In this part of his journey, Ibn Fadlan is utterly absorbed in their cultural and spiritual practices. He relates their tendencies to decapitation as well as their habit of eating lice and fleas. He names the Bashghirds as “…the worst of the Turks, the dirtiest and the readiest to kill,” lumping their practice of beard shaving in with decapitation and consumption of insects (23). Ibn Fadlan also takes the time to describe the Bashghirds apparent worship of “a piece of wood shaped like a phallus” and their practice of kissing it when they begin a journey or meet an enemy (23). The various religious practices catch and hold the attention of Ibn Fadlan as well. He describes in minor detail their “twelve lords” as well as meditating briefly upon a few particular clans that worship snakes, fish and cranes (24).

As far as geographical descriptions go, the only details Ibn Fadlan records are the various rivers he crosses to enter the land of the Bashghirds and then again to leave the Turkish people and continue on to the king of the Saqaliba.

What is so fascinating about this short but informatively dense excerpt of Ibn Fadlan’s writing is his focus on building evidence against the religious and cultural practices of the Bashghirds as a people, as if justifying his dismissal of them as “lost souls,” (24). Even his very first comment on this group of people is of the “precaution[s]” he took against them because “they are the worst of the Turks,” (23). He then describes their propensity for murder and their practice of shaving their beards, two tenants that directly oppose the beliefs of Islam. Already, we can see his prejudice against them forming, but Ibn Fadlan’s description of one particular Bashghird who converted to Islam underlines his distaste for the people themselves, based not only in religion.

When describing how the Bashghirds do not shy away from eating insects, including lice and fleas, Ibn Fadlan chooses to relate an anecdote involving a Bashghird who has converted to Islam. As he has demonstrated in other portions of the text, Ibn Fadlan mainly categorizes people by their religion, but he writes of this Islam convert in the same disparaging way he describes the other, non-Muslim Bashghirds. Ibn Fadlan writes, “We has with us a man of this people who had converted to Islam and who served us. One day, I saw him take a flea from his clothes and, after having crushed it with his fingernail, he devoured it and on noticing me, said: ‘Delicious!'” (23). The transition in tone from one of inclusion with the use of the “with” preposition as well as the mention that this man had converted to Islam, to one of disgust is striking. The way in which Ibn Fadlan constructs this anecdote (first likening the man to himself through religion and then separating him through this behavior) lends the Bashghird man a divisive air. The moment when he turns from his flea to Ibn Fadlan to say, “Delicious!” rings with contempt and mean-spirited behavior, which certainly seems to fall in line with Ibn Fadlan’s impression of the Bashghird people. What is so intriguing and surprising about this anecdote is the way that Ibn Fadlan almost seems to use the man’s race to categorize and characterize him instead of the connection they share in religion.