Buzurk b. Shahriyār, from Rām-Hurmuz, a small town of Khūzistān province in Iran, was a Persian nākhudhā (ship-owner, pilot or shipmaster) of A.H.4th/A.D.10th century and author of the Kitāb 'Ajā'ib al-Hind (Book of the Marvels of India). His home town was probably Sīrāf, one of the most prosperous trading ports on the Iranian shore of the Persian Gulf. This book is a collection in Arabic of 136 stories and anecdotes gathered by the author from ship-masters, pilots, traders and other seafaring men who used to sail the Indian Ocean.
In the consensus of most preceding scholars, the only unique ancient manuscript known, Ms. no.3306 was in the old collection of the Aya Sofia Mosque, and now preserved in the Sülaymaniye Library in Istanbul. During the late nineteenth century, a copy of this manuscript was made for the famous orientalist C. Schefer in Istanbul, and was sent to Paris (this copy is now preserved in the Bibliothèque National of Paris, Ms. Arabe 5506). Based on Ms. no.3306, the Arabic text was edited by P.A. van der Lith together with a French translation by M. Devic, Leiden 1883-86. This text and translation has been used by a wide range of scholars as a most trustworthy study on Buzurk's book.
In 1971 while researching Arabic manuscripts preserved in Nür Osmanie Library in Istanbul, I was able to photograph an interesting copy of vol.2 of al-'Umarī's Masālik al-Abṣār fī Mamālik al-Amṣār which contains a collection of sailor's tales of the Indian Ocean. In 1988 Fuat Sezgin published in facsimile edition of twenty-seven books on "a geographical-historical-biographical encyclopaedia" titled Masālik al-Abṣār fī Mamālik al-Amṣār by Ibn Faḍl Allāh al-'Umarī (d.1349). By comparing with a microfilm of Nür Osmanie's manuscript and vol.2 of Fuat Sezgin's edition, I firmly believed that "Chapter 3, Paragraph 3" of vol.2 of al-'Umarī's book was part of Buzurk's book, Kitāb 'Ajā'ib al-Hind.
The aim of this article is to clarify the following two points: ① to identify the contents of al-'Umarī's manuscript with Buzurk's book, ② to analyze unique values of al-'Umarī's manuscript as new historical materials in the study of "the Indian Ocean world" in the 10th century.
The tales described in al-'Umarī's book are unnumbered in Arabic, but can be divided into 77 tales, anecdotes and apothegms. No perceptible plan can be discovered in the arrangement of the 77 tales. Six of these are dated, the earliest being A.H.270 (A.D.883/84), and the latest date falling within the reign of the Abbasid Caliph al-Ṭā’i‘ (A.D.974-91). There are three very important tales dated between A.H.361 (971/72) and 367 (977/78). From these tales, it seems clear to us that the author had stayed several times in Kalah (Kalah Bār), Ṣanf (Champa), Sarbuza (Šrivijaya) and Banjālān (Bengal).
In conclusion, it is clear to us that "Chapter 3, Paragraph 3" of vol.2 of al-'Umarī's book is another version of Buzurk's book and is an abridged compilation rather than an original composition of Buzurk's book, but it contains more new information on Kalah (a port at the modern Bujan vally in Malaysia), Bengal (a port in the months of the Ganges), Ṣanf (Ṣanf Fūlaw, the Champa kingdom in the eastern coast of Indochina) and other places on the shores on the Indian Ocean which were unknown from other sources.
We therefore know that al-'Umarī's quotations on Buzurk's book, including the extra tales not mentioned by Aya Sofia Ms. no.3306 throw a new light on the history of the medieval Indian Ocean world.