Description
Book SynopsisThe 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.
Trade ReviewThese nineteen essays on language, travel narratives, trade, religion, archaeology, and sex by top experts are as lively and compelling as Ibn Fadlan’s original narrative. A must-read for anyone interested in cultural encounters. * Valerie Hansen, Stanley Woodward Professor, Yale University, USA *
Muslims on the Volga in the Viking Age masterfully takes the reader into the three different medieval worlds of urban Islam, the Pontic steppe empires and the Nordic realm of Vikings and Rus. Guided by the fascinating travelogue of the diplomat Ibn Fadlan, the contributions brilliantly reveal how intercontinental trade acted as nexus between these diverse realms. The book is a piece of excellent scholarship and is delightful to explore. * Christoph Baumer, author of History of the Caucasus: Volume 1 (2021) and History of the Caucasus: Volume 2 (2023) *
This generous collection of essays offers rich context for readers of Ibn Fadlan's famous medieval travelogue to the Volga Bulgars and his observations of the Viking Rus and their customs. The editors are to be congratulated for bringing together cutting-edge scholarship from diverse fields on Ibn Fadlan's broad literary context as well as on the economies and societies he so memorably encountered. * Paul M. Cobb, Professor, University of Pennsylvania, USA *
A wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary, and expertly-edited collection of papers by scholars clearly suited to a close treatment of their respective topics. As each attests, Ibn Fadlan's 10th-century account of his Volga mission offers up many puzzles. The arguments contained herein move their solution ahead a number of paces. * Matthew Gordon, Professor, Miami University, USA *
Table of ContentsList of maps List of illustrations List of tables and appendices Preface and acknowledgements List of abbreviations List of contributors Maps Plates PART ONE: OVERVIEW 1. Editors' introduction 2. Ibn Fadlan’s
Kitab: text and afterlife
Viacheslav S. Kuleshov with Jonathan Shepard PART TWO: TEXT AND CONTEXT 3. Where is the real Ibn Fadlan? Editing and translating the
Kitab James E. Montgomery 4. From
Kitab to
Risala: the long shadow of Yaqut’s version of Ibn Fadlan’s account
Luke Treadwell 5. Other Arab geographers’ sources on the North: al-Jayhani and the ‘Anonymous Relation’
Jean-Charles Ducène 6. Other ethnographies of the steppe
Walter Pohl 7. Other travellers’ tales
Ian Wood PART THREE: BACKGROUND TO THE JOURNEY 8. The Abbasid background
Hugh Kennedy 9. Ibn Fadlan and the Khazars: the hidden centre
Nick Evans 10. Beyond the Gate of the Turks: archaeology around the Aral Sea
Irina Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke, with a contribution by Ekaterina A. Armarchuk PART FOUR: VIKING-AGE RUS 11. Ibn Fadlan and the rituals of the Rus: Vikings on the Volga?
Neil Price 12. Viking-Age markets and emporia
Søren M. Sindbæk 13. Rus, routes and sites
Veronika Murasheva 14. Identities, ethnicities, cultures: Ibn Fadlan and the Rus on the Middle Volga
Þórir Jónsson Hraundal 15. Rus and other Northmen under non-Arabic eyes
Jonathan Shepard PART FIVE: VOLGA BULGARIA 16. What was Volga Bulgaria?
Leonard Nedashkovsky 17. Ninth- and tenth-century Volga Bulgar trade
Evgeniy P. Kazakov 18. Volga Bulgar imitative coinage
Marek Jankowiak PART SIX: CONCLUSION 19. ‘Failure of a mission’?
Jonathan Shepard List of Reign Dates List of Alternative Place Names Glossary Index
