Istakhri

Estakhri (b.-d.957 AD) or Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Farisi al Istakhri (aka Estakhri, Persian: استخری‎, i.e. from the Iranian city of Estakhr, was a medieval geographer in medieval Islam who wrote in Arabic in the 10th century.

Introduction to Istakhri

Sir H. M. Elliot writes that SHAIKH ABÚ IS,HAK received the cognomen of Istakhrí from his native city of Istakhr or Persepolis, and he is also called Al Fársí, from the province of Fárs in which that city is situated. His travels extended through all the Muhammadan countries, from India to the Atlantic ocean, from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea. The time of his journies and the date of his work have not been precisely determined, but it is certain that he wrote about the middle of the tenth century (340 A.H., 951 A.D.). He was a little anterior in point of time to Ibn Haukal, but these two travellers met in the valley of the Indus, and exchanged observations. A comparison of the following extracts will show how Ibn Haukal availed himself of his cotemporary's writings, and made them the basis of his own work. The text of Istakhrí's "Book of Climates" was published in lithography by Dr. Moeller, at Gotha, in 1839, under the title "Liber Climatum. It is a facsimile of the MS. in the Gotha Library, which is the only one in Europe; but, although the lithography has evidently been executed with great care, the work is unsatisfactory, for the MS. is very faulty in the spelling of proper names. A translation from the same into German was printed at Hamburg in 1845, by Dr. Mordtmann, as "Das Buch der Länder." The portion relating to Sijistán was translated into Italian by Signor Madini, and published at Milan in 1842.

References

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