Abrégé du livre des pays / / Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamaḏānī; traduction de Henri Massé.

• Superior document: Études arabes, médiévales et modernes ; 97
• VerfasserIn: Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, active 902,
• TeilnehmendeR: Massé, Henri
• Place / Publishing House: France : : Institut français de Damas,, 1973
• Year of Publication: 1973
• Language: French
• Series: Publications de l'I.F.E.A.D. ; 97.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (vii, 440 pages) :; digital, PDF file(s).
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Written in the tenth century by the Persian geographer Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamaḏānī, the Abridged Book of the Countries is a living testimony to the world view that the inhabitants of Dâr al-Islâm might have at that time. “According to‘ Abd Allāh b. ‘Amr b. al-‘Ās b. Wā’il aṣ-Sahmī, the figure of the world below is divided into five: it is like the head of the bird, the two wings, the chest, the tail. The head of the world is China; beyond China is a people called Wāq-wāq, and, beyond Wāq-wāq, peoples of which Allah alone knows the number; the right wing is India and, beyond India, the sea after which there is no one; the left wing is al-Ḫazar and, behind al-Ḫazar, two so-called peoples, one Manšak, the other Māšak, behind which Gog and Magog (Yāǧūǧ and Māǧūǧ) who are among the peoples known to God only ; the breast of the world is Mecca, Hejaz, Syria, Iraq and Egypt; the tail goes from Ḏāt al-Ḥumām to Maġrib, and the worst part of the bird is the tail. "Basing himself mainly on the Qur'an and on the historical traditions, verses, quotes and sayings he may have heard, Ibn al-Faqīh gives us a description of all the wonders of the territories known to man: the Peninsula Arabian, Egypt and the Nile, the Maġrib, Syria, the Ğazīra, the Land of the Rūm, Iraq and the Eastern Countries. Over a thousand years old, this book, strewn with stories and curiosities of all kinds, offers its reader, between history, myth and legend, the most beautiful of journeys, even if it is still.