Muslims on the Volga in the Viking Age: In the Footsteps of Ibn Fadlan (Library of Medieval Studies) (VOL. 10)

In the year 922 a remarkable encounter took place on the wide banks of the Middle Volga. The eyewitness account of Ibn Fadlan, an emissary to the leader of the Bulgars from the far-distant caliphate in Baghdad, vividly describes his meeting with the forest steppe peoples of the region, whom the 'Abbasid envoy famously called 'the Great Unwashed'. He recounts a ship burial involving Viking funerary rites. This innovative interdisciplinary volume explores the wider cultural and political contexts behind the unique testimony of Ibn Fadlan. We have no other detailed written evidence for the Bulgars and Viking Rus, and prominent contributors here demonstrate why the report of this intrepid Arab traveller is quite unparalleled and singularly valuable in assessing novel cross-cultural contact during the period. The book reveals the full extent to which different peoples (Arabs, Byzantines, Turks, Bulgars and Vikings) were now intersecting, and how new structures of power and trade were emerging. It reflects too on how this Islamic diplomatic and religious mission might have foreshadowed the later 'clash of civilizations'. Cover 1 Contents 6 List of plates 8 List of figures 9 List of maps 11 List of tables and appendices 12 List of contributors 13 Preface 15 List of abbreviations 17 Sources and bibliography for plates 21 Part One Overview 38 1 Introduction 40 2 Ibn Fadlan’s Kitab: Text and afterlife Viacheslav S. Kuleshov with Jonathan Shepard 52 Part Two Text and context 66 3 Where is the real Ibn Fadlan? Editing and translating the Kitab James E. Montgomery 68 4 From Kitab to Risala: The long shadow of Yaqut’s version of Ibn Fadlan’s account Luke Treadwell 78 5 Other Arab geographers’ sources on the north: The ‘Anonymous Relation’ and al-Jayhani Jean-Charles Ducène 104 6 Other ethnographies of the steppe Walter Pohl 120 7 Other travellers’ tales Ian Wood 142 Part Three Background to the journey 156 8 The Abbasid background Hugh Kennedy 158 9 Ibn Fadlan and the Khazars: The hidden centre Nick Evans 170 10 Beyond the Gate of the Turks: Archaeology around the Aral Sea Irina A. Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke with a contribution by Ekaterina A. Armarchuk 186 Part Four Viking-Age Rus 212 11 Ibn Fadlan and the rituals of the Rus: Vikings on the Volga? Neil Price 214 12 Viking-Age markets and emporia Søren M. Sindbæk 236 13 Rus, routes and sites Veronika Murasheva 252 14 Identities, ethnicities, cultures: Ibn Fadlan and the Rus on the Middle Volga Thorir Jonsson Hraundal 274 15 Rus and other Northmen under non-Arabic eyes Jonathan Shepard 290 Part Five Volga Bulgaria 314 16 What was Volga Bulgaria? Leonard Nedashkovsky 316 17 Ninth- and tenth-century Volga Bulgar trade Evgeniy P. Kazakov 336 18 The Volga Bulgar imitative coinage Marek Jankowiak 352 Part Six Conclusion 396 19 ‘Failure of a mission’? Jonathan Shepard 398 List of reign dates 420 List of alternative place names 422 Glossary 424 Index 432 "The year 922 saw a series of remarkable face-to-face encounters in the steppes between Bukhara and the Middle Volga. Ibn Fadlan was an intrepid member of a diplomatic and religious mission from the distant caliphate in Baghdad to the ruler of the Volga Bulgars. His account gives a vivid eyewitness description of the peoples he came upon (whose appearance, rituals and filthy habits both fascinate and appal) and a famous depiction of a Viking Rus ship burial. It is unique testimony to burgeoning exchanges between several different cultures, and to the emergence of new political structures on the steppes. Yet the account survives only as part of a later composite work, raising questions of meaning and historical interpretation. This unprecedented interdisciplinary study of Ibn Fadlan's text and the world he surveyed draws on a variety of specialists to give readers both 'the bigger picture' of cultural and economic change in Eurasia, Byzantium and the Muslim world, and hard facts, in the form of archaeological and numismatic data."-- Provided by publisher The year 922 saw a series of remarkable face-to-face encounters in the steppes between Bukhara and the Middle Volga. Ibn Fadlan was an intrepid member of a diplomatic and religious mission from the distant caliphate in Baghdad to the ruler of the Volga Bulgars. His account gives a vivid eyewitness description of the peoples he came upon (whose appearance, rituals and filthy habits both fascinate and appal) and a famous depiction of a Viking Rus ship burial. It is unique testimony to burgeoning exchanges between several different cultures, and to the emergence of new political structures on the steppes. Yet the account survives only as part of a later composite work, raising questions of meaning and historical interpretation. This pioneering interdisciplinary study of Ibn Fadlan's text and the world he surveyed draws on a variety of specialists to give readers both 'the bigger picture' of cultural and economic change in Eurasia, Byzantium and the Muslim world, and hard facts, in the form of archaeological and numismatic data.