خلاصه ماشینی:
Africa to the Fatimids, Spain to the Omayyads, Transoxiana and Khorasan to the Samanids, South Arabia and Bahrain to the Kar• mathians and Jurjan to the Dailamites, Basra and Wasit to the Barids ; while naught but Baghdad and a portion of Babylonia owned the Caliph's actual sway3• Already in the year 324 Masudi likens the ·situation to the Diodochi States that grew out of the Empire of Alex• ander the Great (Masudi, I, 306 ; II, 73 et sqq).
Masudi himself speaks of the Empire of the 'Commander of the Faithful' as extending from Farghana and the Eastern frontier of Khorasan to Tangier in the west, 3, 700 parasangs ; from the Caucasus to Jedda, 600 parasangs4• The local rulers (Ashab al-Atraf or Muluk-al-Tawaif) acknowledge the suzerainty of the Caliph, and in the first instance cause prayer to be offered for him in the mosque, and purchase their titles from him, and .
For Mukaddasi, the l\iusiim Empire extends from the extreme east at Kashghar to remote Sus on the Atlantic, and requires ten months to traverse5• According to Ibn · Haukal it is bounded on the East bv India and the Persian Gulf; on the West by peoples of the Sudan who dwell on the shores of the Atlantic ; on the North by the countries of the Romans, the Armenians, the Alans, the Arrans, the Khazars, the Russians, the Bulgarians, the Slavs, the Turks, the Chinese; on the South by the Persian Sea6• Within these borders the Muslim travelled under the shadow of his faith, and, wheresoever he went, found the very same God, the very same prayer, and the very same laws and customs.