{"id":718,"date":"2022-03-30T19:55:31","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T00:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/?p=718"},"modified":"2022-03-30T19:55:31","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T00:55:31","slug":"ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-the-bashghirds-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/2022\/03\/30\/ibn-fadlan-and-the-land-of-darkness-the-bashghirds-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ibn Fadl\u0101n and the Land of Darkness: The B\u0101shghirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

The description of the B\u0101shghirds is one of the shortest in Fadl\u0101n\u2019s account and in it he focuses on violence, war, and religion. The first thing he says about these people is that they \u201ctook every precaution against them, for they are the worst of the Turks, the dirtiest and the readiest to kill\u201d (23). He discusses three different religious sects within the B\u0101shghirds, which could all be considered different \u201cclans\u201d (24). The first carry around wooden phalluses that they pray to for thigs such as, in Fadl\u0101n\u2019s example, protection or luck on a journey or when they run into an enemy. When Fadl\u0101n asks why they pray to this kind of idol the answer he receives is that they \u201ccame from such a thing and cannot imagine anything else to be [their] creator\u201d (24). This supports the idea that physicality is important to this group, as well as the idea that creation and protection go hand in hand. The role of masculinity in this society could be easily extrapolated from this information. The second clan that Fadl\u0101n describes view the world as being ruled by twelve different lords that control the season, day and night, men, horses, etc. He comments that the lord of the sky is the most powerful, but that \u201che is in concord with the others, so that each approves what his companion does\u201d (24). This describes a very organized, democratic\u00a0religion which could host a detailed understanding of how the world works based on the interactions of the domains of each lord. It might suggest that\u00a0this clan has democratic government, too, but Fadl\u0101n fails to comment on it. He ends his description with a quote from the Quran that, in this context, is very dismissive of other religious beliefs and this value judgment makes them seem silly in comparison. Finally, Fadl\u0101n mentions\u00a0three clans that worship snakes, fish, and cranes, respectively. The crane worshipping clan shares the story of how they accepted the cranes as a deity, saying that when they were going to be defeated by some enemies \u201cthe cranes began to give their call behind their opponents. Their enemy was frightened and turned and fled\u201d (24). As with the first clan, it seems that protection is very important to this group. Unlike the clan that worships many lords, Fadl\u0101n does not say anything negative about the more monotheistic groups he describes. He simply says things like, \u201cand they worship them for that reason\u201d (24). This gives the impression that monotheistic religions are more palatable for Fadl\u0101n. However, he does call all these people \u201cthe worst of the Turks,\u201d so the respect is limited. The first thing Fadl\u0101n reports is the violent, war-like tendencies of the B\u0101shghirds before giving more specific religious information about them. It could be that he is scoping out possible northern allies and providing information pertaining to how their religion comparing to Islam to give the caliph an idea about how their working relationship could work or how hard it would be to convert them. Though, this seems unlikely since this section is so short and lacks a lot of information. It may be that Fadl\u0101n thought it would be amusing to share this religious information, especially polytheistic example. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The description of the B\u0101shghirds is one of the shortest in Fadl\u0101n\u2019s account and in it he focuses on violence, war, and religion. The first thing he says about these people is that they \u201ctook every precaution against them, for they are the worst of the Turks, the dirtiest and the readiest to kill\u201d (23). […]<\/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-718","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\/718","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=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}