Ahmad ibn Fadlan
[2][3] However, the Encyclopedia of Islam and Richard N. Frye add that nothing can be said with certainty about his origin, his ethnicity, his education, or even the dates of his birth and death.
[8][2] Primary source documents and historical texts show that Ahmad Ibn Fadlan was a faqih, an expert in Islamic jurisprudence and faith, in the court of the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir.
Ibn Fadlan was sent from Baghdad in 921 to serve as the secretary to an ambassador from the Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir to the iltäbär (vassal-king under the Khazars) of the Volga Bulgaria, Almış.
On 21 June 921 (11 safar AH 309), a diplomatic party led by Susan al-Rassi, a eunuch in the caliph's court, left Baghdad.
[10] Primarily, the purpose of their mission was to explain Islamic law to the recently converted Bulgar peoples living on the eastern bank of the Volga River in what is now Russia.
Leaving the city of Gurgan near the Caspian Sea, they crossed lands belonging to a variety of Turkic peoples, notably the Khazar Khaganate, Oghuz Turks on the east coast of the Caspian, the Pechenegs on the Ural River and the Bashkirs in what is now central Russia, but the largest portion of his account is dedicated to the Rus, i.e. the Varangians (Vikings)[citation needed] on the Volga trade route.
[13] For a long time, only an incomplete version of the account was known, transmitted as quotations in the geographical dictionary of Yaqut (under the headings Atil, Bashgird, Bulghār, Khazar, Khwārizm, Rūs),[14] published in 1823 by Christian Martin Frähn.
Additional passages not preserved in MS 5229 are quoted in the work of the 16th century geographer Amin Razi called Haft Iqlīm ("Seven Climes").
The Bulgar king had invited religious instruction as a gesture of homage to the Abbasids in exchange for financial and military support, and Ibn Fadlan's mission as a faqih was one of proselytization as well as diplomacy.
One scholar calls it an "illuminating episode" in the text where Ibn Fadlan expresses his great anger and disgust over the fact that the Khan and the Volga Bulgars in general are practicing some form of imperfect and doctrinally unsound Islam.
Though the identification of the people Ibn Fadlan describes is uncertain,[19] they are generally assumed to be Volga Vikings; the traders were likely of Scandinavian origin while their crews also included Finns, Slavs, and others.
[21] Ibn Fadlan describes the Rus as perfect physical specimens and the hygiene of the Rūsiyyah as disgusting and shameless, especially regarding to sex (which they perform openly even in groups), and considers them vulgar and unsophisticated.
