Ahmad ibn Rusta Isfahani, more commonly known as ibn Rusta (ابن رسته, also spelled ibn Roste), was a tenth-century Muslim Persian explorer and geographer born in Rosta, Isfahan in the Abbasid Caliphate. He wrote a geographical compendium known as the Kitāb al-A‘lāq al-Nafīsa. The information on Isfahan is especially extensive and valuable. Ibn Rusta states that, while for other lands he had to depend on second-hand reports, often acquired with great difficulty and with no means of checking their veracity, for Isfahan he could use his own experience and observations or statements from others known to be reliable. Thus we have a description of the twenty districts (rostaqs) of Isfahan containing details not found in other geographers' works. Concerning the town itself, we learn that it was perfectly circular in shape, with a circumference of half a parasang, walls defended by a hundred towers, and four gates.

Recorded information

His information on the non-Islamic peoples of Europe and Inner Asia makes him a useful source for these obscure regions (he was even aware of the existence of the British Isles and of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon England) and for the prehistory of the Turks and other steppe peoples. He traveled to Novgorod with the Rus' and compiled books relating his own travels, as well as second-hand knowledge of the Khazars, Magyars, Slavs, Bulgars and other peoples.

Translations

Абу-Али Ахмед Бен Омар Ибн-Даста. Известия о хозарах, буртасах, болгарах, мадьярах, славянах и руссах. — СПб.: тип. Императорской Академии Наук, 1869. [Russian translation.]

Literature