{"id":405,"date":"2025-11-12T20:21:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/?p=405"},"modified":"2025-11-12T20:21:34","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:21:34","slug":"ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-the-land-of-the-turks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/2025\/11\/12\/ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-the-land-of-the-turks\/","title":{"rendered":"Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: The Land of the Turks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of the book, Ibn Fadlan describes his long journey from Jurjaniya through the \u201cland of the Turks\u201d to get to his final destination: the king of the Saqaliba. He describes the journey as flat and \u201cdesert-like\u201d, but he says that it was still freezing, as it had been in Jurjaniya (Fadlan 11). He and his caravan started this journey in March 922, and they arrived at the end of their journey in May 922, so it took seventy days to travel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ibn Fadlan discusses many different things throughout his travels through the land of the Turks, and they are mostly blunt descriptions and opinions about the people and their customs. He speaks about their \u201cfilth and immodesty\u201d on multiple occasions, citing the fact that \u201c[t]heir women do not veil themselves\u201d and they saw a woman\u2019s private parts, which was extremely shocking (Fadlan 12). He is accustomed to women veiling themselves before men, so it was surprising enough that they were not veiled. But when he met a stranger\u2019s wife and saw <\/span>all <\/span><\/i>of her, he was completely taken aback. This is very different than what happens in Baghdad.<\/span><\/p>\n

He also mentions their custom of wearing clothes until they fall apart: \u201cI saw the tunic he was wearing under the brocade. It was so filthy it was in rags, for it is their custom never to take off a piece of clothing until it falls to pieces\u201d (Fadlan 20). He seems insulted by these customs, and he finds himself sticking his nose up at them. He believes that these practices are unsophisticated and borderline barbaric, which he does not try to hide in his writings. In a particularly disdainful passage, Fadlan refers to the Bashgirds (a Turkish people) as \u201cthe worst of the Turks, the dirtiest and ready to kill\u201d (Fadlan 23). He claims that these people cut off heads for no reason and carry them around like a prize, and eat bugs from off their clothes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Based on Ibn Fadlan\u2019s fascination and descriptions of the Turkish people, and his main focus on the negatives and disparities of their ways compared to his own, one could say that Ibn Fadlan believes himself and the place that he comes from to be of a higher class. His writings come off in a sort of snobbish way due to the constant insulting of the Turks and their customs. Now, he does not exclusively insult these people. In some instances, he simply describes, like when he comes across a group that worships snakes and cranes. As a man who is on an expedition for a more religious pursuit on behalf of his caliph, it would be fair to assume he would not approve of the worship of anything other than God, but he does not contest or mock in this circumstance; he only observes and reports. This leads me to believe that he does not care so much about Islam, but more about the customs and the behavior of the people he comes across. He comes from a city, presumably of wealth and sophistication, so it is shocking to him to meet people who do not share the same level he is accustomed to. He makes sure to report these oddities that he comes across for his caliph, possibly, to agree with him and confirm his distaste for these people; or maybe he notes these instances out of pure curiosity and bewilderment. He has traveled all this way, so far from his home city, and he wants to make it known all that he has seen. The crazier the better for stories like these, and Ibn Fadlan goes to great lengths to communicate the extremities he encounters on his journey through the land of the Turks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Towards the end of the book, Ibn Fadlan describes his long journey from Jurjaniya through the \u201cland of the Turks\u201d to get to his final destination: the king of the Saqaliba. He describes the journey as flat and \u201cdesert-like\u201d, but he says that it was still freezing, as it had been in Jurjaniya (Fadlan 11). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ibn-fadlan","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":406,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions\/406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-middle-ages-2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}