From: e.karloukovski@uea.ac.uk (Vassil Karloukovski)
Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars
Date: 31 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <791j75$uro@cpca3.uea.ac.uk>
References: <369E3BE1.5C45@sbu.ac.uk> <77li2j$qi0$1@whisper.globalserve.net> <369F52FE.2B6@sbu.ac.uk> <77rc86$auj$1@brokaw.wa.com> <36A444B3.F3B70F1C@alum.mit.edu.-> <7827sb$269$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36A52D70.9E372DD2@alum.mit.edu.-> <36A556AB.9927BD29@montclair.edu> <36a63533.58309714@news.yale.edu> <7866ud$i9m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36cdb21e.883120019@news.wxs.nl> <36A7FCC8.79790A6B@earthlink.net> <36d77e23.1000882888@news.wxs.nl> <36a8d455.81661202@news.yale.edu> <36AC3460.856801F6@earthlink.net> <36ae814d.4306061@news.yale.edu> <78pov2$84o@cpca3.uea.ac.uk>
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In article <78pov2$84o@cpca3.uea.ac.uk>, e.karloukovski@uea.ac.uk says...
>In article <36ae814d.4306061@news.yale.edu>, cluster.user@yale.edu says...

...
>>saqa:liba means the slavs, but it was used for other people amongst 
>>them as well. 


Just to add something here - at the time of Idn-Fadlan the Slavs hadn't reached
the Middle Volga yet and the term 'saqaliba' couldn't refer to them. The information
about the saqaliba in the X-th century Persian geography 'Hudud al-Alam' also do 
not appear to refer to the Slavs as the saqaliba there were described as fire-
worshippers:

 "The people live among the trees and saw nothing except millet. They have no grapes 
  but posses plenty of honey from which they prepare wine [i.e. mead] and the like. 
  They posses herds of swine which are just like herds of sheep. They burn the dead. 
  When a man  dies, his wife, if she loves him, kills herself. They all wear shirts, 
  and shoes over the ankles. All of them are fire-worshippers. ..." 

The excerpts about the mead and the millet, however, seem to have been drawn from 
Ibn-Fadlan's account on Volga Bulgaria. Thus, 'saqaliba' was probably a general name
applied to the sedentary peoples of Eastern Europe.


Regards,
Vassil Karloukovski


>The terms 'saqaliba' and 'bulgar' are used interchangably by Ibn-Fadlan
>when (and only when) referring to Volga Bulgaria - the king is called
>either 'king of the bulgars' or 'king of the saqaliba' . 

>ibn fadlan's rendition is not that surprising, as it
>>was a multi-ethnic region. fadlan simply wasn't a philologist of
>>turkic languages, as bolgaric is divergent.