Tenth Century
Ahmad Ibn Fadlan lived near the city of Baghdad (in what is now Iraq) during the early 900s. Although not an Arab himself, Ibn Fadlan was an Islamic scholar, and he served the caliph (the Islamic ruler) of the city, which was a center of commercial and religious importance. In 921–22 Ibn Fadlan was the religious advisor of a diplomatic mission sent by the Abbasid Caliph al-Muktadir to the king of the Volga Bulgars, a Turkish tribe then living on the east bank of the Volga River, in what is now Russia. One of the purposes of the journey was to explain the laws of Islam to the Bulgars, who had recently converted to the religion. Ibn Fadlan would later write the only account of this trip to the north, describing the peoples he encountered and their extraordinary beliefs and customs.
Leaving Baghdad on June 21, 921, the mission traveled by well-known caravan routes into western Persia (now Iran). Its members then turned north toward the Caucasus region—which lies west of the Caspian Sea—before heading into eastern Europe. The expedition met many peoples along the way: the Oghuz Turks, ancestors of the modern Turkomans that live east of the Caspian Sea; the Petchenegs, a Turkish tribe living along the Ural River; and the Bashkirs, Turks who now live in central Russia. Ibn Fadlan also wrote about the Khazars, a Turkish tribe on the southern end of the Volga River that had converted to Judaism at the beginning of the ninth century. Ibn Fadlan’s accounts of these peoples are among the earliest written, and they provide valuable information about the history of different ethnic groups in central Eurasia.
The Arab diplomatic mission arrived at the capital of the Bulgars on May 12, 922. When presented to the king, Ibn Fadlan gave him the gifts the caliph had sent, and read a letter he himself had written celebrating the occasion. While visiting the Bulgars, the travelers met members of the Rus, Vikings from the Baltic region who were settling in the area. They were the ancestors of modern Russians. The Rus had trading posts along the Volga River. They had not yet converted to Christianity, and Ibn Fadlan wrote very disapprovingly about their pagan ways, which included idol worship and animal sacrifices.
In the best-known passages of Ibn Fadlan’s written account, he describes the burial of a Viking chief. The man’s property was divided into three parts, with one portion kept by the family and the rest sold to finance the funeral. The ceremony involved the sacrifice of a female slave who was first forced to take part in a ritual orgy. She was then stabbed to death and placed alongside the dead chief on a Viking boat, which was set afire and launched into the river.
Ibn Fadlan’s account of his travels—which he simply entitled Kitab, or “Book”—contained many such descriptions of foreign customs and rituals. They must have seemed especially strange to the Islamic scholar from Baghdad, which was one of the world’s most wealthy and civilized cities at that time. Ibn Fadlan also related some miraculous stories in his book, like the account of the legendary giants Gog and Magog, but he was always careful to point out that he had not witnessed the fantastic things himself; he was merely relating what was told to him.
It is unfortunate that the last part of Ibn Fadlan’s text was lost, and that we know nothing about how the mission returned to Baghdad or of the author’s own fate. The text, in fact, was not known in Europe until 1823, when a Russian scholar, C. M. Fraehn, translated it from Arabic into German. It then became an important historical document about the early Russians and the Turkic people of eastern Europe and west-central Asia.
Ibn Fadlan narrates a bestselling modern novel
In 1976 blockbuster author Michael Crichton (whose works include Jurassic Park) published the inventive novel Eaters of the Dead. Its narrator is none other than Ibn Fadlan, a representative of the caliph of Baghdad, sent to the valley of the Volga River on a diplomatic mission in the year 922. Before he arrives there he meets Buliwyf, a powerful Viking chieftain who must return home to save his countrymen, who are being attacked by dark, hairy monsters that come during the misty nights and devour their victims’ flesh. Ibn Fadlan abandons his diplomatic mission, accompanying Buliwyf to Scandinavia instead. He records their incredible experiences.
Crichton explained that Eaters of the Dead was based on the old English epic Beowulf; which relates the adventures of a heroic Norse (Scandinavian) warrior who slays a water monster that roams the land at night in search of human flesh. The author remembered Ibn Fadlan’s tenth-century eyewitness accounts of Viking life and culture, and felt that the historical figure would make a perfect narrator for his recreation of the story of Beowulf. As an outsider, Ibn Fadlan could objectively report on events as they occurred. The first three chapters of Eaters of the Dead consist of Ibn Fadlan’s actual accounts as he approaches the Volga Bulgar capital. After that, Crichton supplies the Islamic diplomat’s voice as he continues on his then-fictional journey.
Baker, Daniel B., ed. Explorers and Discoverers of the World. Detroit: Gale Research, 1993.
Crichton, Michael. Eaters of the Dead. New York: Ballantine, 1976.
Waldman, Carl, and Alan Wexler. Who Was Who in World Exploration. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
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