Masudi, Abd al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn [key], d. 956, Arab historian, geographer, and philosopher, b. Baghdad. He traveled in Spain, Russia, India, Sri Lanka, and China and spent his last years in Syria and Egypt. His Muruj adh-Dhahab [meadows of gold], an epitome of a longer history of the world from creation to a.d. 947, is a compilation of his travel observations and studies. It embraces social and literary history, discussions of religions, and geographic descriptions. A French version of this work was published between 1861 and 1878. The first volume has been translated into English.
See R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (2d ed. 1930).
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