Which 9th-century geographer authored an early geographic treatise detailing routes and realms?

• A. Al-Masudi
• B. Al-Idrisi
• C. Ptolemy
• D. Ibn Khordadbeh

Answer: (D)

The question is about pinpointing the author of an early geographic work that maps routes and the lands they connect. The author is Ibn Khordadbeh, a 9th-century Abbasid geographer who wrote Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, commonly translated as The Book of Roads and Realms. This treatise lays out major overland and maritime routes, caravan networks, and the lands and peoples along them, effectively providing a practical picture of how the Islamic world was connected. It reflects the era’s focus on how administration and commerce linked far-flung regions, offering distances, travel notes, and descriptions of provincial realms that guided traders and officials. Other figures listed lived in different centuries (one in the 10th, another in the 12th, and Ptolemy in antiquity), so Ibn Khordadbeh fits the 9th-century context and the content described.