Content warning: rape, violence

Ibn Fadlan's Risala is a complicated text to work with, but it is one of an incredibly scant few eyewitness accounts to Rus' and broader Scandinavian funerary practice. As such, it is unfortunately likely that the ritual he describes is more-or-less accurate.

The funeral is perhaps the most widely known part of the Risala that is known - it is, however, far from the only act of coerced sex perpetrated by Rus' men upon enslaved women. Ibn Fadlan describes extremely public, casual acts of sexual violence as part of trade and the day-to-day life of Rus' men. The enslaved women who are subjected to this treatment are portrayed exclusively as victims, unable to truly give or retract consent, and whose screams are drowned out by the beating of drums.

[The Rus’] are accompanied by beautiful female slaves for trade with the merchants. They have intercourse with their female slaves in full view of their companions. Sometimes they gather in a group and do this in front of each other. A merchant may come in to buy a female slave and stumble upon the owner having intercourse. The Rūs does not leave her alone until he has satisfied his urge (Ibn Faḍlān 2017, 33).

At least the general frame of this part of the account (i.e. enslaved women were subject to repeat, frequent sexual assault) can be more-or-less corroborated by the Icelandic saga corpus - an example of this is in Laxdaela saga, where the Irish princess Melkorka is purchased by the Icelander Hoskuldr, and even though she is pretending to be mute, is forced to have sex with Hoskuldr the night after her purchase. Even though the saga takes care to note that, upon his return, "he had little to do with the slave-woman" [i.e. sexually] it still is implied that during the trip home, she was regularly coerced into intercourse. She eventually gives birth to a certain Olafr, who grows up to be the most distinguished man in the region.

But what about human sacrifice specifically? Well, that is also extremely well attested. From the Oseberg burial being interpreted sometimes as a noblewoman and an enslaved female companion to Adam of Bremen's account of the massive (male) human sacrifices at Uppsala to other Arabic accounts such as as-Mas'udi and ibn Rusta, all of which describe human sacrifice, it's clear that such acts did occur, and were on a fairly widespread scale perceived of as valid ritual practice. As much as it (justly) appalled Ibn Fadlan and his readers, care is taken in many of the Arabic sources to compare it explicitly to Indian suttee, in that it is something that the woman consents to and participates in. Even the enslaved woman in Ibn Fadlan's account initially volunteers for the ritual, and partakes in through the recitation of certain phrases as she is lifted over the doorway.

I quizzed the interpreter about her actions and he said, “The first time they lifted her up, she said, ‘Look, I see my father and mother.’ The second time she said, ‘Look, I see all my dead kindred, seated.’ The third time she said, ‘Look, I see my master, seated in the Garden. The Garden is beautiful and dark-green. He is with his men and his retainers. He summons me. Go to him.’” (Ibn Faḍlān 2017, 36-7).

Now - this doesn't mean that we can take Ibn Fadlan's account of human sacrifice as totally reliable. Two particular notes stand out. Firstly - as recent research over the past decade has established, Ibn Fadlan and others (such as Ibn Battuta, who describes Indian female sacrifice in the 14th century) are writing to shock and entertain an Arabic audience. While Ibn Fadlan is largely saying what he has seen, he is not saying everything that he probably saw, but instead choosing to portray things that are barbarous and scandalous to his Arab audience. Therefore, particularly with regards to his view of women, his pity and alarm at their behaviors must be tempered against his obvious sin of gazing upon them with interest (which he himself sometimes admits to and described performing penances for). The potential also exists for him to be misinterpreting things - while he is generally quite adept at working through a translator, there still is room for value judgements or misunderstandings to creep in - the "Angel of Death" is, for example, a term familiar to an Arabic audience, that does not probably describe the nuances and social roles of whatever seeress or religious figure actually led the funeral.

The other limitation Ibn Fadlan faces is scope. He, and the other Arabic sources from the 10th century, are all describing the Rus' people. There is no single, coherent practice of pre-Christian Norse religion, but instead a thousand localized belief systems that overlap and intertwine. Adam of Bremen, for instance, specifically notes that male sacrifices were preferred at Uppsala, in Sweden, and archaeological evidence is even more complicated. So, there is a limit to which we can read the Risala as an account of medieval Norse culture broadly, as opposed to a description of a funeral led by elite Rus' people along the Volga river.

In the main, though, it is clear that Ibn Fadlan is telling the truth - there were female human sacrifice, and it through drugs, sexual assault, and slaughter abused the ability and inability of an enslaved woman to consent to ritualized acts. That was part of Norse religious practice for more than just this one community, and should be kept in mind in the modern fascination with the 'Vikings'.