Person · Persian geographer · Iraq
Ibn Khordadbeh
Also known as Ibn Khordadbeh, Ibn Khurdādhbih, Ibn Khordādbeh, Ibn Khurradādhbih, Ebn K̲h̲ordād̲h̲beh
Ibn Khordadbeh was a ninth-century Persian geographer and Abbasid official whose Kitāb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik recorded roads, distances, administrative regions and trading routes across the Islamic world, including connections reaching Sind and the Indian Ocean.
- Date
- c. 820–913 CE
- Periods
- Islamic Age and Bhakti Traditions
- Function
- Learning & scholarship
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
His work contains one of the early written references to the shoal chain between India and Sri Lanka, calling it Set Bandhai, meaning “Bridge of the Sea.” The later name “Adam’s Bridge” became associated with the feature centuries afterward.
His work is primarily an administrative and geographical source, not a travel diary. Some material was compiled from earlier information and later additions, so individual geographical descriptions should be treated as textual evidence rather than proof that he personally visited each location.
Connections (1)
- Traveller routeAdam's Bridge / Ram Setu
The ninth-century Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh, postmaster and intelligence chief of the Abbasid caliphate, recorded the shoals as Set Bandhai, a bridge across the sea between India and Sri Lanka, in his Kitab al-Masalik wa-l-Mamalik. It is an early non-Indian notice of the feature, and it shows that the identification of the shoals as a built causeway was known outside India within a few centuries of the epic's circulation.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Ibn Khordadbeh”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
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