The Khazars and the Turks in the Ākām al-Marjān

The Khazars and the Turks in the Ākām al-Marjān 

Author(s): V. Minorsky 

Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 9, No. 1 (1937), 

pp. 141-150 

Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies 

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The Khazars and the Turks in the Akam al-Marjan 

By V. MINORSKY 

N 1929 Professor Angela Codazzi published a careful edition, with 

an Italian translation, of a geographical compendium by Ishaq 

ibn al-Husayn entitled Kitab akam al-marjan fT dhikr al-mad&'in 

al-mashhiira fT kull makdn.1 According to Professor Nallino's 

suggestion the author may be identical with one of the sources 

mentioned by Idrisi (" Ishaq ibn al-HIusayn al-munajjim ") and by 

Ibn-Khaldin (" Ishaq ibn al-Hasan (?) al-Khazinl"). As regards 

the date of the text, the editor takes as its terminus a quo 262/875 and 

as its terminus ad quem 454/1062. Most probably he belongs to the 

eleventh century. Several indications suggest that the author was a 

native of the westernmost part of the Islamic world (Spain ?). He 

seems to have used (directly or indirectly ?) Khuwarizmi's rifacimento 

of Ptolemy and Ya'q-ibi's 

Kitab al-buldan. Some single points of 

likeness have been discovered by the editor in I. Khurdadhbih (a 

legend on Alexandria and another on the Seven Sleepers) 

2 and in 

Ibn-Rusta (San'a, Saba', Misr, and the Khazar lands). Very judiciously 

Professor Codazzi (p. 461, note 5) points out some confusion in our 

author, who, under al-Khazar, quotes a feature 3 which in Ibn-Rusta 

belongs to the Burdas (Burtas), and we shall see that such cases are 

much more numerous in our text! 

On the whole, the compendium, though not very original, gives 

some curious facts regarding the towns of the Islamic countries. It 

shows a marked predilection for historical data relating to their 

conquest, local risings, etc. Quite isolated are the two last paragraphs, 

on the Khazars and the Turks, where the description becomes very 

vague and some puzzling and misunderstood forms of names occur. 

These two passages will form the subject of the present article with a 

view to explaining the facts quoted, and ascertaining the sources from 

which they were borrowed by the author. 

1 

Rendiconti della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Classe di scienze morali, 

Novembre-Dicembre, 1929, pp. 373-463. 

2 Under several towns our author quotes the amount of taxes paid by them. 

I. Kh., 35, quotes the taxes only for Khorasan [and 'Iraq]. Our author seems to 

have rounded off I. Kh.'s sums, e.g. Bokhair, 1,189,200 dirhams > 1,000,000; 

Nishipiir 4,108,900 > 5,000,000; Gurgin 10,176,800 > 10,000,000. But some of 

the sums are apparently false : for the insignificant Sarakhs 1,000,000 (instead of 

I. Kh.'s 307,440) and for the enormous Khorsdin 10,000,000 (instead of 44,846,000). 

3 Freedom of the women. 



*) 

142 V. MINORSKY- 

The quotations below reproduce the text as it stands in the unique 

MS. belonging to the Ambrosiana of Milan. Asterisks mark some of 

Professor Codazzi's emendations of obvious character. My own 

corrections will be found in my translation. 

S 

(sic. V.M.) 

LIV. 

. 

THE LANDS OF THE KHAZAR AND *SARIGHSHIN. 

Ibn-Rusta 

1. " These are vast and ex- p. 147,. " You travel from altensive 

lands on the confines of Khazar [i.e. from the capital of 

*al-SarIr. the Khazar] to (the Sarir) 12 

days." 

2. " Their supreme king pro- p. 13912. [The Khazars]: 

fesses Judaism. 

"their supreme chief professes 

the religion of the Jews." 



KHAZARS AND THE TURKS IN THE AKAM AL-MARJAN 143 

3. " They (i.e. the Khazars) 

fight the Turks and (in their 

turn) are attacked by the (people) 

of *al-SarIr. 

4. " Their king has a great 

army. 

5. " In their country there 

are (numerous) fields, gardens, 

and fruits [v. i. 9]. 

Ibn-Rusta 

p. 1405. "Every year the 

Khazars lead an army against the 

Pechenegs." 

p. 1431. " It is said that the 

Khazars had previously built 

fortifications to protect themselves 

against the Majghari and 

other neighbouring nations." 

p. 1415. "[The Burdas] 

possess fields." 

6. " To it belong many towns, 

among which is * ~ 

Balanjar, which is in subjection 

to the Khazar king. And from it 

come out 10,000 fighters. 

7. " Their appearance and 

bodies (manizir wa-ajsam) are 

like those of the Turks. 

8. "With them, when a 

woman reaches (maturity) she 

chooses whomsoever she wants of 

men; (then) she ceases to be 

in subjection to her father and 

mother. 

9. " (This country) is situated 

in the plains and most of its trees 

are khalanj (the wood of which) is 

exported to Khorasan, and this is 

their greatest wealth. They 

possess fields [v. s. 5]. 

10. "Most of them profess 

(yantahiliina) . . . (?). 

p. 14016. " [The Burdas] are 

in subjection to the Khazar king 

and from them come out 10,000 

horse." 

p. 14020. [The Burdas]: 

" their religion resembles that of 

the Ghuzz and they have fine 

appearance and bodies (la-hum 

ru'5' wa-manzar wa-ajsdm)." 

p. 1411. " When a girl of theirs 

reaches (maturity) she ceases to be 

in subjection to her father and 

chooses for herself whomsoever 

she wants of men .. ." 

p. 1415. They live in the 

plains. Most of their trees are 

khalanj. They possess fields. 

Most of their goods are honey, 

martens (dalaq), and furs. 

p. 14116. [The Bulkar] " Most 

of them profess (yantahililna) the 

religion of Islam." 




11. ' And among their towns 

is which 

*al-Bay.da-*Hab-baligh, 

is great and beautiful and lies on 

a great river flowing from the 

*Khazar lake (?) to the Khorasan 

lake. 

12. "Their graves are like 

those of the Muslims. 

13. " Most of them burn their 

dead as atonement for them." 

[Cf. under Turk, point 6.] 

Ibn-Rusta 

p.. 13914. [The Khazar]: 

their capital is *Sarighshin and 

by it (biha) is another town 

called or 

p. 1421. [The Bulkar] : " their 

graves are like those of the 

Muslims." 

p. 1414. [The Burdas]: " They 

are of two classes : the ones burn 

their dead and the others bury 

them." 

The foregoing analysis has clearly shown that the paragraph 

on the Khazars is a patchwork of data found in Ibn- 

Rusta's chapters on al-Khazar (1394-14013), Burdas (14014-1417), 

and Bulkar (1417-1424). The extraordinary confusion of the 

characteristics of the three nations 1 may be due to the fact that, in the 

compiler's source, the headings of the chapters were omitted, as is 

often the case when spaces are left in blank for subsequent rubrications. 

Another source of confusion must be connected with the desire to fit 

in Ibn-Khurdadhbih's short passage (p. 124) on the Khazar towns: 

? 

) 

The second name 

('. 

L.J... 

.-•~'-i1 -.•j. 

~-LL in Arabic script looks very much like and the 

epitomator substituted the latter (found in Ibn-Rusta) ,•L•. for the former 

(found in Ibn-Khurdadhbih). But Ibn-Rusta nowhere says that the 

Bulkar (Kama Bulghars) were subjects of the Khazar king, and this 

item undoubtedly refers to Balanjar, which lay to the north-east of the 

Caucasus range and belonged to the Khazar. 

WjL..J1 

mentioned in the heading of the paragraph is 

doubtless the name of the Khazar capital, or rather of the part of it 

situated on the western bank of the Volga, which appears in I. Rusta as 

•jp,- , in the Hud&d al-'Alam as 

aLb, in Bakri as . 

I think that the unusual name of the second town mentioned in our 

text is nothing but a combination of two names found respectively in 

1 Burdds (or stands probably for the ancestors of the present-day Mordva, 

and Bulkdr for the Bur.tas) Kama Bulghars. 




I. Khurdadhbih and I. Rusta. In order to make the comparison clear 

we shall place these names under the form found in the Akam :- 

V 

Lh.2 

Of these, al-Baydi " the White one " is the name given by I. Kh. 

to the western part of the capital, which I. Rusta calls by its native 

name of 

" The Yellow 

... 

[town ?] ". On the other hand, 

•*' 

or L~- quoted by I. Rusta is evidently the name of 

the eastern . part of the capital which I. Kh. spells or . 

The " Khazar lake ", out of which the river is . said to flow, may 

reflect some confusion of the meanings of Arabic bahr and Persian 

daryai, which both stand for "a sea, and a large river ". The original 

may have referred to the fact that the canal on which the capital 

stood was a part of the Khazar river (bahr). Buhayra may then be 

a secondary Verschlimmbesserung for bahr. 

The name - must certainly be restored as " The 

Throne ", i.e. " the possessions of the Master of the Throne ..1 ", a wellknown 

designation of a kingdom in the northern Daghestan, of which 

the nucleus must have been the present-day Avar territory (on the 

Qoy-su). The S~hib al-Sarir was quite rightly the immediate southern 

neighbour of the Khazar king. The mention of wars between them is 

probably a mere amplification of the epitomator's. 

We shall leave aside for the moment the extraordinarily close 

analogies of our Khazar paragraph with I. Rusta's text and shall 

consider the question of borrowings more completely after we have 

examined the second paragraph describing the " Turks ". 

VOL. IX. PART 1. 10 



146 v. MINORSKY- 

~"AN ~ 4 >FT jE TURKS. 

1. " These are extensive and 

vast lands which, in the north, 

adjoin the *Northern Sea, and, 

in the east, the lands of the 

"A OF THE TURKS. 

Toghuzghuz. 

2. " The Turks are courageous [Cf. under Khazar, point 7.] 

and valiant and have a (fine) 

aspect and (fine) bodies. 

3. " They are the most skilful 

of people in the. preparation 

of felts, for the latter serve them 

as garments. 

4. " They have milk (in 

plenty) and game is Gardizi, 84 : " In summer the 

plentiful. 

Kimik drink mare's milk . . . 

they hunt sable-martens and 

grey squirrels ..." 

5. " Their country is very cold Gardizi, 84. " In the land [of 

and snowy. They possess under- the Kimik] falls much snow. 

ground dwellings (asrdb fi'l ard) They have underground tanks 

which they enter to escape the (chiy-ha < chih-ha) made of 

rigours of the cold. timber for the winter. When the 

snowfall is heavy they drink that 

water stored in the month of Tir, 

for their horses cannot go through 

the snow to the watering place." 




6. "They are idol worship. 

pers, may God Almighty humiliate 

them. They burn their dead. 

They pray twice in the daytime 

and fast (only) one day. 

7. " Their river flows into the 

sea of Tabaristan and in it are 

found fish which stick to the feet 

(of the bathers ?). The river 

dries up in summer and the 

(Turks) drink only from lakes 

(or marshes). 

8. " In their country there is 

a mighty mountain with a tree 

(•; ) on it. On the tree (?) 

are .?- the marks of two hands, two 

feet, and a knee, as if (some one 

had been) worshipping there. And 

everyone of them who notices 

those traces worships them. 

9. " And in (their country ?) 

there are herds of untamed horses 

which have become wild in the 

desert." 

Gardizi, 87: "the Khirkhiz 

[neighbours of the Kimak] burn 

their dead, like the Indians; 

and they say that Fire is the 

purest thing and whatever falls 

into it becomes pure." [Cf. under 

Khazar, point 13.] 

Gardizi, 83. [On the way to 

the Kimiks, beyond the mountain 

Kinda'uir, is the river Asus (?)] : 

its water is black, it flows from 

the east, until it joins the sea [dar, 

read: dary&] of Tabaristan. After 

this, the river Artush (Irtish) is 

reached where the land of the 

Kimik begins. 

Birfini, c'-Athar al-biqiya, p. 

2645: " And similar to this lake 

( [of Tils] is a spring 

-.) 

of fresh water in the land of the 

Kimak in a mountain called 

M. nkfir, as large as a large shield. 

The level of the water in it is up 

to the brim, and sometimes an 

army drinks from it and it does 

not dwindle a finger's breadth. 

Near this spring, there is a trace 

of a man's foot, of his palms with 

their five fingers and of'his knees, 

as if he had been worshipping; 

and also traces of the steps of a 

child and of the hooves of a 

donkey. And whenever the Ghuzz 

Turks see (that place) they 

worship it." 

Gardizi, 83. " On both banks 

of the Irtish pasture wild horses. 

Their race is from the king's 

horses which have become wild," 

etc. 




Though the description of the " Turks " is very general and no 

tribes are distinguished among them, it is curious that the territory 

of the Toghuzghuz, the most celebrated of the Turkish tribes,' is said 

to lie to the east of, and consequently separate from, the " Turk " 

land. The analysis of the text shows that what the author really means 

by Turk is the particular tribe of Kimak (*Kimak),2 which lived near 

the Irtish, but, " when there was peace between them and the Ghuz," 

visited the latter's territory in winter, cf. Huditd al-'Alam, ? 18. These 

periodical movements are a source of great confusion in our sources 

in which two different territories are usually telescoped into one 

" Kimak land ". Therefore one might improve our Bahr al-shami 

into Bahr al-Shash ('L.4). The latter term would be 

(CL[-) 

quite possible for the Aral sea into which disembogues " the Shash 

river " (Jaxartes), and the Ghuz territories are usually associated 

with the Aral sea. On the other hand, Professor Codazzi's correction 

Bahr al-shamali (3Lc ) "Northern sea" has the advantage of 

suiting the Huded al-'Alam, according to which the Kimiik territories 

extended in the north up to the Northern Uninhabited Lands. 

The river mentioned in the text belongs to the region between the 

Irtish and the Caspian Sea, of which Muslim authors (Mas'iidI, Mur7j, 

i, 213; Hudjid al-'Alam, ? 6, 41; Gardizi, 83) give very entangled 

descriptions. Our sources do not know the lower course of the Irtish : 

the Hudid al-'Alam takes the latter for an affluent of the Volga; 

moreover, the authors mentioned have a vague idea of the existence 

of some other river flowing to the Caspian, to the west of the 

Irtish. The Ural (Yayiq) river and the Emba, disemboguing into the 

Caspian, the rivers of the steppes to the north-east of the Aral sea 

(such as the Irghiz and Turghai), and even some left affluents of the 

Irtish may be partly responsible for the confused descriptions of the 

course of this second river. The new detail added by the Akam, namely 

that the river dries up in the summer, points to the steppe region. 

The two last paragraphs, which stand isolated in the text of the 

Akdm, refer to the north-eastern territories lying pretty close to each 

other, and it would be strange if their description were due to two 

1 By Toghuzghuz Muslim writers mean both the tribes which originally belonged 

to the ancient Turkish (in Chinese Tu-ch'iteh) Empire, and the later Uyghur 

possessions in the eastern T'ien-shan. 

2 According to Idrisi (Jaubert), ii, 221, the Kimdkiya border on the Toghuzghuz in 

the south, but the bearings in Muslim authors constantly vary up to 900. 




different sources. After all, one might suppose that Ibn-Khurdadhbih's 

original work contained a more complete account of the Kimik land 

than the bare mention of a road to this tribe (BGA., vi, 28 = Qudama, 

209). But then the bulk of our data on the Khazar-Burtas (Burdas)- 

Bulghar (Bulkar) cannot be explained from I. Khurdadhbih. More 

probably, therefore, the description of the Kimik territory was only 

one of the items in Jayhani's description of the Turkish lands (as 

reflected in the Hudiid al-'Alam, ?? 12-22). The Khazar-Burdas- 

Bulkar chapters undoubtedly existed in Jayhani. 

The latter's Kitab al-nmamn7lik wal-masalik has not come down to 

us, but, by quotations and analogous passages in I. Rusta, I. Faqih, 

I. Hauqal, the HudTid al-'Alam, Muqaddasi, 'Aufi, etc., we know how 

great was the authority and influence of the Samanid vazir who 

systematically utilized his exceptional opportunities for collecting 

relevant information. However, the size of Jayhani's work (seven 

volumes !) rendered it difficult to make and distribute copies, and there 

are no indications that it was directly accessible in the extreme west of 

the Muslim world where our epitomator lived. 

We have, then, to suppose that Jayhani's data were used by our 

author through the work of some other author. The obvious person 

to come to mind is al-Bakri (d. 487/1094), whose countryman our 

Isha1q b. Husayn presumably was, and whose work enjoyed great 

esteem among his contemporaries. Indeed, the Gayangos MS.' of 

Bakri's al-Mamalik wal-masdlik contains chapters on the Khazar- 

Furdas (Burtas, Burdas)-Bulkar, but in an abridged form omitting 

several items which appear in our compendium. 

Consequently the latter must be independent of Bakri, and, as the 

two possible transmitters of Jayhani's data, we might in principle 

consider I. Rusta or Ibn al-Faqih.2 Both authors' works, as reproduced 

in de Goeje's edition, are incomplete. Even the copy of Ibn al-Faqih 

discovered in Mashhad by A. Z. Validi contains neither the chapters 

on the Khazar-Burdas-Bulkar nor the items on the Kimdik quoted in 

our analysis. In I. Rusta's text, as printed by de Goeje in BGA., vii, 

1 All traces of it seem to have been lost, but the relevant passages from it bearing 

on Eastern Europe were published by Defremery in Journ. As., 1849, t. 13, pp. 460-477, 

and re-edited with commentary by Baron Rosen and Kunik, Izvestiya al-Bakri, etc., 

SPb., i, 1878, ii, 1903. [I hear from M. W. MarQais that a very complete MS. of 

al-Bakri has been discovered in Morocco and that M. Colin has undertaken its 

publication.] 

2 Al Bakri quotes as his source (in Jayhdni matters) a certain Ahmad. Baron Rosen, 

op. cit., 17, thought that the person meant was Abmad b. Muhammad al-Hamadhini 

(= Ibn al-Faqih), but, as a matter of fact, Ibn-Rusta's name also was b. 'Omar. 

Ar4mad 



150 KHAZARS AND THE TURKS IN THE AKAM AL-MARJAN 

the chapters on the Turks are lacking, but, at least, his Khazar- 

Burdas-Bulkar passages account for our text almost verbatim. Still 

disbelieving the possibility that two different sources were used by 

Ishaq b. al-Husayn, I feel inclined to admit that at the bottom of the 

two passages in the Akam there must be a more complete manuscript 

of Ibn-Rusta. 

As regards the parallel texts quoted in the paragraph on the Turks, 

we must add that Gardizi, in his extremely valuable chapter on the 

Turks,' expressly mentions Jayhani among his sources. Birfini does 

not unfortunately indicate the origin of the story about the spring in 

the Kimik land, but almost immediately after, and in the same 

paragraph, he quotes Jayhani's testimony on a spring between 

Bukhara and Qaryat al-haditha, and, further, on the columns of the 

Qayrawan mosque. If only the items on the Kimdk in Birfini (300/1000) 

and Gardizi (c. 442/1050) were borrowed from Jayhani, the earlier Ibn- 

Rusta and Ibn al-Faqih 2 (both writing in the earlier part of the tenth 

century) could not have failed to know them through the same author, 

whom they certainly did utilize. 

Our examination of the two last paragraphs of the Akdm 

al-marjan may appear to be merely destructive. Yet the Textkritik 

of our composite geographical texts is one of the very urgent problems, 

and by disentangling the data of a fresh source and defining the 

measure of its trustworthiness some useful purpose is served. It is 

necessary, too, to obviate any eventual speculation with misspellings 

which might be taken for novelties. Indirectly dur analysis gives a 

new weight to the important unknown source (Jayhani ?) which is at 

the bottom of so many older geographical works.3 

1 Edited by Barthold, in Mlemoires de l'Ac. de St.-Petersbourg, viiie s'rie, I, 

No. 4, 1897. 

2 According to the Fihrist, 154, Ibn al-Faqih " plundered (salaklha) Jayhdni's 

book ". 

3 See V. Barthold's and my own Prefaces to the Hudf~d al-'Alam, Gibb Memorial, 

new series, vol. 17, 1937.

The Khazars and the Turks in the Ākām al-Marjān

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