The gold meadows and gemstone pits

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The Book of Gold Meadows and Gemstone Pits ( Arabic مروج الذهب ومعادن الجوهر Murūdsch adh-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-dschauhar , DMG Murūǧ aḏ-ḏahab wa-maʿādin al-ǧauhar , in short: Murudsch adh-Dhahab ) is an Arabic work that tells the story of the world from its beginnings, of Adam and Eve until the reign of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutīʿ . It was written by the medieval historian and geographer al-Masʿūdī (c. 895–957).

A first version of the book was completed in 943, but the author revised it repeatedly until his death: corrections and additions followed by 947, and al-Masʿūdī's second surviving work, the Kitāb at-tanbīh wa-'l-ischrāf  /كتاب التنبيه والأشراف / 'Book of Note and Revision', it can be inferred that in 956 he must have replaced the version that was already in circulation and the only surviving version with a revised and significantly longer version.

Content of the work

The book of the Goldwiesen consists of 132 chapters ( abwāb ) of unequal length, of which the first has an introductory and bibliographical character and the second that of a table of contents. Thematically it is structured in two parts: 69 chapters, corresponding to about a third of the total work, deal with the creation and geographical structure of the earth, the history, culture and religion of pre-Muslim and non-Muslim peoples, but also with zoology, astronomy, medicine, philosophy and Natural Science; the remaining chapters deal with Islamic history mainly from a political and literary point of view.

Formally, the book of the Goldwiesen is a work of history, but the encyclopedic claim is obvious. History and geography only form the contextual framework in which a wide variety of scientific, medical, philosophical and religious topics are presented as entertaining and instructive as possible. The narrative is broken up by digressions, associatively strung together, humorous or explanatory anecdotes and poems, which serve to entertain the reader, who should not be bored by the mere, dry enumeration of historical events. The literary style based on al-Jāhiz is simple and dispenses with rhyming prose : for al-Mas fürūdī, eloquence was expressed in pointed clarity, in which the meaning of what was meant was expressed as clearly as possible with a few but apt words.

His numerous and extensive travels enabled him not only to adopt the knowledge of others, but also to bring his own experiences into his work. From his own experience he knows how to report that the Caspian and Black Seas formed two separate entities and not a single body of water, as many geographers of his time had assumed.

Aftermath

The Book of Gold Meadows exerted a not inconsiderable influence on subsequent generations of Arab historians. The universal histories of the next centuries were essentially shaped by the thematic, stylistic and methodological innovations that had resulted from the approach of combining historiography with other sciences, especially geography. In particular, the historian and polymath Ibn Chaldun was significantly influenced by al-Masʿūdī; although he was not uncritical of him, he saw him, alongside at-Tabarī and al-Wāqidī, as one of the few historians who stood out from the innumerable others through the originality of their work and could therefore claim true authority for themselves.

Edition and translations

The first European version of the book appeared in a bilingual edition in French and Arabic between 1861 and 1877 by the Asiatic Society , a French learned society in Paris , edited by Barbier de Meynard and Pavet de Courteille . Until the French version by Charles Pellat appeared in 1966 and 1974, this was the standard version used by Western scientists. Pellat's edition, published by the Lebanese University in Beirut , consists of five volumes. Translations into German and English are currently only available in part.

literature

  • S. Maqbul Ahmad, A. Rahman (Eds.): Al-Mas'ūdī Millenary Commemoration Volume. Indian Society for the History of Science, Calcutta, 1960.
  • Tarif Khalidi: Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.
  • Tariff Khalidi: Islamic Historiography. The Histories of Mas'ūdī. State University of New York Press, Albany, 1975.
  • Paul Lunde, Caroline Stone (translator, ed.): The Meadows of Gold. The Abbasids. Kegan Paul International, London, 1989.
  • Ahmad MH Shboul: Al-Mas'ūdī and His World. A Muslim Humanist and His Interest in Non-Muslims. Ithaca Press, London, 1979.
  • Charles Pellat: al-Masʿūdī, Abu l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn . In: The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition, Volume 6, EJ Brill, Leiden, 1991, p. 784.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ahmad MH Shboul: Al-Masudi and His World , p 68th
  2. ↑ Tariff Khalidi: Islamic Historiography , p. 19f.
  3. ↑ Ahmad MH Shboul: Al-Masudi and His World , p. 12
  4. ^ Roger Allen: The Arabic Literary Heritage. The Development of Its Genres and Criticism . Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 255.
  5. ^ Walter J. Fischel: Ibn Khaldūn and al-Mas'ūdī . In: S. Maqbul Ahmad, A. Rahman (Eds.): Al-Mas'ūdī Millenary Commemoration Volume , p. 54.
  6. ^ Paul Lunde, Caroline Stone: The Meadows of Gold: The Abbasids . London: Kegan Paul International, 1989, p. 17.
The gold meadows and gemstone pits (alternative names of the lemma)
Murūdsch adh-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-dschauhar ; Muruj adh-Dhahab wa al-ma'adin Jawhar ; Murudj ad-dahab wa-ma'ādin al-dschauhar