Mission to the Volga

by Ahmad Ibn Fadlan

  Thirteenth Warrior, The

  Tigris River

  translator

  Transoxania

  tribute (paid to the Khazar khāqān)

  Turkic deities

  Turks

  Ṭūs

  Ūrm

  Ūrn

  Uṭrūsh, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, al

  Vassalage

  Vikings

  Volga River

  Waiting for the Barbarians

  Wārsh

  Waṣīf ibn Sawārtakīn

  wax; ear-wax

  Wbnā

  winds

  Wīsū

  Wtīʿ

  W*rʿ

  Yaʿqūb ibn al-Layth the Coppersmith

  yabghū

  Yāqūt ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Ḥamawī

  Yemen

  Yilghiz

  yilik

  Yilṭawār

  Yināl

  Yurt. See also tent

  Zamjān

  Zaydiyyah

  Zoroastrians. See also Majūs

  ABOUT THE NYU ABU DHABI INSTITUTE

  The Library of Arabic Literature is supported by a grant from the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, a major hub of intellectual and creative activity and advanced research. The Institute hosts academic conferences, workshops, lectures, film series, performances, and other public programs directed both to audiences within the UAE and to the worldwide academic and research community. It is a center of the scholarly community for Abu Dhabi, bringing together faculty and researchers from institutions of higher learning throughout the region.

  NYU Abu Dhabi, through the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, is a worldclass center of cutting-edge research, scholarship, and cultural activity. The Institute creates singular opportunities for leading researchers from across the arts, humanities, social sciences, sciences, engineering, and the professions to carry out creative scholarship and conduct research on issues of major disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and global significance.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  James E. Montgomery is Sir Thomas Adams’s Professor of Arabic and Fellow of Trinity Hall at the University of Cambridge. He juggles many fascinations. Some of them he has had for many years now though he has probably discarded even more over the years. His current fascinations are: the body of writings attributed to al-Jāḥiẓ (d. 255/868–69); Arabic hunting poetry of the third/ninth century; the music of Björk and the poetry of Simon Armitage; the Library of Arabic Literature. He is lucky to have a wonderful wife, three amazing children, and two brilliant dogs. He is training to deadlift 200 kg and likes to get out of Cambridge and go to Yorkshire as often as possible.

  THE LIBRARY OF ARABIC LITERATURE

  For more details on individual titles, visit www.libraryofarabicliterature.org.

  Classical Arabic Literature: A Library of Arabic Literature Anthology

  Selected and translated by Geert Jan van Gelder

  A Treasury of Virtues: Sayings, Sermons and Teachings of ʿAlī, by al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī with the One Hundred Proverbs attributed to al-Jāḥiẓ

  Edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin

  The Epistle on Legal Theory, by al-Shāfiʿī

  Edited and translated by Joseph E. Lowry

  Leg over Leg, by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

  Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies

  Virtues of the Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, by Ibn al-Jawzī

  Edited and translated by Michael Cooperson

  The Epistle of Forgiveness, by Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī

  Edited and translated by Geert Jan van Gelder and Gregor Schoeler

  The Principles of Sufism, by ʿĀʾishah al-Bāʿūniyyah

  Edited and translated by Th. Emil Homerin

  The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad, by Maʿmar ibn Rāshid

  Edited and translated by Sean W. Anthony

  Two Arabic Travel Books

  Accounts of China and India, by Abū Zayd al-Sīrāfī

   Edited and translated by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

  Mission to the Volga, by Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān

   Edited and translated by James Montgomery

  Disagreements of the Jurists: A Manual of Islamic Legal Theory, by al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān

  Edited and translated by Devin J. Stewart

  Consorts of the Caliphs: Women and the Court of Baghdad, by Ibn al-Sāʿī

  Edited by Shawkat M. Toorawa and translated by the Editors of the Library of Arabic Literature

  What ʿĪsā ibn Hishām Told Us, by Muḥammad al-Muwayliḥī

  Edited and translated by Roger Allen

  The Life and Times of Abū Tammām, by Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṣūlī

  Edited and translated by Beatrice Gruendler

  The Sword of Ambition: Bureaucratic Rivalry in Medieval Egypt, by

  ʿUthmān ibn Ibrāhīm al-Nābulusī

  Edited and translated by Luke Yarbrough

  Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded, by Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī

  Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies

  Light in the Heavens: Sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad, by al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī

  Edited and translated by Tahera Qutbuddin

  Risible Rhymes, by Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ al-Sanhūrī

  Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies

  A Hundred and One Nights

  Edited and translated by Bruce Fudge

  The Excellence of the Arabs, by Ibn Qutaybah

  Edited by James E. Montgomery and Peter Webb

  Translated by Sarah Bowen Savant and Peter Webb

  Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook

  Edited and translated by Charles Perry

  ENGLISH-ONLY PAPERBACKS

  Leg over Leg: Volumes One and Two, by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

  Leg over Leg: Volumes Three and Four, by Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq

  The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muḥammad, by Maʿmar ibn Rāshid

  The Epistle on Legal Theory: A Translation of al-Shāfiʿī’s Risālah, by al-Shāfiʿī

  The Epistle of Forgiveness, by Abū l-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī

  The Principles of Sufism, by ʿĀʾishah al-Bāʿūniyyah

  A Treasury of Virtues: Sayings, Sermons and Teachings of ʿAlī, by al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī with The One Hundred Proverbs, attributed to al-Jāḥiẓ

  The Life of Ibn Ḥanbal, by Ibn al-Jawzī

  Mission to the Volga, by Ibn Faḍlān

  Accounts of China and India, by Abū Zayd al-Sīrāfī