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Abu Al Hasan Al Masudi was a descendent of Abdullah Ibn Masud, a companion of Prophet Muhammed s.a.w. He was born and educated in Baghdad during the reign of Caliph Al Mu’tadid (892-904 CE).
Al Masudi was a young man of twenty when he traveled to Persia. Returning to Baghdad the following year, he proceeded to Mansura and Multan (today’s Pakistan). Mansura was the capital of the province of Sind which marked the limit of Islamic domains. Situated in the delta of the great river, it was a prosperous region that excited the imagination of many youth. From Mansura, Al Masudi traveled to Surat in Gujarat. Here the young traveler had first hand
contact with the Hindu civilization which had given the works of Aryabhatta to Islamic astronomy. Traveling further South, Al Masudi landed in Malabar on the Western coast of India, visited Sri Lanka and sailed from there to Sumatra in Indonesia and Malacca in modern Malaysia. Then as now, the Straits of Malacca were the conduit for ships from the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. There was brisk trade between the eastern seaboard of India and Malacca. From here, Al Masudi moved north to
Cantonin China.
Retracing his course around the rim of the Indian Ocean, Al Masudi traveled South to the island of Madagaskar and the eastern seaboard of Africa. He describes Shofala as a city of gold and the cities of Africa as rich and prosperous. He returned to Basrah in 922 and wrote his first historical compendium Muruj-al-Zahab wa al-Ma-adin al-Jawahir (Meadows of Gold and Mines of Precious Stones). In this collection, he describes in fascinating detail the
habitation, geography and ecology of the lands he had visited.
Later in his life, Al Masudi moved first to Damascus (Syria) and then to Fustrat (Cairo), Egypt. Here, he wrote his second volume Muruj al Zaman, in thirty volumes. In this masterpiece, he records the cultures, religious practices and customs of the peoples he had visited and makes observations on their civilizations. He was the first historian who based his writings on empirical observation and inductive science. As such, he was a precursor to the great
historian Ibn Khaldun and the father of modern historiography. In 955 CE, he wrote Kitab al-Awsat, in which he lists chronologically the historical events from ancient times till the year 955 CE. This was the first scholarly effort to sort out historical events from myths, legends and hearsay. His last work, Kitab al-Tanbih wa al-Ishraf provides a summary of his earlier works.
Al Masudi composed a map of the then known world which represented a significant advance upon earlier maps. It shows a large landmass Al Masudi identifies as unknown territory lying beyond “the ocean of darkness and fog”. The landmass suggests the contour of South America. Al Masudi writes in The Meadows of Gold and Quarries of Jewels that a Muslim sailor Ibn Aswad sailed through the ocean of darkness and fog in the year 889 CE and returned with
treasures of gold and silver. The map and the description have led to the speculation that the Americas were known to the Arabs and the Africans.
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