{"id":505,"date":"2022-02-16T19:36:25","date_gmt":"2022-02-17T00:36:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/?p=505"},"modified":"2022-02-16T19:36:25","modified_gmt":"2022-02-17T00:36:25","slug":"ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-bukhara-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/2022\/02\/16\/ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-bukhara-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ibn Fadl\u0101n and the Land of Darkness: Bukh\u0101r\u0101"},"content":{"rendered":"

I decided to start with the first major location that Ibn Fadl\u0101n visits, Bukh\u0101r\u0101. In his description he focuses on the people he meets with. He and his party have a meeting with\u00a0Amir Nasr ibn Ahmad, arranged by his minister Jayh\u0101n\u012b. Ibn Fadl\u0101n notes that Jayh\u0101n\u012b is called \u201cthe venerable support\u201d in Khur\u0101s\u0101n. He also says that they \u201cspent several days waiting and then Jayh\u0101n\u012b requested an audience\u201d with the amir for them. This suggests something about the status and job description of the minister; either he has the power to decide when people are seen by the amir or he is familiar enough with his schedule to know when a good time to request a meeting be set. Fadl\u0101n does not say much directly about the amir, except that he is \u201ca beardless youth\u201d. The notes suggest that Nasr ibn Ahmad was only sixteen or seventeen when they met (5). The party stayed in Bukh\u0101r\u0101 waiting for Ahmad ibn M\u016bs\u0101, who was meant to be travelling with them, but they were ushered out of the city before winter. Another thing Fadl\u0101n was interested in was the different use of coins in the area, specifically that they were counted instead of weighed in some transactions. Of course, this system might be used for other types of purchases that he has not mentioned, but it is definitely used for settling dowries and buying slaves and property. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When the party arrived in Bukh\u0101r\u0101 they were immediately given a house to stay in and a servant to provide them with \u201canything\u201d they might want (5). Considering\u00a0that we know this travelling party wouldn\u2019t be small, I think it is safe to assume that this was only for the upper members of the group if they all fit into one house. They stayed for twenty eight days in the late fall. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first unusual thing I noticed is that we begin to hear about temperature differences at the very beginning of the story. So far, they have only moved about 400 miles north of Baghdad, though about 1,200 miles east, and today Bukh\u0101r\u0101 has a low of around thirty degrees in February. To me, this does not seem too bad. However, it adds some perspective to the coming description of \u201cthe cold of hell\u201d (8). To people who have lived in warm temperatures their entire lives, any colder temperatures would feel even more extreme, and even painful, as they move northward. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The purpose of Ibn Fadl\u0101n writing this account is to share information with the caliph. When he describes Amir Nasr ibn Ahmad he mentions that he is young and, technically, not a man yet. But greater care is taken to describe how the amir reacts to the letters of instruction Fadl\u0101n brings him from the caliph. He seems to accept the instructions happily. However, he was meant to transfer the revenue overseen by al-Fadl ibn M\u016bs\u0101\u00a0to Ahmad ibn M\u016bs\u0101, who is trying to catch up to the group. But Ahmad ibn M\u016bs\u0101 never reaches the group because someone tips off al-Fadl ibn M\u016bs\u0101, who has him caught on the road and dealt with. I suppose this means there was no one to whom the amir could transfer the funds, since al-Fadl ibn M\u016bs\u0101 ushered the group out of the city by convincing some of the party that they needed to leave now, or they would have to stay the whole winter. This is a very helpful comment which keeps the group appraised of the weather conditions in an unfamiliar area and, incidentally, saves the man al-Fadl ibn M\u016bs\u0101 works for a lot of money. The person who tipped him off could have been the amir. Maybe he isn\u2019t as loyal to the caliph as he made it sound. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ibn Fadl\u0101n also says that they greeted Nasr ibn Ahmad with the title of amir, which to me implies they had a choice. Maybe, since they are from another province, they have the option to recognize the rule of someone else, though this seems unlikely to me. \u00a0The detailed description of the use of different coins tells me that there are less types of coins in Baghdad and that\u00a0counting them instead of weighing them is different, but that it isn\u2019t weird to pay for marriage or have slaves. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I decided to start with the first major location that Ibn Fadl\u0101n visits, Bukh\u0101r\u0101. In his description he focuses on the people he meets with. He and his party have a meeting with\u00a0Amir Nasr ibn Ahmad, arranged by his minister Jayh\u0101n\u012b. Ibn Fadl\u0101n notes that Jayh\u0101n\u012b is called \u201cthe venerable support\u201d in Khur\u0101s\u0101n. He also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143610],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ibn-fadlan","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}