Ibn Fadlān, Ahmad

Ibn Fadlān, Ahmad, b and d ? Arab writer and traveler of the first half of the 10th century. In 921–2, as secretary of the Bagdad caliph's legation, he completed a trip from Baghdad through Bukhara and Khorezm to the Volga Bulgars. Portions of his report on the trip are extant; in them he gives valuable information about the life and beliefs of various tribes then living on the territory of Ukraine and in the Black Sea and Caucasus Mountains regions. Andrii Kovalivsky's study of Ibn Fadlān's account was published in 1956.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]