Two Arabic Travel Books: Accounts of China and India and Mission to the Volga

Abu Zayd al-Sirafi (Author) Abu Zayd al-Sirafi was a seafarer who moved from the Persian port-city of Siraf to Basra in 303/915-916. He wrote the second half of Accounts of China and India, supplementing an earlier section written by an unknown mariner and merchant fifty years earlier.A¿mad ibn Fälan (Author) A¿mad ibn Fälan was a member of a diplomatic mission sent by the Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir in 309-310/921-922 to the king of the Volga Bulghars. His is the only existing record of that mission.Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Edited and Translated by) Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a noted British travel author, best known for his trilogy on the renowned Moroccan world-traveler Ibn Battutah, which earned him a spot among Newsweek's top twelve travel writers of the past hundred years. Since 1982, he has lived in Sanaa, Yemen.James E. Montgomery (Edited and Translated by) James E. Montgomery, author of Al-Jäi¿: In Praise of Books, is Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall. His latest publications are Loss Sings, a collaboration with the celebrated Scottish artist Alison Watt, and Diwan ¿Antarah ibn Shaddad: A Literary-Historical Study.