Arabic source for the medieval history of East Caucasus: Kitab al-buldan by Ibn al-Faqih

The central objective of this paper is to find out the different aspects of Dagestani polities in 7th -10th centuries: the territorial, the ethnic, and the political, thus to enhance and further develop our understanding of the historical geography of Eastern Caucasus. Here in the Middle Ages were located Sarir, Lakz, Filan, Shandan, Masqat, Khayzan, Bab al-Abvab, Khazaria, etc. This paper represents the first attempt at a thorough study of the excerpts from Arabic geographical source Kitab al-Buldan by Ibn al-Faqih on medieval history of Eastern Caucasus through translation, commentary and comparative analysis. This work gives a brief description of different polities: indicating trade routes, distances between towns etc. sort of the administrative directory, and thus considered as the geographical descriptive work, which contains brief information on Dagestan. The paper discusses the main aspects of life and scholarly activities of Ibn al-Faqih, who was an expert in Islamic history and Arabic geography. He mainly outlines the history of Muslims; describes the administrative structure and tax system in the Caliphate; gives detailed the list of routes and distance between polities existed in Eastern Caucasus. In the given research paper the author conducted comparison of the information on Dagestan within the works of Ibn al-Faqih's Kitab al-Buldan and Ibn Khordadbeh's Kitab al-masalik wa-l-mamalik in order to find out whether the origin of the material is the same for both authors. More broadly, a major emphasis of the study is placed on interpretation of the place names cited by both Arab medieval authors, and comparison and critical analysis of the accounts widely used by non-Arabic-speaking authors on Dagestani medieval toponymy. The author's main argument is that the value of corpus of Arabic sources is that it contains important historical information for the studying of medieval Eastern Caucasus (Dagestan) social, political and economic history. The results of the research will greatly enrich researchers' understanding of the peculiarities of the early medieval historical geography of Dagestan. Until now, no significant attention has been given to the study of historical geography of Dagestan in Arabic source Kitab al-Buldan of Ibn al-Faqih.

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