Mission to the Volga

by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan

  19   Their womenfolk do not cover themselves in the presence of a man, whether he be one of their menfolk or not. A woman will not cover any part of her body in front of anyone, no matter who. One day we stopped at a tent and sat down. The man’s wife sat with us. During conversation, she suddenly uncovered her vulva and scratched it, right in front of us. We covered our faces and exclaimed, “God forgive us!” but her husband simply laughed and said to the interpreter,21 “Tell them: we might uncover it in your presence and you might see it, but she keeps it safe so no one can get to it. This is better than her covering it up and letting others have access to it.” Illicit intercourse is unheard of. If they catch anyone attempting it in any way, they tear him in half, in the following manner: they join the branches of two trees, tie the culprit to the branches and then let the trees loose. The man tied to the trees is torn in two.

  20   One of them heard me reciting the Qurʾan and found it beautiful. He approached the interpreter and said, “Tell him not to stop.” One day, this man said to me via the interpreter, “Ask this Arab, ‘Does our great and glorious Lord have a wife?’” I was shocked by his words, praised God and asked His forgiveness. He copied my actions. Such is the custom of the Turk—whenever he hears a Muslim declare God’s glory and attest His uniqueness, he copies him.

  21   Their marriage customs are as follows. One man asks another for one of his womenfolk, be it his daughter, sister, or any other woman he possesses, in exchange for such and such a number of Khwārazmī garments. When he is paid in full, he hands her over. Sometimes the dowry is in camels, horses, or the like. The man is not granted access to his future wife until he has paid the full dowry that he has agreed with her guardian. Once paid, he shows up unabashedly, enters her dwelling, and takes possession of her right there and then, in the presence of her father, mother, and brothers. No one stops him.

  22   When one of them dies and leaves a wife and sons behind, the eldest son marries his dead father’s wife, provided she is not his birth mother. No one, merchant or anyone else for that matter, can perform a ritual wash in their presence, except at night when he will not be seen, because they get very angry. They exact payment from him and exclaim, “This man has planted something in the water22 and wants to put a spell on us!”

  23   No Muslim can pass through their territory without first befriending one of them. He lodges with him and brings gifts from the Muslim lands: a roll of cloth, a headscarf for his wife, pepper, millet, raisins, and nuts. When he arrives, his friend pitches a yurt for him and provides him with sheep, in accordance with his status. In this way, the Muslim can perform the ritual slaughter, as the Turks do not do this but instead beat the sheep on the head until it dies. If someone has decided to travel and uses some of the camels and horses belonging to his friend the Turk, or if he borrows some money, his debt with his friend remains unpaid. He takes the camels, horses, and money he needs from his friend. On his return, he pays the Turk his money and returns his camels and horses.23 So too, if someone a Turk doesn’t know passes through and says, “I am your guest. I want some of your camels, horses, and dirhams,” he gives him what he asks for. If the merchant dies on the trip and the caravan returns, the Turk comes to meet the caravan and says, “Where is my guest?” If they say, “He is dead,” he brings the caravan to a halt, goes up to the most eminent merchant he sees, unties his goods as the merchant looks on, and takes the exact number of dirhams he had advanced to the first merchant, not a penny more. He also takes back the exact number of camels and horses, saying, “He was your cousin, so you are under the greatest obligation to pay his debt.” If the guest runs away, he behaves in the same way, only this time he says, “He was a Muslim like you. You get it back from him.” If he does not meet his Muslim guest on the road, he asks three men about him, saying, “Where is he?” When told where he is, he travels, even for days, till he finds him and reclaims his property, along with the gifts he gave him. The Turk also behaves like this when he travels to al-Jurjāniyyah. He asks for his guest and stays with him until he leaves. If the Turk dies while staying with his Muslim friend and the Muslim later passes through this territory as a member of a caravan, they put him to death, with the words, “You imprisoned him and killed him. Had you not imprisoned him, he would not have died.” Likewise, they kill the Muslim if he gives the Turk alcohol and he falls and dies. If he does not travel as a member of the caravan, they seize the most important member of the caravan and kill him.

  24   They abhor pederasty. A man from Khwārazm lodged with the tribe of the kūdharkīn (the deputy of the king of the Turks) and lived for a while with one of his hosts. He was there to trade in sheep. The Turk had a beardless son, whom the Khwārazmī blandished and tried to seduce24 until he gave in. The Turk turned up, found the two of them in the act, and brought the matter to the kūdharkīn, who said to him, “Muster the Turks,” which he did, as was the practice. The kūdharkīn said to the Turk, “Do you wish me to rule according to what is true or what is false?” “According to what is true.” “Then fetch your son!” The son was fetched. “Both must be put to death together.” The Turk was angered and said, “I shall not surrender my son.” “Then let the merchant pay a ransom,” he said. The Turk paid a number of sheep for what had been done to his son, and four hundred ewes to the kūdharkīn, for the punishment that had been averted. Then he left the realm of the Turks.

  25   The first king and chief we met was the Lesser Yināl. He had converted to Islam but had been told that, “If you convert to Islam, you will never lead us,” so he recanted. When we arrived at his camp, he said, “I cannot allow you to pass. This is unheard of. It will never happen.” We gave him some gifts. He was satisfied with a Jurjānī caftan worth ten dirhams, a cut of woven cloth, some flat breads, a handful of raisins, and a hundred nuts. When we handed them over, he prostrated himself before us. This is their custom: when a person is generous to another, the other prostrates himself before him. He said, “Were our tents not far from the road, we would bring you sheep and grain.” He left us and we carried on.

  26   The next morning we encountered a solitary Turk—a despicable figure, unkempt and really quite repulsive—a man of no worth at all. It had started to rain heavily. “Halt!” the man said. The entire caravan ground to a halt: it numbered about three thousand mounts and five thousand men. “Not one of you will pass,” he said. We obeyed and said, “We are friends of the kūdharkīn.” He approached and said with a laugh, “Kūdharkīn who? Do I not shit on the beard of the kūdharkīn?” Then he shouted, “Bakand”—“bread” in the language of Khwārazm—and I gave him some flat breads, which he took, saying, “Proceed. I have spared you out of pity.”

  27   Ibn Faḍlān said: The members of a household do not approach someone who is ill. His slaves, male and female, wait on him. He is put in a tent, away from the other tents, where he remains until he dies or recovers. A slave or a pauper is simply thrown out onto the open plain and left. The Turks dig a large ditch, in the shape of a chamber for their dead. They fetch the deceased, clothe him in his tunic and girdle, and give him his bow.25 They put a wooden cup filled with alcohol in his hand and place a wooden vessel of alcohol in front of him. They bring all his wealth and lay it beside him, in the chamber. They put him in a sitting position and then build the roof. On top they construct what looks like a yurt made of clay. Horses are fetched, depending on how many he owned. They can slaughter any number of horses, from a single horse up to a hundred or two. They eat the horse meat, except for the head, legs, hide, and tail, which they nail to pieces of wood, saying, “His horses which he rides to the Garden.”26 If he has shown great bravery and killed someone, they carve wooden images, as many as the men he has killed, place them on top of his grave and say, “His retainers who serve him in the Garden.” Sometimes they do not kill the horses for a day or two. Then an elder will exhort them: “I have seen So-and-So,” (i.e., the deceased) “in a dream and he said to me, ‘
You see me here in front of you. My companions have gone before me. My feet are cracked from following them. I cannot catch up with them. I am left here, all alone.’” Then they bring his horses, slaughter them, and gibbet them at his graveside. A day or two later, the elder arrives and says, “I have seen So-and-So. He said, ‘Inform my household and companions that I have caught up with those who27 went before me and have recovered from my exhaustion.’”

  28   Ibn Faḍlān said: Each and every one of the Turks plucks his beard but does not touch his mustache. I would often see one of their aged elders, clad in a sheepskin, his beard plucked but with a little left under his chin. If you caught sight of him from a distance, you would be convinced he was a billy goat.

  29   The king of the Ghuzziyyah Turks is called yabghū. This is the title given to the ruler of the tribe and is their name for their emir. His deputy is called kūdharkīn. Any one who deputizes for a chief is called kūdharkīn.

  30   Upon leaving the region where this group of Turks was camped, we stopped with their field marshal, Atrak, son of al-Qaṭaghān. Turkish yurts were pitched, and we were lodged in them. He had a large retinue with many dependents, and his tents were big. He gave us sheep and horses: sheep for slaughter and horses for riding. He summoned his paternal cousins and members of his household, held a banquet and killed many sheep. We had presented him with a gift of clothing, along with raisins, nuts, pepper, and millet.28 I watched his wife, who had previously been the wife of his father,29 take some meat, milk, and a few of the gifts we had presented and go out into the open, where she dug a hole and buried everything, uttering some words. “What is she saying?” I asked the interpreter, and he replied, “She says, ‘This is a gift for al-Qaṭaghān, the father of Atrak. The Arabs gave it to him.’”

  31   That night the interpreter and I were granted an audience in Atrak’s yurt. We delivered the letter from Nadhīr al-Ḥaramī, instructing him to embrace Islam. The letter specifically mentioned that he was to receive fifty dinars (some of them musayyabīs), three measures of musk, some tanned hides, and two rolls of Marw cloth. Out of this we had cut for him two tunics, a pair of leather boots, a garment of silk brocade, and five silk garments. We presented his gift and gave his wife a headscarf and a signet ring. I read out the letter and he told the interpreter, “I will not respond until you have returned. Then I shall inform the caliph of my decision in writing.” He removed the silk shirt he was wearing and put on the robe of honor we have just mentioned. I noticed that the tunic underneath was so filthy that it had fallen to pieces. It is their custom not to remove the garment next to their body until it falls off in tatters.

  32   He had plucked all of his beard and mustache, so he looked like a eunuch. Even so, I heard the Turks state that he was their most accomplished horseman. In fact, I was with him one day, on horseback. A goose flew past. I saw him string his bow, move his horse into position under the bird, and fire. He shot the goose dead.

  33   One day he summoned the four commanders of the adjacent territory: Ṭarkhān, Yināl, the nephew of Ṭarkhān and Yināl, and Yilghiz. Ṭarkhān was blind and lame and had a withered arm, but he was by far the most eminent and important. Atrak said, “These are the envoys from the king of the Arabs to my son-in-law, Almish, son of Shilkī. I cannot rightfully allow them to go any further without consulting you.” Ṭarkhān said, “Never before have we seen or heard of a thing like this. Never before has an envoy from the caliph passed through our realm, even when our fathers were alive. I suspect that it is the caliph’s design to send these men to the Khazars and mobilize them against us. Our only option is to dismember these envoys and take what they have.” Someone else said, “No. We should take what they have and let them go back naked where they came from.” Another said, “No. We should use them as ransom for our fellow tribesmen taken prisoner by the king of the Khazars.” They debated like this for seven long days. We were in the jaws of death. Then, as is their wont, they came to a unanimous decision: they would allow us to continue on our way. We presented Ṭarkhān with a robe of honor: a Marw caftan and two cuts of woven cloth. We gave a tunic to his companions, including Yināl. We also gave them pepper, millet, and flat breads as gifts. Then they left.

  34   We pushed on as far as the Bghndī River, where the people got their camel-hide rafts out, spread them flat, put the round saddle frames from their Turkish camels inside the hides, and stretched them tight. They loaded them with clothes and goods. When the rafts were full, groups of people, four, five, and six strong, sat on top of them, took hold of pieces of khadhank and used them as oars. The rafts floated on the water, spinning round and round, while the people paddled furiously. We crossed the river in this manner. The horses and the camels were urged on with shouts, and they swam across. We needed to send a group of fully armed soldiers across the river first, before the rest of the caravan. They were the advance guard, protection for the people against the Bāshghird. There was a fear they might carry out an ambush during the crossing. This is how we crossed the Bghndī River. Then we crossed a river called the Jām, also on rafts, then the Jākhsh, the Adhl, the Ardn, the Wārsh, the Akhtī, and the Wbnā. These are all mighty rivers.

  The Bajanāk

  35   Then we reached the Bajanāk. They were encamped beside a still lake as big as a sea. They are a vivid brown color, shave their beards, and live in miserable poverty, unlike the Ghuzziyyah. I saw some Ghuzziyyah who owned ten thousand horses and a hundred thousand head of sheep. The sheep graze mostly on what lies underneath the snow, digging for the grass with their hooves. If they do not find grass, they eat the snow instead and grow inordinately fat. During the summer, when they can eat grass, they become very thin.30

  36   We spent a day with the Bajanāk, continued on our way, and stopped beside the Jaykh River. This was the biggest and mightiest river we had seen and had the strongest current. I saw a raft capsize in the river and all the passengers on board drown. A great many died, and several camels and horses drowned, too. It took the greatest effort to get across. Several days’ march later, we crossed the Jākhā, the Azkhn, the Bājāʿ, the Smwr, the Knāl, the Sūḥ, and the Kījlū.

  The Bāshghird

  37   We stopped in the territory of a tribe of Turks called the Bāshghird. We were on high alert, for they are the wickedest, filthiest, and most ferocious of the Turks. When they attack, they take no prisoners. In single combat they slice open your head and make off with it. They shave their beards. They eat lice by carefully picking over the hems of their tunics and cracking the lice with their teeth. Our group was joined by a Bāshghird who had converted to Islam. He used to wait on us. I saw him take a louse he found in his clothing, crack it with his fingernail, and then lick it. “Yum!” he said, when he saw me watching him.

  38   Each carves a piece of wood into an object the size and shape of a phallus and hangs it round his neck. When they want to travel or take the field against the enemy, they kiss it and bow down before it, saying, “My lord, do such and such with me.” I said to the interpreter, “Ask one of them to explain this. Why does he worship it as his lord?” “Because I came from something like it and I acknowledge no other creator,” he replied. Some of them claim that they have twelve lords: a lord for winter, a lord for summer, a lord for rain, a lord for wind, a lord for trees, a lord for people, a lord for horses, a lord for water, a lord for night, a lord for day, a lord for death, a lord for the earth. The lord in the sky is the greatest, but he acts consensually, and each lord approves of the actions of his partners. «God is exalted above what the wrongdoers say!»31 We noticed that one clan worships snakes, another fish, and another cranes. They told me that they had once been routed in battle. Then the cranes cried out behind them, and the enemy took fright, turned tail, and fled, even though they had routed the Bāshghird. They said, “These are his actions: he has routed our enemies.” This is why they worship cranes. We left their territory and crossed the following
rivers: the Jrmsān, the Ūrn, the Ūrm, the Bāynāj, the Wtīʿ, the Bnāsnh, and the Jāwshīn.32 It is about two, three, or four days travel from one river to the next.

  The Bulghārs

  39   We were a day and night’s march away from our goal. The king of the Ṣaqālibah dispatched his brothers, his sons, and the four kings under his control to welcome us with bread, meat, and millet. They formed our escort. When we were two farsakhs away, he came to meet us in person. On seeing us, he got down from his horse and prostrated himself abjectly, expressing thanks to the great and glorious God! He had some dirhams in his sleeve and showered them over us. He had yurts pitched for us, and we were lodged in them. We arrived on Sunday the twelfth of Muharram, 310 [May 12, 922]. We had been on the road for seventy days since leaving al-Jurjāniyyah.33 From Sunday to Wednesday we remained in our yurts, while he mustered his kings, commanders, and subjects to listen to the reading of the letter.