54 ibn rusta Beirut 2002; Ibn al-Q al-Mikns, Jad- hwat al-iqtibs f dhikr man alla min al-alm bi-madnat Fs, Rabat 1973; al-Nir, al-Istiq li-akhbr duwal al-Maghrib al-aq, ed. Jafar al-Nir and Muammad al-Nir (Casablanca 1954), 3:88; al-afad, al-Wf bi-l-wafayt, ed. Amad al-Arn and Turk Muaf, 29 vols., Beirut 2000; al-Suy, Bughyat al-wut f abaqt al-lughawiyyn wa-l- nut (Cairo 1965), 2:271. Studies Shawq ayf, Ar al-duwal wa-l-imrt. al-Jazir, al-Maghrib al-aq, Mrtniy, al-Sdn (Cairo 1995), 483; Abdallh Gannn, al-Nubgh al-Maghrib f l-adab al-Arab, 3 vols., Beirut 1961 2 ; Muammad Masd Jubrn, Mlik b. al-Muraal, adb al-udwatayn, 604 H-699 H, Abu Dhabi 2005; Isml al-Khab, al-araka al-ilmiyya f Sabta khill al-qarn al-sbi, Tétouan 1986. Mustafa Binmayaba Ibn Rusta Ab Al Amad b. Umar Ibn Rusta, a native of Isfahan, is known for his work Kitb al-alq al-nafsa (“The book of pre- cious and valuable things”), an encyclo- paedia of sorts. Little is known about his life, however, and only the seventh volume of his book is extant. This vol- ume is, broadly speaking, a geographical treatise, for which reason Ibn Rusta is often, however inaccurately, referred to as a geographer. From internal evidence it is apparent that the volume was written around 300/912. Ibn Rusta’s geographical treatise was written at a time when a handful of geo- graphical works in Arabic had already been composed and were available in Islamic lands, and he mentions by name some of the sources upon which he draws. His work includes much informa- tion that is, however, original to him or has not been preserved elsewhere, and it is therefore of considerable interest to scholarship. The contents of Ibn Rusta’s work refect the eclectic nature of geographical writing in Arabic in this period. There is much material that is particularly Islamic: he opens with lengthy Qurnic quota- tions on the topic of the heavens and the earth (Ibn Rusta, 3–4), for example, and devotes the largest section of his work to a detailed description of holy sites within Arabia (Ibn Rusta, 24–78), a section that is followed by the more general category of “wonders” (ajib), which also refect on God’s omnipotence (Ibn Rusta, 78–83). That the fnal sections of the work con- tain miscellaneous facts and details about the Prophet, religion on the eve of Islam, sectarian divisions within Islam, and so on similarly points to the Islamic concerns of the author. Yet the theoretical framework of the treatise is unmistakably Hellenistic: Ptolemaic geographical notions permeate the introductory discussions of the earth and its context in the universe (Ibn Rusta, 5–22); the treatment of oceans and rivers similarly follows Greek models (Ibn Rusta, 83–96); the habitable world is divided into seven iqlms (from the Greek klima/klimata; Ibn Rusta, 96–8); and the differences between regions and their inhabitants are attributed to the infuence of climatic fac- tors such as proximity to or distance from the sun (Ibn Rusta, 99ff.)—even though the Qurn itself attributes such differ- ences to God (Q 49:13). Complementing the Islamic and Hellenistic infuences are the particularly Iranian ideas and terms that might be expected from a native of Iran (e.g., by using the Persian names of the cardinal points, Ibn Rusta, 103ff.), and Ibn Rusta declares, somewhat apologeti- cally, that the information he provides on