Muslim Vikings? Who Knew?

[flakey_foont]

Ragnar never mentioned this. Next thing, they'll be saying that the President of the United States IS named Schicklegruber.

Uppsala researchers found Vikings buried in Sweden with cloth inscribed with the word “Allah,” the Muslim word for “God,” suggesting that as they roamed the world, Vikings encountered adherents to Islam and perhaps some of them converted.


https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/white-supremacists-fly-into-white-hot-rage-at-news-some-vikings-may-have-been-muslim/

[underpants]

1. No no no, that was Allan the Viking

Everyone knows Allan was a Viking

[flakey_foont]

2. Allan Page?

[underpants]

3. Yes! FTW!

[snooper2]

4. Or they just plundered some fabric

[bobbieinok]

5. Took Muslim slaves?

That was a big thing for all raiding groups. It is claimed that Pope said of Saxon slaves Catholic raiders brought to Rome that they 'looked like angels.' Thus the term 'Angle' Saxons.

IIRC Vikings went as far as Constantinople.

They did go up the river to Paris. King of area gave them territory of Normandy in return for protection. So Norman invasion was second Viking invasion of territory now known as England.

[unc70]

8. Bede recorded that legend, but ...

But the term is more likely akin to the word for hook (like angler) with a hard “g”.

From reading the article, this would seem unlikely to the burial clothes if dlaves.

[brush]

6. How do the dates correspond? Islam is 1000 years old give or take, when would the Vikings...

have been in contact with the religion?

[flakey_foont]

7. Islam was founded in the 6th Century C.E.

roughly 200 years or so before earliest recorded appearance of Vikings in European chronicles

[Thor_MN]

9. According to tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca around the year 570.

The Viking Age is the period from the late 8th century to the mid-11th century in European history.

If you are trading in a foreign land, acquiring something with writing, you might just like the design, without knowing the meaning of the writing. How many people have tattoos of Kanji symbols because they looked cool, but the meaning might not be what was expected?

[brush]

11. Thanks. DU is great. So much info here. Now to look up Kanji symbols.

[LeftInTX]

17. Islam spread rapidly

By 661 it was established in Spain.

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Meh. Vikings got around.

Probably cloth obtained in trade, owners likely couldn't read the Arabic (or didn't care).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman-Arab-Byzantine_culture

[Wounded Bear]

12. What? They never watched 13th Warrior?

That wasn't a documentary?

[SweetieD]

13. Vikings the tv show touches on this. They raided places all over the Mediterranean and took slaves.

In the tv show it shows them taking in Muslim slaves back to their land.

[Initech]

14. "We come from the land of sand and Allah" doesnt have the same ring to it!

[snort]

16. This

[Fozzledick]

15. Floki?