Al-Mas‘udi

views updated

Al-Mas‘udi

Before 896–956

Historian

Education and Travels . Abu al-Husayn ‘Ali al-Mas’udi was an unconventional Shi’i writer who is accounted one of the most important Muslim historians. Born in Baghdad of Arab origin, he heard and possibly studied with eminent teachers such as Waki’ (died 918), al-Nawbakhti, and the well-known Mu’tazili al-Jubba’i (died 915), as well as perhaps al-Tabari (died 923), Ibn Durayd (died 934), and al-Ash’ari (died 935). Al-Mas’udi was also an associate of the well-known Abbasid historian and minister Abu Bakr al-Suli (died 946). These teachers gave him a solid background in the Muslim knowledge and intellectual currents available in the capital. Al-Mas’udi’s great scholarly curiosity and drive propelled him to study foreign books and languages, converse with non-Muslims, including Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, cultivate an interest in faraway places beyond the Muslim world in both space and time, and undertake extensive travels to research his interests. He was still in Baghdad in 912; by 915 he had reached Persia and then India. (He probably did not voyage to Sri Lanka or China.) In 917, he returned to Iraq via TJman. From 918 to 926, he traveled around Syria and may have visited Arabia. From about 932, he visited Armenia and the Caspian Sea region. In 941 or 942, he moved to Egypt, where he apparently spent the rest of his life, apart from another visit to Syria, including Damascus and Antioch, in 943. It is not known how he supported himself during his life, but he seems never to have held any government posts.

Works . During his lifetime al-Mas’udi wrote at least thirty-six works, of which only two survive. The larger of the two is his eclectic history, Muruj al-dhahab (Meadows of Gold), a universal history down to the time of its writing in 943 and revision in 947. The first part of this work goes into the history of the surrounding civilizations—including the Prankish, Byzantine, Indian, Chinese, and African—as well as the Muslim, in greater detail than is the case with other Muslim “universal” histories. Al-Mas’udi dwelt greatly on geography, the importance and effects of which he appears to have been well aware. His history includes frequent digressions with amusing stories and is characterized by an easy rather than a florid Arabic style. Although a Shi’i, al-Mas’udi carefully recorded the history of all the khalifahs down to his own time. His second work, Kitab al-tanbih iva-al-ishraf (Book of Information and Overview), written at the end of his life in 955–956, includes some of the same information in a summarized form. Despite the relative obscurity of his life, al-Mas’udi’s surviving works have had a great influence on history ever since and foreshadowed the broad and ecumenical interests of the much later historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406).