Book of Travels (Safarnāma)

"Yes, this is an incredibly famous book. It’s still widely read in Iran, but also beyond. Nasir Khusraw travelled in the mid-11th century. At the time, there were many little Shia states and some larger ones. It’s the one century when Shiism looked like it was going to become the mainstream of Islam and it’s sometimes called the Shia century. You had the Fatimids in Cairo, which was an Ismaili Shia dynasty that ruled over much of the Mediterranean and parts of the Middle East. In many parts of the Islamic world, you had Shia movements strengthening and consolidating themselves. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . Nasir Khusraw travelled around for several years during this period, and this is his account of his travels. What’s special about it is that it’s from an Ismaili Shii perspective. He writes about some communities that we otherwise wouldn’t know about: they are almost only mentioned in his book. He also outlines the wider struggles between the Seljuks, a Sunni Turkic dynasty who are rising and challenging the Fatimids and Abbasid caliphate in Iraq. He really travels very, very widely. It’s a fantastic read and a very important source. He’s a bit less famous than Ibn Battuta , for example, or Ibn Jubayr, but those travel books were written more from a Sunni perspective. Also, the other famous travel writers were a bit later. Yes, he goes to all the holy places and on pilgrimages, whenever he can. There are many other things in the book, which don’t relate to my book. For my account, another important thing about this book is that it shows how people were able to travel. Not that many people travelled, but if you wanted to, and had the means, you could travel for years. You could cross religious and political boundaries without too many problems, especially if you didn’t proselytize too openly. It’s not as if the Sunni and Shiite states were somehow hermetically sealed off, and you couldn’t move between them. So it’s a look at a pre-modern Islamic world where yes, there are competing ideas and so on, but borders aren’t really established. Things are pretty much in flux, still, and people can change their religious identity over the course of a lifetime."