Ibn Fadlân

Ahmad ibn-Al 'Abbas ibn Rashid ibn-Hammad ibn-Fadlan (Aḥmad ʿibn alʿAbbāsʿibn Rasẖīd ʿibn ḥammād ʿibn Fadlān أحمدابنالعباسابنرشيدابنحمادابنفضلان) was a Kurdish well-read man of origin of the Xe century which left an account of its voyages like member of the embassy of the Caliph of Baghdad to the king of the Bulgares of the Volga ( Kitāb ilá malik aṣ-Ṣaqālibah كتابإلىملكالصقالبة).

Embassy

Ibn Fadlan was sent of Baghdad in 921 as secretary of an ambassador of the Caliph Abbasside Al-Muqtadir to Almış, the king of the Bulgares of the Volga.

The goal of the embassy aimed at obtaining from the king of Bulgarian homage to the Caliph, in exchange from what it would receive money for the construction of a fortress. Left Baghdad the June 12th 921, the embassy passed by Bukhara, Khwarizm (in the south of the Mer of Aral), Jurjaniya (where they spent the winter), in the north of the the Ural before arriving, after many difficulties, at the Bulgares with the three lakes of the the Volga in the north of Samara the May 12th 922. This mission was failure because they did not succeed in collecting the money intended for the king who, irritated not to receive the sum promised for the financing of fortifications against the Khazars, refused to pass from the rite hanéfite to the rite chaféite of Baghdad. After its arrival with Bolğar, ibn Fadlan went to Wisu where he consigned his observations on the trade between the Bulgares of the Volga and local Finnish tribes.

The Rūs'

Ibn Fadlan devotes a considerable part of its account to the description of people which it names the Rūs' (روس) or Rūsiyyah identified by the majority of the scholars as being the Rus ′ or Varègue S, which would do of its account one of the first portraits of the Viking S.

The Rūs' are presented like tradesmen holding trade on banks close to the Bulgarian camp. They are described as having the most perfect bodies which are, as large as palm trees with fair hair and a vermilion skin. They are tattooed neck to the feet with reasons for tree and other figures, all the men being armed with an axe and a long knife.

While noting with astonishment that they painted the hair each day, Ibn Fadlan describes them like dirty and regards them as rough and cruel. This impression contradicts that of the Persan traveller Ibn Rustah. It also described in great detail the burial of one their chiefs of clan including/understanding a human Sacrifice.

References

Ibn Fadlan, “ Voyage to the Bulgarian ones of the Volga ”, transl. Marius Duck, (1988, rééd. 1999), ED. Sindbad, Paris, 130 p.
CH. Mr. Fraehn. Die ältesten arabischen Nachrichten über die Wolga-Bulgaren aus Ibn-Foszlan' S Reiseberichte . - “Memories of the Impér Academy. sciences. ”, VI series, 1823.

External bonds

'' Journal off Arabic and Islamic Studies '' 3 (2000), with “Ibn Fadlan and the Rūsiyyah”, of James E. Montgomery, with an annotated translation of the part of the account touching in Rus'.
''Risala'': Ibn Fadlan' S Embassy to the King off the Volga Bulgaria

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