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Why did Vikings have 'Allah' on clothes?

Sunster

Sunster

Member
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/why-did-vikings-have-allah-on-clothes/ar-AAtk0Sj?ocid=spartanntp#image=AAtk0Sj_1|4

Researchers in Sweden have found Arabic characters woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves. The discovery raises new questions about the influence of Islam in Scandinavia, writes journalist Tharik Hussain.

They were kept in storage for more than 100 years, dismissed as typical examples of Viking Age funeral clothes.
But a new investigation into the garments - found in 9th and 10th Century graves - has thrown up groundbreaking insights into contact between the Viking and Muslim worlds.
Patterns woven with silk and silver thread have been found to spell the words "Allah" and "Ali".
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Larsson says the tiny geometric designs - no more than 1.5cm (0.6in) high - resembled nothing she had come across in Scandinavia before.
"I couldn't quite make sense of them and then I remembered where I had seen similar designs - in Spain, on Moorish textiles."
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Larsson then realized she was not looking at Viking patterns at all but ancient Arabic Kufic script.
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There were two words that kept recurring. One of them she identified with the help of an Iranian colleague. It was the name "Ali" - the fourth caliph of Islam.
But the word next to Ali was more difficult to decipher.
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"I suddenly saw that the word 'Allah' [God] had been written in mirrored lettering," she says.
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"The possibility that some of those in the graves were Muslim cannot be completely ruled out," she says.
"We know from other Viking tomb excavations that DNA analysis has shown some of the people buried in them originated from places like Persia, where Islam was very dominant.
"However, it is more likely these findings show that Viking age burial customs were influenced by Islamic ideas such as eternal life in paradise after death."
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Pretty interesting stuff. I never imagined any Vikings as being Muslim even though I knew they had lots of contact.
 
P

Pusherman

Member
p23616_p_v8_ad.jpg
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.
 
Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
The guys known for reaping and pillaging other cultures had things from a foreign land 🤔
 
O

Ogodei

Member
I would hazard a guess that it's just products they purchased from the Muslim world, or possibly that they got artisans to come to Scandinavia (voluntarily or as captive-slaves) who produced these goods for them. It took a long ass time to get anywhere back then but that didn't mean people weren't traveling all corners of Eurasia and Northern and Eastern Africa. The Pope sent envoys to the Mongol court in modern Mongolia and the Mongols sent envoys as far away as London, and traded artisans and other slaves and captives could end up all sorts of strange places, like Slavs staffing the slave armies of Mameluk Egypt, or a Parisian metalworker making sculptures in Mongolia.
 
J

jph139

Member
If they're specifically Viking style burial garments it's unlikely they just up and stole them from elsewhere. The question is whether the Vikings who owned/was buried with them was a practicing Muslim, or if the artisan who created them was.

I can easily imagine a Muslim weaver, far from home, who snuck little signs of faith into their work.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Don't tell me the stupid Floki subplot in Vikings has something to it? xD
Not really, it's still out of character for him

But yeah, Antonio Banderas jokes aside, that character was based on a real Arab explorer, it's common knowledge that vikings had contacts with the Muslim world. Not exactly that shocking.
 
NekoFever

NekoFever

Member
There's runic graffiti in the Hagia Sophia, so we know Vikings were exploring pretty far to the east. Inevitability you bring some things back with you.
 
Sunster

Sunster

Member
NekoFever said:
There's runic graffiti in the Hagia Sophia, so we know Vikings were exploring pretty far to the east. Inevitability you bring some things back with you.
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These were funeral clothes. It's more likely they were made specifically for the wearer's funeral.
 
A

Aske

Member
rrvv said:
someone enlighten me about this?
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Star of The Thirteenth Warrior; an awesome movie based on a Michael Crichton novel which combines a retelling of Beowulf with the historical figure Ahmed ibn Fadlan; who journeyed west with a group of vikings to learn about their culture.

The movie is fucking awesome.
 
G

Gattsu25

Banned
Aske said:
Star of The Thirteenth Warrior; an awesome movie based on a Michael Crichton novel which combines a retelling of Beowulf with the historical figure Ahmed ibn Fadlan; who journeyed west with a group of vikings to learn about their culture.

The movie is fucking awesome.
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That it is.
SlimySnake said:
I don't understand the Antonio banderas reference.
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The post above you explains (which I also have quoted here)
 
K

Keasar

Member
It's probably clothes from trade (and other Viking activities), but anything to throw a wrench in the nationalist "PURE ARYAN WHITE RACE!" rhetoric is fun.
 
S

sphagnum

Banned
Vikings travelled far and wide trading things. Coins from the caliphate have been found in Scandinavia before so this isn't a surprise. I mean, look at the Volga trade route.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_trade_route#/media/File:Varangian_routes.png

If they were regularly going down to Byzantium to serve in the Varangian Guard, it's not really a stretch for them to be trading with Arabs.

The public doesn't really know much about Vikings other than "they were a bunch of rape-and-pillagers" and imagines them as having been centered around north/west Europe, but this is simplistic and wrong. They were all over the place for a long time and had a big part in the trade of the time. Fascinating stuff.
 
A

Aske

Member
NekoFever said:
Sorry, I meant bringing culture back.
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If Antonio Banderas took a stick, and wrote weird looking symbols in the sand while telling me "there is only one god, and Mohammed is his prophet", and I didn't like fighting for Odin, felt unblessed by Thor, and wasn't attracted to Freya; I'd be tempted to pick up what he was putting down.
 
C

CertifiedFP

Member
I do feel some people might be overinterpreting this to turn it into some sort of "Gotcha!" towards Swedish Islamaphobes, but eh well, this post from a previous thread I saw on this topic elsewhere sorta throws a bit of a wrench at this.

The weirdest part of this is not that there might have been Muslim Vikings, but that the Vikings would have written it backwords in order to read it left-to-right. Even if your native language is written left-to-right, it isn't easier to read a right-to-left script left-to-right, it's just as confusing as it would be if you used that script to write your own language. Like ,if there were Muslim Vikings, I would expect to see prayers to Allah written in Norse runes (either in Old Norse, or just as transcribed Arabic), if anything. Runes were a phonemic alphabet, which is the easiest type of script to transcribe another language into.
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I mean honestly it does seem like a reach when you have to tilt it to a certain angle and put it front of a mirror to see the words.
 
J

Jumeira

Banned
Really is fascinating reading. These are burial robes, corpses are decorated with possessions that either make thier journey to the afterlife easier or thier access to thier heaven more likely, i doubt these were added unknowingly, especially if the researchers find more varients of this.

The findings in UK of a 1400 year old page from the Quran being word for word the exact same was remarkable too.

The possible anxiety this may create for islamphobes/racists who use Vikings as a symbol of purity is delicious, seriously.
 
C

calder

Member
Sgt. Kabukiman said:
Antonio Banderas.
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I *loved* that movie way more than it deserved when I saw it in theaters with like 5 other people (including a sorta-date from work, she was amused I had sold it as a bit like a historical romance).

Rewatching it years later you can definitely tell it had some clunky elements and I would guess it was a bit of a 'troubled production' because certain plot points were abandoned and the tone shifts were a bit odd in the middle. Still really enjoy it though, shame I was never able to find it in HD and had to settle for a cheap DVD release years ago.
 
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