Ahmad ibn Rustah
Ahmad ibn Rusta Isfahani, more commonly known as ibn Rusta, 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 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 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.
- He wrote of a 10th-century city of the Rus':
- Of ancient Croatia he wrote in the chronicle Al-Djarmi:
- About a certain king of the Caucasus Ibn Rustah wrote:
- He also travelled extensively in Arabia and is one of the early Persian explorers to describe the city of Sanaa. In his Book of Precious Records, he writes: