Excerpt from Diary of a Journey Through Syria and Palestine Abu mu'in nasir, the son of Khusrau, was born at'a village in the neighbourhood of Balkh in the year 1003 a.d. (394 and claimed to be descended, in the eighth degree, from Imam Ali ar Riza, whose tomb, at the present day is shown in the Shrine at Mash-had. This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Nasir Khusraw was born in 1004 CE, in Qubadiyan, then Greater Khorasan (near the present-day city of Balkh in Afghanistan). He was well versed in all the branches of natural science, in medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, in Greek philosophy and the writings of al-Kindi, al-Farabi and Ibn Sina; and the interpretation of the Qur'an. He had studied Arabic, Turkish, Greek, the vernacular languages of India and Sind, and perhaps even Hebrew; he had visited Multan and Lahore, and the splendid Ghaznavid court under Sultan Mahmud, Firdousi's patron. Later on he chose Merv for his residence, and was the owner of a house and garden there. Until A.H. 437 (1046 CE), he worked as financial secretary and revenue collector for the Seljuk sultan Toghrul Beg, or rather of his brother Jaghir Beg, the emir of Khorasan, who had conquered Merv in 1037. About this time, inspired by a heavenly voice in a dream, he abjured all the luxuries of life, and resolved upon a pilgrimage to the holy shrines of Mecca and Medina, hoping to find there the solution to his spiritual crisis. read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasir\_Kh... in Persian: ناصر خسرو
