Al-Masʿūdī, in full Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Masʿūdī (born before 893 AD, Baghdad, Iraq—died September 956 AD, Al-Fusṭāṭ, Egypt [now part of Cairo]), historian and traveler, known as the “Herodotus of the Arabs.” He was the first Arab to combine history and scientific geography in a...