Flourished 943-952
Travel Writer

Abu Dulaf al-Khazraji exploited the popular interest in travel to enhance his reputation as a litterateur. An Iranian frequenting the court of a local ruler in western Iran during the mid tenth century, he wrote two travel accounts. The first purports to report on a delegation sent by the Samanid ruler Nasr ibn Ahmad (ruled 914-943) of eastern Iran to negotiate a royal marriage with the ruler of China. Abu Dulaf's short, and at times fanciful, descriptions of the peoples he encountered are in seemingly illogical order, and the few words he devoted to an alleged return to Iran by way of China, Malaya, and India have led scholars to doubt that he ever made the journey. More likely, he collected information from travelers in the Samanid capital of Bukhara and fabricated a narrative to please the reading public. Scholars have...