‘The Oriental geography of Ebn Haukal, an Arabian traveller of the tenth century’ [‎2] (17/388)

y PREFACE.
paper, the footsteps of Ebn Haukal*, who, it appears from
his own words, had actually visited most of the places which
he describes.
Although the exact epoch of his birth and death is still un~
known to me, I have not hesitated to announce Ebn Haukal
as an author of the tenth century. That he wrote before the
building of Cairo, we learn from his account of Egypt in the
following work, page 30; and after the accession of Abdar-
rahman, who, in his time, governed Andalus, or Spain,
appears from p. 28. The foundation of modern Cairo was
laid in the year q 08 of the Christian JEra, tt/id Abdarrah-
man assumed the government of Spain in the year 902 of the
same Mra, or of the Hegira 290. Thus we may ascertain,
■K-
I that Ebn Haukal flourished before the year 9O8, and after
the year 902 ; and we cannot err considerably if we place
him in the middle, or, perhaps, in the beginning, of the tenth
century f . He is styled, by Ed nisi and Abulfeda, simply
* Chorasmia et Maweralnahr de script to, ex tabulis Ahulfedct, &c. Quarto, London,
i 650, p. 2.
t This date is confirmed by another passage in our Author s description of Maweralnahr,
or Transoxania, page 235. He there informs us, that he conversed with a respectable
personage, who had served in the armies of Nasser Ahmed. This Prince, of the
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