the link between the tribes and the edges of the world. The mysterious tribes
that rescue Eldad from the cannibals come from “another place” (makom aher),
which, eventually, turns out to be China.
Eldad’s use of the Arabic word for China (Assin) is also telling. While
China was certainly known during Roman times, it really became the world’s
new frontier only after the rise of Islam. While Alexander, who laid the
foundations of the Romanoikoumene,reached as far east as India, the Arabs
clashed with the Chinese in the battle of Talas in 751 CE.In 618 CE, after
centuries of political disarray that rendered it globally marginal, China,
under the Tang dynasty, had appeared as a major world power dominating
the eastern parts of the Indian Ocean and Asian trade routes that connected it
strongly to the Islamic world.^10 In the Arabic geographical imagination, China
remained the final frontier, the most distant place one could go.^11 Eldad
situates his story within this Arabic geographical imagination—a point under-
scored by his claim that he was on his way to Spain.^12 While China represented
the easternmost frontier in the Arabic geographical imagination, Spain (Anda-
lusia) stood for its westernmost edge.
This view of a world with Chinese and Spanish boundaries is also implied
in a ninth-century Midrash about the return of the ten tribes: “Behold, these
shall come from far; and lo, these from the north and from the west (Isaiah
49 : 12 ), that is, those who were held in far places, such as Spain [Espamia]. And
these from the land of Sinim.” This is the first time in the rabbinic literature
that the place names Spain and Sinim appear in the context of the ten tribes.
Predictably, the passage begins with the familiar formula that all Israel “who
were held in far places” (read, “the enclosedeschatoi”) shall return “from the
North and the West.”
As for the specific places mentioned, there is no problem identifying Spain
(Espamia), yet Sinim makes an interesting puzzle. Originally, Sinim was a
biblical place just south of the Holy Land (Sini) and was used once by Isaiah to
imply “south” (Isaiah 49 : 12 ). In this Midrash, however, Sinim is strangely
juxtaposed with Spain. It only makes sense if we read it as the contemporary,
post-seventh-century Hebrew word for China (Sin, or land of Sinim), and if we
place it within the Arabic geographical imagination. Whether or not Eldad was
familiar with this Midrash is less important than that, for him, Spain and
China were the borders of the world; he shared its author’s world view.
The impact of the much more informed and specific Islamo-Arabic geog-
raphy, of which the first instance we see is Eldad, is also felt in later writings
about the geography of the ten tribes. The notion of the “extreme Orient” was
discussed and elaborated by several Jewish scholars in the period between
Eldad and the appearance of the Prester John myth. Rabbi Sa‘adya Gaon
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