{"id":637,"date":"2023-05-24T22:50:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T02:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/?page_id=637"},"modified":"2023-07-10T13:32:15","modified_gmt":"2023-07-10T17:32:15","slug":"indigenization-ibn-fadlan","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/makingvikings\/indigenization\/indigenization-ibn-fadlan\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenization: Ibn Fadlan"},"content":{"rendered":"

There exist few parallels, particularly from Middle Eastern sources, to Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s travel account about a group of R\u016bs, a medieval Arabic ethnic term very frequently used for Vikings, living along the Volga River in modern-day Russia.1<\/a><\/sup> Visiting the R\u016bs was not Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s original intention as he was instead sent as an ambassador by the Abbasid caliph to the Volga Bulgars, who had recently converted to Islam. However, Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n wrote extensively about his experience with the Volga Bulghars, as well as the R\u016bs he encountered on his trip, in the tenth century CE as part of his Ris\u0101la<\/em>, a popular genre of travel literature in the medieval Middle East through which he presumably sought to document his ambassadorial experience.<\/p>\n

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Ibn Fadlan’s Risala.
Ridawiya MS 5229 fol. 196v.
(source: Wikimedia<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

As are many when discussing Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n, I was concerned as to whether his accounts can be interpreted as referring to Vikings. R\u016bs, in medieval Arabic, was often used very broadly and Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s Ris\u0101la<\/em> discussion of the Volga encompasses a multiplicity of ethnic groups. Thorir Jonsson Hraundal, in his article about Arabic sources about the R\u016bs, argues that Arabic literary sources about R\u016bs living along the Volga should be interpreted as being Vikings and, in the process, he helps elucidate the significance of works like Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s in studying the Viking Age.2<\/a><\/sup> Setting aside traditional accounts of R\u016bs history such as The Primary Chronicle<\/em> due to their obvious influence from biblical and Byzantine sources, Hraundal argues that medieval Arabic accounts have long been neglected as valid sources of information about Vikings in Eastern Europe and, more importantly for this study, argues that Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s description of a R\u016bs funeral exhibits strong similarities to Old Norse sagas from the thirteenth century CE describing funerary practices of the cult of Odin. For me, not only does looking at Hraundal help validate the use of Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n as an authentic source regarding the Vikings, but he also implicitly provides certain guidelines as to how to look at and analyze medieval Arabic sources about the R\u016bs such as Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Regarding Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s ris\u0101la itself, his depiction of the R\u016bs is very negative. Although he praises the appearance, calling them \u201cperfect,\u201d he takes strong issue and disgust with almost every aspect of their culture, describing them as filthy and with no shame or modesty when it came to intercourse. However, it is important to keep in mind that Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s perception of the Vikings is strongly shaped by his Islamic background. When he calls their mode of morning purification filthy, it is presumably done so in comparison to the Muslim ritual purification before prayer. He takes issue with R\u016bs men not bathing after intercourse because it is a religious commandment to do so. Although Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s account does not contain an aspect of outside culture that\u2019s indigenized by the Vikings, it reminds us that this path to indigenization is not a one-road street. When we read Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n, we must constantly be aware that we are reading an account of the Vikings through a Muslim lens. All their features, positive or negative, are constantly being positioned against Islam. It is an etic account of the Vikings, through and through.<\/p>\n

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Silver Artifacts from the Exhibition “Vikings in the East.”
Moesgaard Museum, DK (2022).
(source: F Androshchuk<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

This is not necessarily always a negative thing. Take, for example, how Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n describes part of a ritual following the death of a chieftain. His female slave, who is to be killed to accompany her former master into the afterlife, is raised in the air multiple times and is quoted as saying, \u201c\u2018Look, I see my master, seated in the Garden. The Garden is beautiful and dark green. He is with his men and his retainers. He summons me. Go to him.\u2019\u201d While we are unsure if the R\u016bs believed in Valhalla or not, we cannot tell from this text alone. That\u2019s because the garden that Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n speaks of is likely an obvious comparison being made to the Islamic afterlife, which is described as being a garden. The afterlife of the R\u016bs is likely translated as \u201cGarden\u201d to facilitate a better understanding for Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n or his audience \u2014 whether the semantic shift to \u201cGarden\u201d from whatever the enslaved woman actually said happened with Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s translator or Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n himself as he recorded the event in his Ris\u0101la<\/em> is unknown. In any case, despite Hraundal\u2019s claim that Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s account of R\u016bs funerary practices exhibits similarities to those we see in certain Old Norse sagas, we must be aware of the element of indigenization that exists in Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n as well. Far from ignoring it, however, we should see it both as a way to see how Arab Muslims like Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n put groups like the R\u016bs into perspective as well as how a normative, literary history of the Vikings is crafted.<\/p>\n

\n

1<\/a><\/sup> A\u1e25mad Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n, \u201cMission to the Volga,\u201d ed. James E. Montgomery, in Two Arabic Travel Books: Accounts of India and China<\/em>, edited by Philip F. Kennedy and Shawkat M. Toorawa, 163\u2013297, Library of Arabic Literature, (New York: New York University Press, 2014).
\n2<\/a><\/sup> Thorir Jonsson Hraundal, \u201cNew Perspectives on Eastern Vikings\/Rus in Arabic Sources,\u201d Viking and Medieval Scandinavia 10 (2014): 65\u201398.<\/p>\n

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There exist few parallels, particularly from Middle Eastern sources, to Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s travel account about a group of R\u016bs, a medieval Arabic ethnic term very frequently used for Vikings, living along the Volga River in modern-day Russia.1 Visiting the R\u016bs was not Ibn Fa\u1e0dl\u0101n\u2019s original intention as he was instead sent as an ambassador by<\/p>\n

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