იბნ ხორდადბეჰის ცნობები პროვინციების ’აზარბაჲჯანის და ’არმ‹ნიჲას და კავკასიის შესახებ ხელნაწერ Meshhed, Astan Quds 15189-ის მიხედვით

Abstract

Ibn Khordadbeh was a 9th century geographer of Persian origin. According to Ibn an-Nadim, he should have been the author of eight books. Only two of them have been discovered and published, including ,,the Book of amusements and musical instruments'' and ,,the Book of Roads and Kingdoms ''. Ibn Khordadbeh created two versions of this last book, the date of writing of the first of them is 846-847 (232 A.H.), and the second is 885. Three crucial themes dominate this geographical work: taxation; the situation at the borders and bordering areas; and roads, with distances and directions. It should be noted that the reports refer to a relatively large area from Spain to the Korean peninsula and from the head of the Volga to Indonesia. It is noteworthy that Ibn Khordadbeh is the author of one of the first geographical works in the history of the Arab-Islamic Caliphate, whose work has come down to us. European researchers have been interested in Ibn Khordadbeh's geographical writings since the second half of the 19th century. The first critical edition of Arabic text was published in 1865 by the orientalist Charles de Maynard, based on two different manuscripts. A little later, de Goeje published a new edition in 1889 with a French translation based on 3 manuscripts. It should be noted that the information about the Caucasus, according to de Goeje's edition, was translated into Russian by N. A. Karaulov, published in 1903 in the XXXII issue of СМОМПК, a complete translation of the text into Russian was published by N. Velikhanova, with extensive comments, in 1986 in Baku. In 2022, our thesis was published, one of the sub-chapters was about the reports of Ibn Khordadbeh according to the editorship of De Goeje. As for the manuscript Meshhed, Astan Quds 15189, it became known to the general public by the article L'AzerbaÏdjan et l'Arménie dans un fragment inédit d'Ibn Ḫurradāḏbih (Meshhed, Astan Quds 15189) by Jean-Charles Ducéne published in the ,,Journal Asiatique'' 2021, #309/2. References from the given manuscript are much more extensive in relation to Adarbayğān and Armīniya. However, it does not include the references scattered in different chapters in Ibn Khordadbeh's work done by de Goeje’s edition. For example, the description of the wall of Yāğūğ and Māğūğ, talks about the journey of Salam at-Tarğuman and the status of Amira Ishaq ibn Ibrahim. The manuscript consists of 8 pages in total and the information contained in it refers to the cities and distances of Adarbayğān and Armīniya. The dimensions of the manuscript are 27 cm. at 16.5 cm. The manuscript is bound in one hand and has about 17 lines per page. Diacritical marks are rarely used and most of the text is unvocalised. One detail is also different, in de Goeje's edition we have one title and subsequently, under it, the regions, routes and others are united. In the manuscript Meshhed, Astan Quds 15189, it seems that different directions are broken as titles, for instance: The road from Marāgha to Salamās or The towns of Armīniya. As for novelty, to follow the text, it is interesting the note about the gates of Marāgha, which is given in the paragraph Road from ad-Dīnawar to Adarbayğān. The manuscript names 6 gates and describes of the various areas of trade destinations that were located near or between the gates. There is also a note of the Qūlsara market, which is more extensive than other existing reports. It specifies the number of trading days, goods and their total value. It seems that this fair was used to connect the people of Adarbayğān and Armīniya. References often contain various Rustāks that are not in de Goeje's edition, and most of their names require furder clarification and additional researche. However, this is not an easy task because, often, they are just names of villages, and therefore, over time, they disappeared. Another issue is their amount for example, Wrtān has 4 Rustāks, whit 90 villages. Or Mūkān, which should have had 4 thousand villages. The accuracy of correct rendering of names and their Arabicized forms is also a problem. The road given in de Goeje's edition from ad-Dīnavar to Barzand, Jean-Charles Ducéne points out that is the same reference in the manuscript Meshhed, Astan Quds 15189, given the route taken by Muḥammad ibn Ḥamūd. However, this is not entirely accurate, although some references match, the information given by de Goeje's edition is much more extensive and many more places are named in the itinerary. We believe that these references are significantly different from each other and we have less similarity between them. Distances and routes from Tbilisi to different directions are worthy of attention for us. As usual, the distances to Tbilisi can be found in Arabic historiographical or geographical writings of the Middle Ages. For example, from Dvini to Tbilisi and from Barda to Tbilisi, as it is given even in this manuscript. But also, in this case, we have that rare exception, in which the cut-off point is Tbilisi: There are 53 farsakhs between Tiflīs and Dabīl, and 30 farsakhs between Dabīl and Khilāṭ. There are 14 farsakhs between Nashawā and Khūy, 60 farsakhs between Nashawā and Khilāṭ, 10 farsakhs between Khilāṭ and Tiflīs. There are 32 farsakhs between Tiflīs and Mutawakiliya, 20 farsakhs between Tiflīs and Qisāl, 12 farsakhs between Qisāl and Mutawakiliya, 27 farsakhs between Tiflīs and Bāb al-Lān ( ﯨاﯨلان ), and 80 farsakhs between Tiflīs and Kālīlkalā. It is also interesting for us to mention the toponym 'Aḥrān. We make a cautious assumption that this toponym could mean Hereti. As far as the mentioned toponym is named next to Tsanar, Derbent, Tbilisi, Soghdabil, Darial and Ğurzan. This may be the first confirmed mention of Hereti in medieval Arabic references. However, just one reference is not enough to say anything conclusively. We would also like to respond to the toponym 'Abkhāz ( ابخاز ) mentioned in the reference, on which Jean-Charles Ducéne indicates in his commentary that this term refers to the territory of the ,,Abkhazian'' people and Abkhazia of Georgia is not meant here. We think that here the author makes a certain mistake, and we should mean modern Lahich, under the mentioned toponym Lāyğān ( لایجان ). As the Arabic graphics of the toponym Lāyğān is close to al- 'Abkhāz, and this is not the first time when these names are confused (as an example, we have al-Istakhri). In addition, the Arab-Muslim authors used the name Abkhaz to denote Georgians and Georgia. We will also add that the named toponym was located in the eastern Caucasus, which place was never settled by any tribe with the name "Abkhaz", even more so the name of the city founded by them. We would also like to mention the toponym Ḥayzān/Khayzān, which is also given in this reference. In an article we published in 2021, we talked about the fact that Khayzān was not the same Khaydāk as some scholars believed. In this case, we have a report in which both toponyms are mentioned separately, we have the village of Khayzān and Ṣāḥib Khaydāk. Thus, the sameness of these two names is once again ruled out and they are different places. At the end of the references, there is another interesting name Ṣāḥib al-Qurğ or owner of al-Qurğ. It is impossible to say what can be meant here for sure. But since the Ğurzan form is mentioned in the text, we may take al-Qurğ as an ethnonym. It is also not excluded that, al-Qurğ can be the name of some parts of Kartli, even Inner Kartli, and the name Ğurzan is name of the whole of Eastern Georgia. To summarize, the fragment of Ibn Khordadbeh's manuscript, which fortunately for us refers to the Caucasus region, is a rather interesting source. The mentioned material fills in some details about the medieval Caucasus region, the provinces of Azarbayğān and Armīniya. At the same time, it allows some new opinions or hypotheses to be expressed, to strengthen the existing opinions and fill in a significant part of the gaps in Ibn Khordadbeh's writings regarding the geography, routes, and toponymy of the region. The article is accompanied by a translated text from Jean-Charles Ducéne’s named article with some comments.