List of mapsList of illustrationsList of tables and appendicesPreface and acknowledgementsList of abbreviations List of contributors MapsPlatesPART ONE: OVERVIEW 1. Editors' introduction Jonathan Shepard and Luke Treadwell 2. Ibn Fadlan's Kitab : text and afterlife Viacheslav S. Kuleshov with Jonathan Shepard PART TWO: TEXT AND CONTEXT 3. Where is the real Ibn Fadlan? Editing and translating the Kitab James E. Montgomery 4. From Kitab to Risala : the long shadow of Yaqut's version of Ibn Fadlan's account Luke Treadwell 5. Other Arab geographers' sources on the North: al-Jayhani and the 'Anonymous Relation' Jean-Charles Ducène 6.

Other ethnographies of the steppe Walter Pohl 7. Other travellers' tales Ian Wood PART THREE: BACKGROUND TO THE JOURNEY 8. The Abbasid background Hugh Kennedy 9. Ibn Fadlan and the Khazars: the hidden centre Nick Evans 10. Beyond the Gate of the Turks: archaeology around the Aral Sea Irina Arzhantseva and Heinrich Härke, with a contribution by Ekaterina A. Armarchuk PART FOUR: VIKING-AGE RUS 11. Ibn Fadlan and the rituals of the Rus: Vikings on the Volga? Neil Price 12. Viking-Age markets and emporia Søren M.

Sindbæk 13. Rus, routes and sites Veronika Murasheva 14. Identities, ethnicities, cultures: Ibn Fadlan and the Rus on the Middle Volga Þórir Jónsson Hraundal 15. Rus and other Northmen under non-Arabic eyes Jonathan Shepard PART FIVE: VOLGA BULGARIA 16. What was Volga Bulgaria? Leonard Nedashkovsky 17. Ninth- and tenth-century Volga Bulgar trade Evgeniy P. Kazakov 18. Volga Bulgar imitative coinage Marek Jankowiak PART SIX: CONCLUSION 19.

'Failure of a mission'? Jonathan Shepard List of Reign DatesList of Alternative Place NamesGlossaryIndex.