Ibn al-Faqîh, 900 A.D.
Ibn al-Bahlûl, 910 A.D.
Qodâma
There was no great change in knowledge of the North in the succeeding centuries. Ibn al-Faqîh, about 900 A.D., has nothing to say about the North. He mentions in the seventh climate women who “cut off one of their breasts and burn it at an early age so that it may not grow big,”[174] and he says that Tulia (Thule) is an island in the seventh sea between Rumia (Rome) and Kharizm (Khwarizm in Turkestan), “and there no ship ever puts in.” Ibn al-Bahlûl, about 910 A.D., gives information after Ptolemy about the latitudes of the northern regions and mentions two islands of Amazons, one with men and one with women, in the extreme northern ocean [Seippel, 1896]. Qodâma Ibn Ǵafar (ob. 948 or 949 A.D.) says of the encircling ocean (the Oceanus of the Greeks) in which the British Isles lie that
“it is impossible to penetrate very far into this ocean, the ships cannot get any farther there; no one knows the real state of this ocean.” [Cf. De Goeje in Ibn Khordâdhbeh, 1889, p. 174.]
Ibn Ruste, 912 A.D.
Abû ‘Alî Ahmad Ibn Ruste, about 912 A.D., says of the Russians (“Rûs,” that is, Scandinavians, usually Swedes) that they live on an island, which is surrounded by a sea, is three days’ journey (about seventy-five miles) long, and is covered with forest and bogs; it is unhealthy and saturated to such a degree that the soil quakes where one sets foot on it. They come in ships to the land of the Slavs and attack them, etc. They have neither fixed property, nor towns, nor agriculture; their only means of support is the trade in sable, squirrel and other skins, which they sell to any one who will buy them. They are tall, of handsome appearance, and courageous, etc.[175] Probably there is here a confusion of various statements; the ideas about the unhealthy bog-lands are doubtless connected with northern Russia, and the trade in sables can scarcely be referred to the Swedes on the Baltic.[176]
Al-Mas’ûdî, before 950 A.D.
The well-known historian, traveller and geographer, Abu’l Hasan ‘Alî al-Mas‘ûdî (ob. 956), in his book (allegorically entitled “Gold-washings and Diamond-mines”) repeats certain Arab astronomers who say
“that at the end of the inhabited world in the north there is a great sea, of which part lies under the north pole, and that in the vicinity of it there is a town [or land] which is called Tulia, beyond which no inhabited country is found.” He mentions two rivers in Siberia: “the black and the white Irtish; both are considerable, and they surpass in length the Tigris and Euphrates; the distance between their two mouths is about ten days. On their banks the Turkish tribes Kaimâk and Ghuzz have their camps winter and summer.”
He also states that the black fox’s skin, which is the most valuable of all, comes from the country of the Burtâsians (a Finnish people in Russia, Mordvins ?), and is only found there and in the neighbouring districts. Skins of red and white foxes are mentioned from the same locality, and he gives an account of the extensive trade in furs, whereby these skins are brought to the land of the Franks and Andalusia [i.e., Spain], and also to North Africa, “so that many think they come from Andalusia and the parts of the land of the Franks and of the Slavs that border upon it.”[177] He also has a statement to the effect that before the year 300 of the Hegira [i.e., 912 A.D.] ships with thousands of men had landed in Spain and ravaged the country.
“The inhabitants asserted that these enemies were heathens, who made an inroad every two hundred years, and penetrated into the Mediterranean by another strait than that whereon the copper lighthouse stands [i.e., the Straits of Gibraltar]. But I believe (though Allah alone knows the truth) that they come by a strait [canal] which is connected with Mæotis [the Sea of Azov] and Pontus [the Black Sea], and that they are Russians [i.e., Scandinavians] ... for these are the only people who sail on these seas which are connected with the ocean.”[178]