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Ahmad ibn Fadlan
10th-century Arab traveller and ethnographer · Historical Figures · Born 879
Ahmad ibn Fadlan is read about 534 times a day, in 54 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 16 September 2026
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Something wrong?A 10th-century Arab envoy who left Baghdad on a diplomatic mission and returned with the most vivid eyewitness account of Viking life ever written by an outsider - including a ship burial no European chronicler bothered to describe in such detail.
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![Ibn Fadlan manuscript page (in Arabic)[7]](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/Ibn_Fadhlan_manuscript.jpg/500px-Ibn_Fadhlan_manuscript.jpg?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail)
About this person
Ahmad ibn Fadlan traveled from Baghdad as part of an embassy sent by Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir to the king of the Volga Bulgars. Along the way he moved with trade caravans and encountered peoples the Islamic world barely knew: Volga Vikings, Oghuz Turks, Khazars, Cumans, Pechenegs. He watched, noted, and wrote it all down in his risāla. The account survives as an irreplaceable record of cultures at a hinge moment, cited by historians ever since. Centuries later it jumped genres: Michael Crichton borrowed his journey for Eaters of the Dead, which became the film The 13th Warrior.
Historical Figures born in the 870s 6
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