CHAPTER FORTY

ARABIC SOURCES ON THE VIKINGS

J.E. Montgomery

T

he Vikings appear sporadically across some six centuries in Arabic texts. These texts
provide information, of varying degrees of accuracy and reliability, on two (broadly
conceived) groups of Vikings (I make no distinction between Vikings, Varangians,
Norsemen and Scandinavians): those Vikings who, with Ireland as a base, operated in
and around the Atlantic seaboard of western Europe and who occasionally made their
presence felt in parts of Islamic Spain (in this entry, such texts are marked [a]); and
those who made inroads into northern mainland Europe via the Baltic Sea and the
Volga portage routes, coming into contact with Muslims in and around the Caspian Sea
(marked [b]). Issues of nomenclature will be raised where appropriate: the Vikings in
[a] texts tend to be called ‘Magians’, that is, Zoroastrians (Ar. al-Majus), while those
in [b] texts are known as ‘Rus’ (Ar. al-Rus, written as al-rws), and variously connected
with either the Slavs (Ar. Saqaliba) or the Turks (Ar. Atrak). A third group, the Rus who
entered the military service of the Byzantines (as distinct from the Varangian Guard) are
occasionally mentioned [c]. Works from the early periods of contact (approximately two
centuries) will be discussed ‘chronologically’, in terms of either the putative date of
composition of the work, or, failing that, the floruit of the author: thus, the issue
of whether these texts are chronologically stratified with material from earlier periods
will be only tangentially addressed. The earliest occurrence of the word Warank
(Varangians) [d] in an astronomical work by al-Biruni (d. after 1050 ) determines the
chronological limits of this chapter. One source and one individual who have benefited
from exaggerated assessments of their relevance will be touched briefly upon in the
conclusion, in an attempt to highlight those works which warrant greater exposure.

The most comprehensive treatment of the Arabic source material remains Harris

Birkeland, Nordens historie i middelalderen etter arabiske kilder (Det Norske Videnskaps-

Akademie i Oslo. Skrifter II: Historisk-filosofiske klasse 2 [ 1954 ]), Oslo: Dybwad, 1955 ,

a Norwegian trans., with notes, of A. Seippel’s pioneering work in two volumes,

Rerum Normannicarum Fontes Arabici, Oslo: Brøgger, 1896 – 1928. André Miquel’s

four volume La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusquau milieu du 11 e

siècle, Paris: Mouton, 1967 – 87 , is absolutely indispensable. See also P.B. Golden,

‘Rus’, in Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition (hereafter EI 2 ), vol. 8 : 618 – 29 and