the region: al-Masudi notes that after the wholesale slaughter
of these raiders on their return journey up the Volga, the Rus have not dared to return.
Al-Masudi also describes another group of Rus: the Saqaliba and the Rus who serve
the Khazar king as slave-soldiers, living in the capital Atil on one bank of the Volga;
they are a pre-scriptural people who cremate their dead, along with their horses, equip-
ment and jewelery; a man’s wife is burned along with his body, but he is not burned
when she dies; if one of them dies a bachelor, he is married after his death; the women
believe that by sacrificing themselves thus they will enter the Garden (i.e. Paradise);
they have a judge in the Khazar imperial administration who judges in accordance with
reason (and not revealed law); the king of the Khazar is not to be confused with the
Khaqan (MG). This passage covers all of the principal features of the Rus as described by
–– J.E. Montgomery––