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A 10th-century Muslim
depiction of pre-Christian Slavs
by James Mayfield (Chairman, European Heritage Library)
 Print
this Article • About
the Author • Bibliography/Sources
This EHL article analyzes
the historical, cultural, ethnic, and religious dimensions
of the primary sources of 10th-century Arab Muslim ambassador
Ahmad ibn Fadlan in his journey along the Volga river basin,
including his depictions of the pre-Christian European populations
there. Although it is uncertain to which ethnic or racial
groups ibn Fadlan was referring (Slavs, Finns, Germanic Vikings,
etc.), his observations may give us one of our first looks
into the ancient heritage of the Slavs of what is now Russia.
Ethnic, cultural, and historical background of the region:
Although what is now the
massive nation of Russia constitutes a majority Slavic population
stretching from the Baltic and the Black Sea to Alaska, the
demographics of early Russia were very different. When Arab
Muslim ambassor Ahmad ibn Fadlan traveled
to the Volga region of central Russia in the 10th century,
the Slavs (from whom the Russians and Ukrainians collectively
descend) likely occupied only the western portions and the
western bank of the Volga. Small bands of Finnish tribes settled
all throughout the region, although most remained in the far
north. Vikings of Germanic blood once routinely raided and
traded with various small settlements along the river tributaries.
As is apparent, ancient "Russia" was not a uniformly
Slavic territory, although the vast majority of its population
was Slavic. As a result, it is difficult to pinpoint to which
racial or cultural group Ahmad ibn Fadlan is referring in
his primary source documentation.
The first nation of the East
Slavs was founded in the 9th century. According to the Russians'
Primary Chronicle, political grandees of various
Russian pagan states invited the Germanic Vikings (called
the "Varangians") to conquer and unite the obstreperous
squabbling principalities of Russia under one authority. Russian
nationalists bitterly reject this "Normanist" viewpoint
despite the early documentation. The Vikings, called the "Rus"
in likely derivation from the Slavic word for the oars used
on Viking ships, created a nascent state called Kiev
Rus on the banks of Ukraine under what became the
Rurikid dynasty that led Russia until after Ivan the Terrible.
Gradually, the foreign authorities died out, returned home,
or to a lesser extent assimilated, and the native Slavs created
a massive pagan state out of these Viking foundations. It
is ironic and intensely debated that the Slavic Russians
got their name from an invading legion of Germanic Rus. In
the 10th century, this large empire converted to Orthodoxy
under Vladimir the Great. The empire's end came with Batu
Khan's Mongol invasion in the 13th century.
The historical and religious
background behind Ahmad ibn Fadlan's journey to Russia:
When our Muslim ambassador
traveled northward, the Russian Slavs roughly controlled a
land stretching from the White Sea of northwestern Russia
to central Ukraine. Although Christendom was compulsory and
punishable by death, the great majority of ethnic Russians
were almost certainly pagan when ibn Fadlan arrived
due to the recent conversion. Ibn Fadlan, who came in contact
with only the periphery of this proto-Russian Empire, documents
pagans and barbarians greatly removed from the comparactively
more civilized qualities of the Christian realm in the west.
Most importantly for ibn
Fadlan, Turkic tribes had settled Central Asia and the eastern
side of the Volga around modern Tatarstan (Kazan), where they
founded the Sunni Muslim state of Volga Bulgaria.
Ahmad ibn Fadlan was an educated noble ambassador of the massive
and wealthy Arab Muslim empire of the Abbasids centered around
Iraq. The Abbasids, hoping to strengthen the until-now very
liberal Islam that the Turkic tribes of the Volga adopted
and expand the dominance of Islam, sent Ahmad ibn Fadlan to
Volga Bulgaria as an emissary. This is the catalyst for his
journey.
On the way to Volga Bulgaria,
Ahmad ibn Fadlan encountered a number of non-Turkic, non-Muslim
European peoples along the Volga that he described as barbaric
and savage. Although (as mentioned above) small populations
of Finns and even perhaps Germanic Vikings wandered around
the rural periphery of Kiev Russia, the great majority he
depicted must have been Slavic pagans. Ahmad ibn Fadlan, as
shown below, describes different cultures that greatly parallel
our modern depictions of Vikings and ancient Slavs. He depicts
staunchly European "white" peoples who are distinguished
from the Turks of Volga Bulgaria.
Although it is impossible
to determine exactly which European cultures he was documenting
(he may even have depicted some Finns, some Slavs, and some
Germanics), it is safest to assume that he is giving us one
of our earliest depictions of ancient, pre-Christian Slavic
culture since they likely formed the largest ethnic constituent
in the region west of the Volga that he visited. In most films
and in most interpretations, Ahmad ibn Fadlan is meeting Germanic
Vikings who he describes as savage barbarians. In reality,
he likely never met any Germanic peoples due to the fact that
most of the Vikings had settled down in Scandinavia (increasingly
as Christians), had already settled in wealthy Kiev and no
longer needed to pillage in the east, and were only a fractional
minority compared with the Slavs in the region with whom he
would have met. Ahmad referred to his writing subjects as
the Rus ("Russiyya" [ألرسِي]), which as noted above
originally referred to the non-Slavic Germanic Vikings who,
as only a tiny settling minority aristocracy, gave their name
to the larger non-Germanic Slavs. As a result, Ahmad ibn Fadlan
was likely referring to the Slavic Rus, not the original Viking
Rus who had either died out or assimilated.
In the late 10th century,
the Abbasid Caliph al-Muktadir sent a missionary embassy to
meet the Islamic Turkic tribes along the Volga to open trade
agreements, to built mosques, likely to fuel the jihad against
neighboring Christian and pagan polities, and to hold diplomatic
audience for pan-Islamic partnership. Although his journey
failed in the sense that Volga Bulgaria failed to forge significant
ties with the Abbasid Arabs and was ultimately oblterated
by the Mongols along with the Abbasids themselves, his sources
are invaluable for ancient Slavic heritage. His venture is
depicted, albeit absurdly loosely, in the Michael Crichton
novel Eaters of the Dead and the film The 13th Warrior,
starring Omar Sharif and Antonio Banderas as Ahmad ibn Fadlan.
Ahmad ibn Fadlan in the film "the 13th Warrior",
played by Antonio Banderas (courtesy New Line)
Ahmad ibn Fadlan's travels and ethnocultural observations:
On his embassy's adventure
he traveled through the trails, trade networks, deserted wildernesses,
and sandstorm-torn regions of Central and Southwest Asia.
He likely traveled by horse and camelback from Baghdad to
Tehran, Bahktaran, near Ashgabat, to the majestic city of
Buqara and possibly near Samarqand, along the Caspian of today's
Kazakhstan, along the Volga, into the steppe lands of the
Khazars, and into the Bulgar Turkic capital of Bulğar (pronounced
"Bool-ahr"), where he organized an audience with
local Turkic Muslim rulers, scholars, and Islamic jurists
of the Qur'an. There, he bolstered political and economic
relations between the Islamic powers, but failed to assert
the Iraqi declaration upon them that all Muslims are to pray
to Allah fivefold per day (the local Turkic tradition was
apparently 3-4), and did not convince them to enforce the
law that men and women are to both bathe (purifying pre-prayer
ablutions) and pray in segregation. The mission was less successful
than expected. The Turkic tribes obsinently followed their
nomadic pagan customs -- such as drinking blood of their horses
(a sin in Islam) -- until conquering Anatolia to eventually
forge the Ottoman Empire.
After the majority of his
missionary efforts with the Turkic Bulgars were complete,
we learn of a series of depiction of the nearby white European
tribes. Most of his descriptions are considered second-hand,
and are extremely biased and racist against the non-Muslim
Europeans. It is likely that Ahmad ibn Fadlan, like most Muslims,
ignorantly considered the kafir (infidel) Europeans to be
savage regardless of the presence of radiant European civilizations
(similar to the way Europeans portrayed the Muslims). Though
probably exagerated grossly, we nonetheless gain a rare picture
of the generally illiterate, pre-Christian Slavs in the region.
The main criticism of the
Europeans, as laughably exploited in The 13th Warrior,
focuses on the Europeans' lack of hygiene. A famous scene
from the film that is directly based upon his descriptions
shows a series of Vikings (as the film ridiculously inaccurately
portrays) passing around a communal washing bowl into which
the residents spit, sneeze, and collectively wash their faces
and hair. Upon passing the bowl to Ahmad ibn Fadlan and Omar
Sharif's character, the two disgustingly grin and pass it
onward whilst the nomad Vikings Europeans (in reality, the
Slavic Rus) continue to bath in mucous and saliva waste. Coming
from wealthy Baghdad, Ahmad ibn Fadlan must have been shocked
to see the ancient Slavs' inferior hygiene. Most Arabs bathed
either with water or dirt five times per day for prayer (the
Wudhu ablution ritual), although most Arabs only did so for
the purpose of religious ritual and likely had absolutely
no idea about actual physical cleanliness.
From Ahmad ibn Fadlan's actual
work regarding cleanliness and washing ritual of the pre-Christian
Slavic Rus:
Every day they must wash
their faces and heads and this they do in the dirtiest and
filthiest fashion possible....every morning a girl servant
brings a great basin of water; she offers this to her master
and he washes his hands and face and his hair - he washes
it and combs it out with a comb in the water; then he blows
his nose and spits into the basin. When he has finished, the
servant carries the basin to the next person, who does likewise.
She carries the basin thus to all the household in turn, and
each blows his nose, spits, and washes his face and hair in
it.
---
This harsh criticism can
be partly disregarded as hyperbole not only because of Ahmad's
lifestyle as an upper-class Arab scholar in the world's wealthiest
city, but also because of the fact that any local European
tribes were effectively nomadically engaging in trading, settling,
traveling, and encampment after weeks of travel. Any city-bred
person of today would appear the same way to an elite like
Ahmad after such distant camping and trading routes.
The Arab Muslim also described
the local Slavs' sexual behavior in the villages he saw. Again,
there is no evidence of his actual presence amongst the Europeans;
it may entirely be second-hand in addition to its anti-non-Muslim
discrimination. Nonetheless, Ahmad did experience shocking
lengths of days, but this does not automatically imply his
presence in the far north. He was surprised by how very short
the nights are, a characteristic seen both in the far north,
in Siberia, and the southern Russian steppe depending upon
the time of year. Ahmad may have ventured to the region in
the summer.
They are the filthiest
of God's creatures. They have no modesty in defecation and
urination, nor do they wash after pollution from orgasm, nor
do they wash their hands after eating. Thus they are like
wild asses. When they have come from their land....they build
big houses of wood on the shore, each holding ten to twenty
persons more or less....With them are pretty slave girls destined
for sale to merchants: a man will have sexual intercourse
with his slave girl while his companion looks on. Sometimes
whole groups will come together in this fashion, each in the
presence of others. A merchant who arrives to buy a slave
girl from them may have to wait and look on while a Rus completes
the act of intercourse with a slave girl.
---
Ibn Fadlan shows hints of
promiscuity amongst the locals, including slavery, though
Ahmad makes no attempt to deride the Europeans for their slaveholding,
as the Muslims had the largest collections of slaves in the
world. He as a Muslim must also have been disgusted by the
Slavs' frequent use of pork and the drinking of alcohol, etc.
After all, the Russian Primary Chronicle proves that
one major reason why the East Slavs chose Christendom over
Islam was because they absolutely refused to stop drinking.
Even when not overindulgent, this must have tainted ibn Fadlan's
sources as one of incendiary racism and religious discrimination.
Ahmad, however, did praise
them as upright, beautiful, and unique. He described their
features as clearly European. The descriptions are true of
both the Slavic, Germanic, and Finnic races alike. He describes
their culture and tradition as unique and simple.
I have seen the Rus....I
have never seen more perfect physical specimens,
tall as date palms, blonde and ruddy; they
wear neither tunics nor caftans, but the men wear a garment
which covers one side of the body and leaves a hand free.
---
Each man has an axe,
a sword, and a knife and keeps each by him at all times. The
swords are broad and grooved, of Frankish (German) sort. Every
man is tattooed from finger nails to neck with dark green
(or green or blue-black) trees and figures.
---
Each woman wears on either
breast a box of iron, silver, copper or gold; the value of
the box indicates the wealth of the husband. Each box has
a ring from which depends a knife. The women wear neck rings
of gold and silver....Their most prized ornaments are beads
of green glass of the same make as ceramic objects one finds
on their ships. They trade beads among themselves and they
pay an exaggerated price for them....They string them as necklaces
for their women. No standard measure [economic
unit] is known in the land.... They are very fond of pork
(Haram/forbidden in Islam)....The Rus are a great host, all
of them red haired; they are big men with
white bodies. The women of this land have boxes made, according
to their circumstances and means, out of gold, silver, and
wood. From childhood they bind these to their breasts so
that their breasts will not grow larger.
---
Ahmad also describes the
religion of these Slavic Russian peoples. It appears to be
monotheistic or henotheism (many gods, one triumphal godhead),
with a great use of idols and figurines. As he had no knowledge
of any of what he considered false trinket gods and icons,
we cannot clearly identify to which religion he was referring.
So too, very little is known of the original Slavic religion
at all. This may give us a rare image of pre-Christian Slavic
religion, as very little evidence survives.
When the ships come to
this mooring place, everybody goes ashore with bread, meat,
onions, milk and intoxicating drink and betakes
himself to a long upright piece of wood that has a face like
a man's and is surrounded by little figures, behind which
are long stakes in the ground. The Rus prostrates himself
before the big carving and says, "O my Lord, I have come
from a far land and have with me such and such a number of
girls and such and such a number of sables", and he proceeds
to enumerate all his other wares. Then he says, "I have
brought you these gifts," and lays down what he has brought
with him, and continues....If he has difficulty selling his
wares and his stay is prolonged, he will return with a gift
a second or third time. If he has still further difficulty,
he will bring a gift to all the little idols and ask their
intercession....And he addresses each idol in turn, asking
intercession and praying humbly....and he takes a certain
number of sheep or cattle and slaughters them,
gives part of the meat as alms, brings the rest and deposits
it before the great idol and the little idols around it, and
suspends the heads of the cattle or sheep
on the stakes. In the night, dogs come and eat all, but the
one who has made the offering says, "Truly, my Lord is
content with me and has consumed the present I brought him."
---
Ahmad also depicts the unique
and interesting burial tradition of these local Europeans
that are unfamiliar to the Arab Muslim scholar.
An ill person is put
in a tent apart with some bread and water and people do not
come to speak to him; they do not come even to see him every
day, especially if he is a poor man or a slave. If he recovers,
he returns to them, and if he dies, they cremate
him. If he is a slave, he is left to be eaten by dogs
and birds of prey. If the Rus catch a thief or robber,
they hang him on a tall tree and leave him hanging until his
body falls in pieces.
---
At last I was told of
the death of one of their outstanding men. They placed him
in a grave and put a roof over it for ten days, while they
cut and sewed garments for him. If the deceased is a poor
man they make a little boat, which they lay him in and burn.
If he is rich, they collect his goods and divide them into
three parts, one for his family, another to pay for his clothing,
and a third for making intoxicating drink, which they drink
until the day when his female slave will kill herself
and be burned with her master. They stupefy themselves
by drinking this beer night and day; sometimes one of them
dies cup in hand.
---
When the day arrived
on which the man was to be cremated and the girl with him,
I went to the river on which was his ship. I saw that they
had drawn the ship onto the shore, and that they had erected
four posts of birch wood and other wood, and that around the
ship was made a structure like great ship's tents out of wood....Then
they began to come and go and to speak words which I did not
understand....The tenth day, having drawn the ship up onto
the river bank, they guarded it. In the middle of the ship
they prepared a dome or pavilion of wood and covered this
with various sorts of fabrics. Then they brought a couch and
put it on the ship and covered it with a mattress of Greek
brocade. Then came an old woman whom they call the Angel of
Death, and she spread upon the couch the furnishings mentioned.
It is she who has charge of the clothes-making and arranging
all things, and it is she who kills the girl slave. I saw
that she was a strapping old woman, fat and louring. When
they came to the grave they removed the earth from above the
wood, then the wood, and took out the dead man clad in the
garments in which he had died. I saw that he had grown black
from the cold of the country. They put intoxicating drink,
fruit, and a stringed instrument in the grave
with him. They removed all that. The dead man did not smell
bad, and only his color had changed. They dressed him in trousers,
stockings, boots, a tunic, and caftan of brocade with gold
buttons. They put a hat of brocade and fur on him. Then they
carried him into the pavilion on the ship. They seated him
on the mattress and propped him up with cushions. They brought
intoxicating drink, fruits, and fragrant plants, which they
put with him, then bread, meat, and onions, which they placed
before him. Then they brought a dog, which they cut in two
and put in the ship. Then they brought his weapons and placed
them by his side. Then they took two horses, ran them until
they sweated, then cut them to pieces with a sword and put
them in the ship. Next they killed a rooster and a hen and
threw them in. The girl slave who wished to be killed went
here and there and into each of their tents, and the master
of each tent had sexual intercourse with her and said, "Tell
your lord I have done this out of love for him."
---
Friday afternoon they
led the slave girl to a thing that they had made which resembled
a door frame. She placed her feet on the palms of the men
and they raised her up to overlook this frame. She spoke some
words and they lowered her again. A second time they raised
her up and she did again what she had done; then they lowered
her. They raised her a third time and she did as she had done
the two times before. Then they brought her a hen; she cut
off the head, which she threw away, and then they took the
hen and put it in the ship. I asked the interpreter what she
had done. He answered, "The first time they raised her
she said, 'Behold, I see my father and mother.’ The second
time she said, 'I see all my dead relatives seated.’ The third
time she said, 'I see my master seated in Paradise and Paradise
is beautiful and green; with him are men and boy servants.
He calls me. Take me to him.' "Now they took her to the
ship. She took off the two bracelets she was wearing and gave
them both to the old woman called the Angel of Death, who
was to kill her; then she took off the two finger rings which
she was wearing and gave them to the two girls who had served
her and were the daughters of the woman called the Angel of
Death. Then they raised her onto the ship but they did not
make her enter the pavilion.
---
Then the closest relative
of the dead man, after they had placed the girl whom they
have killed beside her master, came, took a piece of wood
which he lit at a fire, and walked backwards with the back
of his head toward the boat and his face turned toward the
people, with one hand holding the kindled stick and the other
covering his anus, being completely naked, for the purpose
of setting fire to the wood that had been made ready beneath
the ship. Then the people came up with tinder and other fire
wood, each holding a piece of wood of which he had set fire
to an end and which he put into the pile of wood beneath the
ship. Thereupon the flames engulfed the wood, then the ship,
the pavilion, the man, the girl, and everything in the ship.
A powerful, fearful wind began to blow so that the flames
became fiercer and more intense.
---
The elaborate burial routine
for their kings and noblemen is common amongst any ancient
culture, but the ship-burning method is unique amongst the
north Germanic tradition as a vessal of passage to Valhalla.
The presence of this tradition amongst the Slavic and Finnic
north Volga is easily due to cultural influence, although
it is possible that the custom was practiced by the Slavs
even prior to Germanic influence. The wives and servants of
Germanic grandees frequently immolated themselves with their
husbands.
One of the Rus was at
my side and I heard him speak to the interpreter, who was
present. I asked the interpreter what he said. He answered,
"you Arabs are fools." "Why?" I asked
him. He said, "you take the people who are most dear
to you and whom you honour most and put them into the ground
where insects and worms devour them. We burn him in a moment,
so that he enters Paradise at once.” Then he began to laugh
uproariously. When I asked why he laughed, he said, "His
Lord, for love of him, has sent the wind to bring him away
in an hour.” ...Then they constructed in the place where had
been the ship which they had drawn up out of the river something
like a small round hill, in the middle of which they erected
a great post of birch wood, on which they wrote the name of
the man and the name of the Rus king and they departed.
---
Ahmad ibn Fadlan goes on
in conclusion to offer observations and second-hand visualization
of the capital of this people's kingdom. Ahmad never ventured
nearby, and it is possible that the Slavs with whom he cohabitated
were speaking of a mythical homeland, as no evidence of a
true local center exists. The pagans there may have been referring
to their mythological capital in the afterlife, or they may
have been referring to the very remote and indirect hegemony
of the Kiev Rus Empire to the distance.
It is the custom of the
king of the Rus to have with him in his palace four hundred
men, the bravest of his companions and those on whom he can
rely. These are the men who die with him and let themselves
be killed for him....These four hundred men sit about the
king's throne, which is immense and encrusted with fine precious
stones. With him on the throne sit forty female slaves destined
for his bed. Occasionally he has intercourse with one of them
in the presence of his companions of whom we have spoken,
without coming down from the throne. When he needs to answer
a call of nature, he uses a basin....The cloth of these lands
and localities is famous, especially that of their capital,
which is called Kyawh. Famous and noted cities of the Rus
are Crsk and Hrqh.
---
Despite its mystery and lack
of certainty and also the intensely racist and officious tone
of this Arab Muslim scholar, the journals of Ahmad ibn Fadlan
give us among the first depictions of the pre-Christian Slavs
and possibly other wandering tribes of non-Slavic genetic
stock that populated the Volga.
________________________________________
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
James Mayfield is a historian
and the Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I have
a Cum Laude BA in History with a Minor in Germanic Studies
(language and history), am presently working for my Masters
in History, and plan to immediately progress to my PhD Doctorate.
I have a special academic interest in Europe's diverse ethnic
identities, languages, and cultures, and the political struggles
of native European and immigrant minority identities. See
my staff entry for more information.
BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES
USED:
Ahmad ibn Fadlan's "Risala"
Russia's Primary Chronicle
"The 13th Warrior,"
courtesy New Line for a screenshot
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