V. V. Minorsky - Hudud Al-Alam The Regions of the World - a Persian Geography 372 A.H. (982 AD)

A PERSIAN GEOGRAPHY

37 A.H. 982 A.D.

Translated and explained by

V. Minorsky

Second edition with the preface by

V. V. Barthold

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN
AND WITH ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
BY THE LATE PROFESSOR MINORSKY

edited by

C. E. Bosworth

Gibb Memorial Trust

Published by

The E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust

Trustees: G. van Gelder, R. Gleave, C. Hillenbrand, H. Kennedy,
C. P. Melville, J. E. Montgomery, A. Williams, C. Woodhead
Secretary to the Trustees: P. R. Bligh

The E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust 1937

First published 1937
Second edition 1970
Reprinted 1982, 2015

ISBN 978-0-906094-03-7

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

Further details of the E. J. Gibb Memorial Trust and its publications
are available at the Trusts website

www.gibbtrust.org

TO
THE GREAT PERSIAN SCHOLAR

Muammad b. Abd-al-Mahhb Qazbn

AS A TOKEN OF FRIENDSHIP
AND ADMIRATION

V. Minorsky

The English translation of the udd al-lam and its stupendous commentary undoubtedly form the magnum opus of the late Professor V. F. Minorskys scholarly career. As he himself explains in his Introductory Note to the second series of Addenda, he spent some six or seven years of his life on it. The preparation of the final manuscript for publication involved both the author himself and his devoted wife and amanuensis, Mrs. Tatiana Minorsky, in a vast amount of work, often repetitious, but at all times demanding a high standard of accuracy.

Over the ensuing years, Minorsky was for long periods busy with other questions of the historical geography of the Orient, above all, with the historical geography of the Iranian world and the Turkish lands of Central Asia. Accordingly, from his pen there came such works as his studies on the sections of Sharaf az-Zamn hir Marvazs abi al-ayawn relating to China, India and the Turks (London 1942); on Ab Dulaf Misar b. Muhalhils Second Risla (Cairo 1955); and on the parts of the lost Tarkh al-Bb preserved in Mnejjim Bashs Jmi ad-duwal (London 1953, Cambridge 1958). In all of these works, his procedure was the same: a carefully-edited text, an English translation, and then an extensive historical and topographical commentary.

His interest in the udd al-lam did not, meanwhile, abate at all. His other studies frequently illuminated some of the many problems which had had to be left unresolvedusually from sheer lack of historical sources or from inadequate modern exploration of the terrain involvedin the commentary completed in 1937. By 1955 a substantial number of additions and corrections to the commentary could be gathered together and were published, in company with some valuable observations on the linguistic style and vocabulary of the original Persian text, in the article Addenda to the udd al-lam, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xvii/2 (1955), pp. 250-70. Over the next decade or so, Minorsky accumulated further corrections. In particular, the travels through central Afghanistan of the French scholar, the late Andr Maricq, increased our topographical knowledge of the very obscure and isolated mediaeval region of Ghr. As is well known, Maricqs crowning discovery was that in 1957 of the minaret of Jam, which may possibly mark the site of Frzkh, the capital during the later 12th and early 13th centuries of the powerful Ghrid Sultans.1 Anything which contributes to our knowledge of the region of mountain massifs and valleys in central and northern Afghanistan has a particular value in that it throws light-on the homeland of the udd al-lams author, who came from Gzgn, the principality lying immediately to the north of Ghr and the Her-Rd valley. The description of Gzgn and its dependencies is, indeed, the one section of the book which must depend on personal observation and experience, for apart from this, the author was essentially an armchair geographer, and not a traveller who personally visited the lands which he described. Maricqs experiences now led Minorsky to modify certain of his earlier comments on the topography of central Afghanistan. Hence the new series of addenda presented here in this second edition of the udd al-lam offer a substantially improved version of the section on Gzgn.

Unfortunately, Professor Minorsky died, almost a nonagenarian, on 25th March 1966, before he could put the new series of addenda in order for publication. It had already been decided, however, that a new edition of the udd al-lam itself should be envisaged, for the original printing was almost exhausted. The Trustees of the E. J.W. Gibb Memorial Series now invited me to take up the work. The actual material conveyed to me from Professor Minorskys Nachlass was in a somewhat confused state. It comprised typewritten sheets, some in English and some in Russian, together with many manuscript additions, again written in both English and Russian. It would have been almost impossible for me to arrange these coherently if it had not been for Mrs. Minorsky, who of course knew, as no-one else could know, her husbands handwriting and ways of working. She was able to reduce all the papers to an ordered, typewritten form. Even with this invaluable help, difficulties remained. The notes obviously contained much overlapping and repetitious matter. Often there were two somewhat differing versions of the same correction. I have had accordingly judiciously to edit these notes, combining them where necessary and pruning superfluous matter. As well as these addenda and corrigenda, the core of which are the improved translation of the section on Gzgn ( 23, 46-66) and the dependent commentary, Professor Minorsky left a series of comments on the textual improvements made by Dr. Manchihr Sotdeh in his edition of the Persian text of the udd al-lam published at Tehran in 1340/1962 (Tehran University Publications No. 727); these also have been included in the present edition. Professor J. A. Boyle communicated to me four corrections of his own, and these have been marked by his initials. Finally, I have myself drawn a new sketch-map of Gzgn and Ghr, to replace the Map viii of the original edition (p. 329); a certain amount of the information given in the original map has now been corrected, and other information added.

In may be of interest for English readers to learn that a Russian translation of the udd al-lam commentary has been prepared by Mrs. Minorsky, and this will be utilized in a new Russian version of the whole work, to be edited by the Soviet scholar Dr. Y. E. Borshchevsky. This will not only include the 1955 addenda and the present ones, but will also contain a Russian translation of the article which Minorsky contributed to the Festschrift for his friend S. H. Taqizadeh, A locusts leg (London 1962), pp. 189-96, sc. the article Ibn Farghn and the udd al-lam, in which he suggested that the author of the still-unpublished encyclopaedia of the sciences, the Jawm al-ulm, might well be a scion of the Farghnids of Gzgn, patrons of the author of the udd al-lam.

The re-issue after the authors death of this edition of the udd al-lam will be eloquent witness to the enduring value of much of Professor Minorskys work; there only now remains for me to thank firstly the Gibb Memorial Trust for ensuring that the book will remain available for future scholars and secondly the School of Oriental and African Studies for agreeing to the reprinting of the 1955 Addenda.

C. E. BOSWORTH

University of Manchester

The romantic story of the unique manuscript of the