This is evidently the ancient belief that the Black Sea was connected through Mæotis with the Baltic.
Al-Bîrûnî, 1030 A.D.
The celebrated astronomer and mathematician, Abu-r-Raihân Muhammad al-Bîrûnî (973-1038, wrote in 1030),[179] a Persian by birth, is of interest to us as the first Arabic author who uses the name “Warank”[180] for Scandinavian, and mentions the Varangians’ Sea or Baltic.
In his text-book of the elements of astronomy he says that from “the Encircling Ocean” [the Oceanus of the Greeks], out into which one never sails, but only along the coast, “there proceeds a great bay to the north of the Slavs, extending to the vicinity of the land of the Mohammedan Bulgarians [on the Volga]. It is known by the name of the Varangians’ Sea (‘Baḥr Warank’), and they [the Varangians] are a people[181] on its coast. Then it bends to the east in rear of them, and between its shore and the uttermost lands of the Turks [i.e., in East Asia] there are countries and mountains unknown, desert, untrodden.”
Al-Bîrûnî also has a very primitive map of the world as a round disc in the ocean, indented by five bays, of which the Varangians’ Sea is one [cf. Seippel, 1896, Pl. I]. The peoples who are beyond the seventh climate, that is, in the northernmost regions, are few, says he, “such as the Îsû [i.e., Wîsû], and the Warank, and the Yura [Yugrians] and the like.”
Al-Ġazâl’s voyage to the Maǵûs
The Arabs of the West came in contact with the North through the Norman Vikings, whom they called Maǵûs (cf. [p. 55]), and who in the ninth century and later made several predatory expeditions to the Spanish Peninsula. Their first attack on the Moorish kingdom in Spain seems to have taken place in 844, when, amongst other things, they took and sacked Seville. After that expedition, an Arab writer tells us, friendly relations were established between the sultan of Spain, ‘Abd ar-Raḥmân II., and “the king of the Maǵûs,” and, according to an account in Abu’l-Khaṭṭâb ‘Omar Ibn Diḥya[183] (ob. circa 1235), the former is even said to have sent an ambassador, al-Ġazâl, to the latter’s country. Ibn Diḥya says that he took the account from an author named Tammâm Ibn ‘Alqama (ob. 896), who again is said to have had it from al-Ġazâl’s own mouth. It is obviously untrustworthy, but may possibly have a historical kernel. The king of the Maǵûs had first sent an ambassador to ‘Abd ar-Raḥmân to sue for peace (?); and al-Ġazâl accompanied him home again, in a well-appointed ship of his own, to bring the answer and a present. They arrived first at an island on the borders of the land of the Maǵûs people.[184] From thence they went to the king, who lived on a great island in the ocean, where there were streams of water and gardens. It was three days’ journey or 300 [Arab] miles from the continent.
“There was an innumerable multitude of the Maǵûs, and in the vicinity were many other islands, great and small, all inhabited by Maǵûs, and the part of the continent that lies near them also belongs to them, for a distance of many days’ journey. They were then heathens (Maǵûs); now they are Christians, for they have abandoned their old religion of fire-worship,[185] only the inhabitants of certain islands have retained it. There the people still marry their mothers or sisters, and other abominations are also committed there [cf. Strabo on the Irish, vol. i. p. 81]. With these the others are in a state of war, and they carry them away into slavery.”
This mention of many islands with the same people as those established on the continent may suit the island kingdom of Denmark; but Ireland, with the Isle of Man, the Scottish islands, etc., lies nearer, and moreover agrees better with the 300 miles from the continent.
We are next told of their reception at the court of the king and of their stay there, and especially how the handsome and wily Moorish ambassador paid court in prose and verse to the queen,[186] who was very compliant. When Ibn ‘Alqama asked al-Ġazâl whether she was really so beautiful as he had given her to understand, that prudent diplomatist answered: “Certainly, she was not so bad; but to tell the truth, I had use for her....” When he was afraid his daily visits might attract attention, she laughed and said: