Zakariya al-Qazwini’s Al-Aja’ib al-Makhluqat wa al-Gharaib al-Mawjudat and Athar al-Bilad wa Akhbar al-‘Ibad on the Eastern Caucasus: Source Studies

This paper provides new information on Dagestan’s history in the 6th–13th centuries through translation, commentary and comparative analysis of excerpts from the Arabic geographical works Aja’ib al-Makhluqat wa al-Gharaib al-Mawjudat (“Marvels of Creatures and Strange Things Existing”) and Athar al-Bilad wa Akhbar al-‘Ibad (“Monuments of Places and History of God’s Bondsmen”) by Zakariya al-Qazwini (d. 1283), which concern the history of the Caucasus’ peoples. The early Arabic accounts in question are not strictly geographical works supplied with astronomical, descriptive data, but a type of book which provides valuable information on historical geography as well as on religion, culture, ethnology, flora and fauna of the Muslim world. As for the reports on religious, cultural and economic life of the region, Qazwini often refers to al-Garnati and repeats data provided by geographers of the 9th–13th centuries about the Caspian Sea, Derbent and the Caucasus in general, with the exception of the original information which is not found by other authors on such Dagestan polities as Tsakhur and Shinaz. Moreover, I used a critical approach to A.R. Shikhsaidov’s translation of excerpts from the given works by Zakariya al-Qazwini, which not only contains stylistic and interpretational flaws, but also omits some fragments present in the original Arabic texts.