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| Artist: Vsevolod Ivanov. Source: renegadetribune.com |
In the early 10th century a devout Muslim diplomat was
sent by the powerful Abbasid Caliph to teach the intricacies of Islam to a king
of the Volga Bulghars, deep inside Russia, who had recently converted –
possibly so he could enlist the help of the Caliphate in his struggles to
defend his kingdom against the nearby Khazars. This Arab traveller is
now commonly known as Ibn Fadlan and he has become famous for his account of
the polytheistic peoples he encountered on his journey, especially the Turks
and the Rus – both peoples would, respectively, become Islamic and Christian
within a century or so of his account. The Rus were (most scholars believe)
originally Vikings who, over a roughly 200 year period, assimilated with the
Slavs of Russia and gave their name to that great nation. The 12th century
Russian Primary Chronicle is the primary source for this assertion. We
also have corroborating evidence from, inter alia, another Muslim called Ibn
Rustah, a Persian scholar who authored an encyclopedia that was completed in
913 – his entry relating to the Rus is thought to derive from an anonymous
source dating from the 860s, and in it he seems to suggest the Rus and the
Slavs are distinct from each other when he writes:
