{"id":578,"date":"2022-02-24T14:28:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-24T19:28:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/?p=578"},"modified":"2022-02-24T14:28:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T19:28:42","slug":"ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-the-ghuzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/2022\/02\/24\/ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-the-ghuzz\/","title":{"rendered":"Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: The Ghuzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Situated between the river Yanghindi and the city Jit, Ibn Fadlan encounters \u201cThe Ghuzz Turks.\u201d He calls them nomads, rightly so considering he does not give the location where he meets them a name. He is mainly focused on culture and practices, rather than the people themselves or the environment and buildings. He mentions that the Ghuzz live in tents, but only when he explained the nomad way of life. One of the first insights on the Ghuzz Fadlan gives is their lack of God. Fadlan reports, \u201cthey live in poverty, like wandering asses. They do not worship God, nor do they have recourse to reason.\u201d From the start of his account of the Ghuzz, Fadlan’s distain for the culture is obvious and centered around their lack of worship. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite his disdain for their Godlessness, Fadlan regards the Turks as having very good hospitality. He says that \u201cno Muslim can cross their country without having made friends with one of them with whom he stays and to whom he brings gifts from Islam.\u201d He even reports that the Turks value their hospitality so much so that if a guest dies their host, is subsequently responsible for their death. It is interesting how Fadlan emphasizes that the Ghuzz, who are apparently Godless, favor specifically Muslims who \u201ccross their country.\u201d Fadlan is a devote Muslim and notorious for attempting to convert those he meets on his travels. This emphasis of the kindness of Muslim guests\u00a0who bring their hosts \u201cgifts from the lands of Islam,\u201d is most likely an exaggerated interpretation of Fadlan\u2019s to paint those who worship Islam in a good light and highlight the areas susceptibility to conversion for his audience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While Fadlan describes the Ghuzz Turks as hospitable people, he does not negate accounting all their \u2018unfavorable\u2019 customs. He highlights many customs that would be considered \u2018sinful\u2019 or \u2018unclean\u2019 by Fadlan\u2019s readers. For example, the \u201ctaboo on washing,\u201d \u201cfilth and immodesty,\u201d \u201chorse sacrifices,\u201d and plucked \u201cfacial hair.\u201d Not only does Fadlan highlight the customs that oppose Islam ones, but he also addresses the faulty of their legal system. He explains that when \u201cpederasty\u201d is committed both parties must be put to death or the perpetrating party must pay a ransom. Highlighting he inequity of the two punishments for the same crime and the arbitrariness of deciding between the two, reinforces Fadlan\u2019s idea that the Ghuzz people are uncivilized and in need of conversion.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fadlan talks little about specific people in the Ghuzz, however he does talk about a king named Inal the Younger. He aptly calls the section, \u201cA fragile conversion.\u201d When Inal the Younger converted, his people, according to Fadlan, said to him, \u201cIf you become Muslim, you will no longer be our leader.\u201d So Inal the Younger renounced Islam. Upon Fadlan\u2019s and Inal\u2019s next encounter with each other, Fadlan showers Inal with gifts and Inal gets on the floor and \u201cprostrated himself before\u201d Fadlan. Also, in this section Fadlan notes that his caravan came across an \u201cugly man, wretched looking… really ignoble,\u201d when they were leaving Inal the Younger. Fadlan accounts that he gave the man a piece of bread in order to curb the man\u2019s \u201cviolent cloudburst.\u201d Fadlan\u2019s record of events portray Muslims as very generous and benevolent people, and the Ghuzz as well-meaning but unknowledgeable and pitiful. Regadless if the events are true or not, the picture Fadlan painted of the Ghuzz would prompt a readers to believe these people are in need of saving by way of religion, specifically Islam.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Situated between the river Yanghindi and the city Jit, Ibn Fadlan encounters \u201cThe Ghuzz Turks.\u201d He calls them nomads, rightly so considering he does not give the location where he meets them a name. He is mainly focused on culture and practices, rather than the people themselves or the environment and buildings. He mentions that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143610],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","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\/578","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\/4794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}