Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article is based on a close reading of Ibn Faḏlān's narrative of his forced detention by the King of the Volga Bulghār during which he saw some local mirabilia. I propose to consider the wonders he describes, including his use of the Qur'an as corroboration for some of them, from the point of view of ‘iyān, visual perception, eye-witness testimony. To this end, Ibn Faḏlān's wonders will be compared with several textual forebears, including al-Sindibād, and they will be considered as exempla of what Anthony Pagden has called ‘the Autoptic Imagination’.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alexander of Aphrodisias . 1899. In Aristotelis Meteorologicorum Libros Commentaria, edited by M. Hayduck , Berlin .

Ariè, Rachel . 1984. ‘Le Merveilleux dans la littèrature hispano-musulmane au Bas Moyen Age’, in Actas del XII Congresso de la U.E.A.I., Malaga, Madrid : 63–81.

Aristotle . 1970. Meteorologie. Über die Welt. Translated by H. Strohm , Berlin .

Aristotle . 1978. Meteorologica, edited and translated by H.D.P. Lee , Cambridge, Massachusetts .

al-Azmeh, Aziz . 1992. ‘ Barbarians in Arab Eyes ’, Past and Present, vol. 134: 3–18 .

al-‘Aẓma, ‘Azīz . 1991. al-‘Arab wa-l-Barābira, London .

Badawi, Abdurrahman . 1986. Commentaires sur Aristote perdus encirec et autres èpitres, Beirut .

Birkeland, Harris . 1954. Nordens Historie i Middelalderen etter arabiske Kilder, Oslo .

Blachère, Regis and Darmaun K. 1957. Extraits des principaux géographes arabes du Moyen Age, Paris .

10.

Brekke, Asgeir and Egeland, Alv . 1992. The Northern Lights: Their Heritage and Science. Translated by James Anderson , Oslo .

11.

Buzurg b. Shāhriyār . 1883–86. Kitāb ‘Ajā'ib al-Hind, edited by P.A. van der Lith and translated by Marcel Devic , Leiden .

12.

Bynum, Caroline W. 2001. Metamorphosis and Identity, New York .

13.

Canard, Marius . 1958. ‘ La Relation du voyage d' Ibn Faḏlān chez les Bulgares de la Volga ’, Annales de l' Institut d'Études Orientales, Algiers, vol. 16: 41–146 .

14.

Casanova, Paul . 1922–23. ‘ Notes sur les Voyages de Sindbád le Marin ’, Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, vols 20–21: 113–98 .

15.

Dahhān, S. 1959. Risālat Ibn Faḏlān, Damascus .

16.

Daiber, Hans . 1975. ‘En Kompendium der arabischen Meteorologie in der Fassung des Ḥunain ibn Isḥāq’, Verhandlingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Westenschappen, afd. Letterkunde 89.

17.

Davis, Neil . 1992. The Aurora Watcher's Handbook, Fairbanks, AK .

18.

al-Dimashqī . 1923. Nukhbat al-Dahr fī ‘Ajā'ib al-Barr wa-l-Baḥr, edited by A.F. Mehren , Leipzig .

19.

Dunlop, Douglas, M. 1954. The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton .

20.

Eco, Umberto . 1999. Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, translated by William Weaver , London .

21.

EI2 (Encyclopaedia of Islam). Second edition.

22.

Fahd, Toufic . 1978. ‘Le Merveilleux dans la faune, la flore et les minéraux’, in L'Étrange et le merveilleux dans l'lslam médiéval, Paris .

23.

Fairbanks, H. and Robert Eather . 1980. Majestic Lights: The Aurora in Science, History and the Arts, American Geographical Union .

24.

Falck-Ytter, Harald . 1985. Aurora: The Northern Lights in Mythology, History and Science, Edinburgh .

25.

Freeman-Greville, G.S. 1981. The Wonders of India, London .

26.

Gerhardt, Mia . 1963. The Art of Story-telling: A Literary Study of the Thousand and One Nights, Leiden .

27.

de Goeje, M.J. 1889. ‘ De Reizen van Sindebaad ’, De Gids, vol. 53: 278–312 .

28.

Gombrich, E.H. 1983. Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, Oxford .

29.

Goodman, Nelson . 1978. Ways of Worldmaking, Indianapolis .

30.

Günther, S. 1904. ‘ Das Polarlicht in Altertum ’, Beiträge zur Geophysik. Zeitschrift für physikalische Erdkunde, vol. 6: 98–107 .

31.

Haddawy, Husain . 1995. Arabian Nights II: Sindbad and other Popular Stories, New York .

32.

Heinrichs, W.P. 1998. ‘Ta‘ jīb’ in J.S. Meisami and P. Starkey (eds), Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature.

33.

Ideler, J.L. , H.D.P. Lee and T.L. Heath . 1997 [1913]. Aristarchus of Samos: A History of Greek Astronomy to Aristarchus, Oxford .

34.

al-Ịṣtakhrī . 1870. Masālik al-Mamālik, edited by M.J. de Goeje , Leiden .

35.

al-Jāḥiẓz . 1965. Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, edited by ‘Abd al-Salām Muḥammad Hārūn , Cairo . (Jāḥiẓ. 1988. Le Cadi et la Mouche: Anthologie du Livre des Animaux, translated by Lakhdar Souami, Paris).

36.

Kennedy, Hugh . 1986. The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, London .

37.

Khalidi, Tarif . 1995. ‘ Islamic Views of the West in the Middle Ages ’, Studies in Interreligious Dialogue, vol. 5 (1): 31–34 .

38.

Ibn Khurradādhbih . 1889. Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik, edited and translated by M.J. de Goeje , Leiden .

39.

Le Goff, Jacques . 1988. The Medieval Imagination, translated by Arthur Goldhammer , Chicago .

40.

Lestringant, F. 1994. Mapping the Renaissance World, translated by David Fausett , Cambridge .

41.

Lettinck, Paul . 1999. Aristotle's Meteorology and its Reception in the Arab World, with an edition and translation of Ibn Suwār's Treatise of Meteorological Phenomena and Ibn Bājja's Commentary on the Meteorology, Leiden .

42.

Maqbul-Ahmad, S. 1989. Arabic Classical Accounts of India and China, Shimla .

43.

Meisami, J.S. 1998. ‘Imagination’, in J.S. Meisami and P. Starkey (eds), Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, London and New York .

44.

Miquel, André . 1967. La Géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu’ au milieu du 11e siécle, Paris .

45.

Montgomery, James E. 2000. ‘ Ibn Faḏlān among the Rūsiyyah ’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies, vol. 3: 1–25 .

46.

Montgomery, James E. 2001. ‘ Ibn Rusta's Lack of “Eloquence”, the Rūs and Samanid Cosmography ’, Edebiyât, vol. 12: 73–93 .

47.

Montgomery, James E. 2004. ‘Pyrrhic Scepticism and the Conquest of Disorder: Prolegomenon to the Study of Ibn Faḏlān’, in M. Maroth (ed.), Problems in Arabic Literature, Piliscsaba : 43–89.

48.

Montgomery, James E. 2004b. ‘ Travelling Autopsies: Ibn Faḏlān and the Bulghār ’, in Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 7 (1): 3–32 .

49.

Montgomery, James E. 2005. ‘Serendipity, Resistance and Multivalency. Ibn Khurradādhbih's Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik’, in P.F. Kennedy (ed.), On Fiction and Adab in Medieval Arabic Literature, Wiesbaden : 177–230.

50.

Obeyesekere, Gananath . 1998. ‘Cannibal Feasts in Nineteenth Century Fiji: Seaman's Yarns and the Ethnographic Imagination’, in F. Barker , P. Hulme and M. Iversen (eds), Cannibalism and the Colonial World, Cambridge : 63–86, 265–68.

51.

Olcott, M.D. 1985. ‘ Tacitus on the Ancient Amber-Gatherers: A Re-evaluation of the Germania ’, Journal of Baltic Studies, vol. 16: 302–15 .

52.

Olympiodorus . 1900. Commentaria in Aristotlelis Meteorologicorum Libros, edited by G. Stüve , Berlin .

53.

Pahlke, Ingeborg . ‘ Die Chinareise des Sulaimān al-Tāğir ’, Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften, vol. 5: 190–224 .

54.

Petraitis, Casimir . 1967. The Arabic Version of Aristotle's Meteorology, Beirut .

55.

Petrie, William . 1963. Keoeeit: The Story of the Aurora Borealis, Oxford .

56.

Philoponus, John . 1901. In Aristotelis Meteorologicorum Librum Primum Commentaria, edited by M. Hayduck , Berlin .

57.

Plutarch , 1957. Moralia, edited and translated by Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold , Cambridge, Massachusetts .

58.

Polo, Marco . 1912. Il Milione, edited by Dante Olivieri , Bari .

59.

Polo, Marco . 1958. The Travels, translated by R.E. Latham , Harmondsworth .

60.

Polo, Marco . 1986. Il Milione, edited by M. Ruggero Ruggieri , Florence .

61.

Rickard, Bob and John Michell . 2001. Unexplained Phenomena: A Rough Guide Special. Mysteries and Curiosities of Science, Folklore and Superstition, London .

62.

Ross, D. A. (ed.), 1923. The Works of Aristotle, Oxford .

63.

Ibn Rusta . 1982. Kitāb al-A‘lāq al-Nafīsa, edited by M.J. de Goeje , Leiden .

64.

Savage, Candace . 1994. Aurora: The Mysterious Northern Lights, San Fransico .

65.

Schoonheim, Pieter L. 2000. Aristotle's Meteorology in the Arabico-Latin Tradition, Leiden .

66.

Schröder, Wilfried . 1984. Das Phänomen des Polarlichts, Darmstadt .

67.

Seneca . 1971. Naturales Quaestiones, edited and translated by Thomas Corcoran , Cambridge, Massachusetts .

68.

Sezgin, F. , A. Jukhush , F. Neubauer and M. Amawi . 1987. Majmū‘ fī l-Jughrāfiyya, Frankfurt (Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science).

69.

Seippel, Alexander . 1896. Rerum Normanicorum Fontes Arabici, Oslo .

70.

Sinor, Dennis . 1990. ‘The Establishment and Dissolution of the Türk Empire’, in Dennis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia, Cambridge : 285–316.

71.

Al-Ṣīrāfī . 1922. Voyage du marchand arabe Sulaymán en Inde et en Chine, rédigé en 851, suivi de remarques par Abū Zayd Hasan (vers 916), edited by Gabriel Ferrand , Paris .

72.

Al-Ṣīrāfī . 1948. Akhbār al-Ṣīn wa-l-Hind , edited and translated as Relation de la Chine et de l'Inde, redigé en 851 by Jean Sauvaget, Paris .

73.

Strothers, R. 1979. ‘ Ancient Aurora ’, Isis, vol. 70: 85ff .

74.

Tacitus . 1980. Agricola, Germania, Dialogus, edited and translated by M. Hutton and E.H. Warmington , Cambridge, Massachusetts .

75.

Tacitus . 1999. Germania, translated with Introduction and Commentary by J.B. Rives , Oxford .

76.

Tisdall, M.W. 1999. God's Beasts, Plymouth .

77.

Togan, A.Z.V. 1939. ‘Ibn Faḏlāns Reisebericht’, Abhandlungen für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, 24.

78.

Viré. F. ‘ Karkaddan ’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. Iii: 647–50 .

79.

de Vries, Jan . 1956–57. Altgermanische Religionsgeschichte, 2 vols, Berlin .

80.

Williams, David . 1996 and 1999. The Function of the Monster in Medieval Thought and Literature, Montreal and Exeter .

81.

al-Ya‘qūbī . 1892. Kitāb al-Buldān, edited by M.J. de Goeje , Leiden . (Translated by Gaston Wiet. 1937. Les Pays, Cairo).

Spectral Armies,Snakes,and a Giant from Gog and Magog

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References