Early Muslim scholars writing about Dhul-Qarnayn also associated Gog and Magog with the Khazars. Ibn Kathir (1301–1373 CE), the famous commentator of the Quran, identified Gog and Magog with the Khazars who lived between the Black and Caspian Sea in his work "Al-Bidayah wa al-Nihayah" ("The Beginning and the End"). The Muslim explorer Ahmad ibn Fadlan, in his travelogue regarding his diplomatic mission in 921 AD to Volga Bulgars (a vassal of the Khazarian Empire), noted the beliefs about Gog and Magog being the ancestors of the Khazars.