Premodern visitors' observations about the people of different premodern places serve as helpful resources for identifying the differences between the premodern and our current classification of languages. Nasir Khosrow's account of the languages spoken by the Xelat people is the intriguing section. The text's ambiguity stems from the premodern's lack of rigorous investigation into "local vernacular." The 'local variants' were not described by a complex system of classification.
In the eleventh century (and many centuries later), Kurdish as a named linguistic unit had not yet been developed in any consistent manner. The 'Parsi' (Persian) mentioned by Khosrow is not the modern meaning of Parsi/Persian. For many premodern authors, Kurdish as a language/languages was categorized as either Parsi or Pahlavi. When premodern authors used the term "pahlavi" to refer to regional Iranian vernaculars, it was beautiful because it made it clear how different the languages were from Persian, in particular. In the absence of any other (linguistic) categories, many authors attempted to capture local Iranian vernaculars by using the terms "pahlavi" and "parsi" interchangeably, which adds another level of complication to the interpretation of these texts.
Nasir Khosrow had to pass through the Kurdish Rawadid dynasty's realm before arriving at the Marwanids. Nasir Khosrow's account of the dynasty is brief, but the poet he met in Tabriz provides more information about the current Kurdish rulers of the area. The 11th-century Kurdish dignitaries were the target audience for several of Qatran Tabrizi's praise songs. The poems convey the cultural attitudes of the era in addition to offering information about these individuals, making them educational.
Nasir Khosrow (11th-century):
On the 14th of Rabī I [18 September] I parted from Tabriz on the Marand road and, accompanied by one of Prince Vahsu-dān's soldiers, came to Khoy. From there also I traveled with a courier up to Bargri. From Khoy to Bargri is thirty parasangs. We arrived on the 12th of Jomādā I [14 November]. From there we came to Vân and Vastān, where they sell pork in the bazaar as well as lamb. Men and women sit drinking wine in the shops without the slightest inhibition. From there we arrived in the city of Akhlat on the 18th of Jomādā I [20 November]. This city is the border town between the Muslims and the Armenians, and from Bargri it is nineteen parasangs. The prince, Nasr al-Dawla, was over a hundred years old and had many sons, to each of whom he had given a district. In the city of Akhlat they speak three languages, Arabic, Persian, and Armenian. It is my supposition that this is why they named the town Akhlāt. Their com-mercial transactions are carried on in cash money, and their rotl is equivalent to three hundred dirhems.
On the 20th of Jomādā [22 November] I left there and came to an outpost. It was snowing and extremely cold. On the plain up to the town there is a section of the road with planks laid on the ground so that on snowy and blizzardy days people can find their way over the wood. From there I went on to Betlis, which lies in a valley. We bought some honey, a hundred maunds for one dinar, at the rate they sold to us. We were told that in this town there were men who produced three to four hundred jars of honey a year. Leaving that place, I saw a fortress called Qef Onzor, which means "stop and look." Passing on, I came to a place where there was a mosque said to have been built by Oways Qarani. There I saw men who roamed about the mountainsides and cut a wood something like cypress. I asked what they did with it, and they explained that when one end of this wood is placed in fire, pitch comes out the other end. It is then collected in pits, put into containers, and sent all over for sale. The regions that I have briefly mentioned after Akhlāt are de-pendencies of Mayyāfäreqin. We went to the town of Arzan, which is a flourishing place with running water and orchards, gardens, and good bazaars. During the Persian month of Adhar they were selling two hundred maunds of grapes, which they call raz-e armānush, for one dinar.
The Region of Diyār Bakr
From there we went to Mayyāfāreqin, which is 28 parasangs distant. From Balkh to Mayyäfäreqin by the way we came was 552 parasangs. It was Friday the 26th of Jomādā I 438 [28 No-vember 1046]. At the time the leaves on the trees were still green. The place has an enormous fortification made of white stone, each slab of which weighs five hundred maunds, and every fifty ells is a huge tower of this same white stone. The top of the rampart is all crenellated and looks as though the master builder had just finished working on it. The city has one gate on the west side set in a large gateway with a masonry arch and an iron door with no wood in it. It has a Friday mosque that would take too long to describe. Briefly, the ablution pool faces forty chambers, through each of which run two large canals, one of which is visible and is for use, while the other is concealed be- neath the earth and is for carrying away refuse and flushing the cisterns. Outside of the city are caravanserais and bazaars, baths, and another congregational mosque used on Fridays. To the north is another town called Mohdatha, and it too has bazaars, a congregational mosque, and baths, all of which are well laid out. In the sermon they style the sultan of the district thus: the Great Prince 'Ezz al-Eslām Sa'd al-Din Nasr al-Dawla Sharaf al-Mella Abu Nasr Ahmad, and he is said to be a hundred years old. The rotl there is equal to 480 stone dirhems. That same prince has built a city at a distance of four parasangs from Mayyāfāreqin and called it Nasriyya. From Amed to Mayyāfāreqin is nine parasangs.
On the 6th of Day, old reckoning, we arrived in Amed, the foundation of which is laid on a monolith rock. The length of the city is two thousand paces, and the breadth the same. There is a wall all around made of black rock, each slab weighing be-tween a hundred and a thousand maunds. The facing of these stones is so expert that they fit together exactly, needing no mud or plaster in between. The height of the wall is twenty cubits, and the width ten. Every hundred ells there is a tower, the half circumference of which is eighty ells. The crenellations are also of this same black stone. Inside the city are many stone stairs by means of which one can go up onto the ramparts, and atop every tower is an embrasure. The city has four gates, all of iron with no wood, and each gate faces one of the four cardinal directions. The east gate is called the Tigris Gate, the west gate the Byzan-tine Gate, the north the Armenian Gate, and the south the Tell Gate. Outside this wall just described is yet another wall, made of that same stone, the height of which is ten ells and the top of which is completely covered with crenellations. Inside the cren-ellation is a passageway wide enough for a totally armed man to pass and to stop and fight with ease. The outside wall also has iron gates, placed directly opposite the gates in the inside wall so that when one passes from a gate in the first wall one must trav-erse a space of fifteen ells before reaching the gate in the second wall. Inside the city is a spring that flows from a granite rock about the size of five millstones. The water is extremely pleasant, but no one knows where the source is. The city has many or-chards and trees thanks to that water. The ruling prince of the city is a son of that Nasr al-Dawla who has been mentioned. I have seen many a city and fortress around the world in the lands of the Arabs, Persians, Hindus, and Turks, but never have I seen the likes of Amed on the face of the earth or have I heard anyone else say that he had seen its equal. The congregational mosque too is of black stone, and a more perfect, stronger con-struction cannot be imagined. Inside the mosque stand two-hun-dred-odd stone columns, all of which are monolithic. Above the columns are stone arches, and above the arches is another colon-nade shorter than the first. Above that is yet another row of arches. All the roofs are peaked, and all the masonry is carved and painted with designs. In the courtyard of the mosque is placed a large stone atop which is a large, round pool of stone. It is as high as a man, and the circumference is ten ells. From the middle of the pool protrudes a brass waterspout from which shoots clean water; it is constructed so that the entrance and the drain for the water are not visible. The enormous ablution pool is the most beautiful thing imaginable-only the stone from which Āmed is built is all black, while that of Mayyāfāreqin is white. Near the mosque is a large church, elaborately made of the same stone, and the floor is laid in marble designs. Beneath the dome, which is the Christians' place of worship, I saw a lat-ticed iron door, the likes of which I had never seen before.
From Amed to Harran there are two roads: along one of them are no settlements, and this one is forty parasangs long; along the other road are many villages, most of the inhabitants of which are Christian, and that way is sixty parasangs long. We went by caravan along the settled route. The plain is extremely level except for a few places so rocky that the animals could hardly go a pace without stepping on a rock.
In Tabriz I saw a poet named Qatran, who wrote decent po-etry, but he could not speak Persian very well. He came to me and brought the works of Manjik and Daqiqi, which read aloud to me. Whenever he came across a meaning too subtle for him, he asked me. I explained it to him and he wrote it down. He also recited his own poetry to me.
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