The Zayn al-akhbār is a Persian history that Gardīzī wrote about 1050. It has chapters on the Turkic peoples, with their roads, customs and rulers. For the Kirghiz it describes a road from the land of the Toghuzghuz in four stages. The first runs through steppe and desert. The second runs through hills and forest to the high wooded mountain Mānb.klū.[1] The third takes four days to the wooded mountain of Kokman. From Kokman it is seven days to the encampment where the army quarters of the Kirghiz khan lie.[1] Mānb.klū is identified with the Altai. Kokman, known also from the Orkhon inscriptions, is identified with the Tannu-ola rather than the Sayan. This places the khan’s seat on the upper Yenisei, in the Minusinsk region.[2]

Gardīzī says that the Kirghiz burn their dead because they hold fire to be the purest element, which cleanses the dead of dirt and sin. He also tells a legend that the founder of the Kirghiz was a Slav, with their red hair and white skin as proof.[3] His narrative of the Kirghiz is at times fanciful.[4] The geographical chapters and the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam draw on an older common source, probably the lost geography of Jayhānī. With Marvazī, they count as one witness, not three.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b Gardīzī ca. 1050, p. 282; Minorsky 1970, p. 282
  2. ^ Minorsky 1970, p. 282–283
  3. ^ Gardīzī ca. 1050, p. 21,282; Barthold 1927, p. 21,282; Minorsky 1970, p. 21,282
  4. ^ Golden 1992, p. 182
  5. ^ Minorsky 1955, p. 262–263,285; Minorsky 1970, p. 262–263,285

Literature

  • Gardīzī, زين الأخبار Zayn al-Akhbār (ca. 1050)
  • V. Minorsky, Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, "The Regions of the World": A Persian Geography 372 A.H. – 982 A.D., translated and explained, with the preface by V. V. Barthold, 2nd ed. (1970)
  • V. Minorsky, Addenda to the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (1955)
  • V. V. Barthold, Kirgizy: istoričeskij očerk [Киргизы: исторический очерк] (1927)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)

Unresolved source identifiers: zayn-al-akhbar

Articles resting on this source 2

Captives and the Unfree · Ibn Rusta

Related

What links here6

Places
Tuz Köl of the Karluks
Institutions and Titles
Tutuk
Customs & Pastimes
Kirghiz Entertainments
Sources
Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam · Ibn Rusta · Marvazī (Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān)

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Gardīzī (Zayn al-akhbār).” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/gardizi/

Last revised: 8 November 2026