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Ibn Khordadbeh




Ibn Khordadbeh was the son of a wealthy Persian family in northern Iran . He was appointed "Director of Posts and Police" for the province of Djibal in northwestern Iran under the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mutammid (ruled 869885 CE). In this capacity ibn Khordadbeh served as both postmaster general and the Caliph 's personal spymaster in that vital province.

Around 870 ibn Khordadbeh wrote ''al-Kitab al Masalik w’al Mamalik'' ("'' The Book Of Roads And Kingdoms ''"). In this work, ibn Khordadbeh described the various peoples and provinces of the Abbasid Caliphate . It is one of the only surviving sources that describes the Jewish merchant company known as the Radhanites .


SOURCES

# Adler, Elkan. ''Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages''. New York: Dover Publications, 1987.
# Bendiner, Elmer. ''The Rise and Fall of Paradise''. New York: Putnam Books, 1983.
# Bareket, Elinoar. "Rādhānites". in ''Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia''. Norman Roth, ed. Routledge, 2002. pp 558-561.
# Fossier, Robert, ed. ''The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages'', vol. 1: 350-950. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
# Gil, Moshe. "The Radhanite Merchants and the Land of Radhan." in ''Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient'' 17:3 (1976). 299-328.