Ibn Fadlan 4: Communal Hygiene and the Viking Funeral

In the conclusion the Ahmad ibn Fadlan series, ibn Fadlan encounters the Rusiyyah, recounts the famous Viking funeral, and is disgusted by a communal wash basin. I also talk about the text itself.

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Sources:

• Ahmad ibn Fadlan. Mission to the Volga, translated by James E. Montgomery. New York University Press, 2017.
• Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North, translated and with an introduction by Paul Lunde and Caroline Stone. Penguin, 2012.
• Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia, edited by Josef W. Meri. Routledge, 2005.
• Bukharaev, Ravil. Islam in Russia: The Four Seasons. Routledge, 2014.
• Frye, R.N. and Blake, R.P. "Notes on the Risala of Ibn Fadlan," in The Turks in the Early Islamic World, edited by C. Edmund Bosworth. Routledge, 2017.
• Hansen, Valerie. The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World and Globalization Began. Simon and Schuster, 2020.
• Korpela, Jukka Jari. Slaves from the North: Finns and Karelians in the East European Slave Trade, 900 - 1600. BRILL, 2018.
• Kratchkovsky, I.Y. Among Arabic Manuscripts: Memories of Libraries and Men. BRILL, 2016.
• Mako, Gerald. The Islamization of the Volga Bulghars: A Question Reconsidered. Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011.
• Montgomery, James E. "Ibn Fadlan’s ‘Mission to the Volga’: An Extraordinary Narrative by a Not-so-extraordinary Writer," an interview with ArabLit. 
• Peacock, A.C.S. The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
• Romano, John F. Medieval Travel and Travelers: A Reader. University of Toronto Press, 2020.
• Vernadsky, George. Kievan Russia. Yale University Press, 1973.
• Wladyslaw, Duczko. Viking Rus: Studies on the Presence of Scandinavians in Eastern Europe. BRILL, 2004. 
• Wilson, Joe. Black Banner and White Nights: The 10th-Century Travel Account of Ibn Fadlan. James Madison University, 2014.

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