‘The worst of all Turkish peoples’: Ibn Faḍlān’s travel account as British naval intelligence

Abstract The tenth-century CE Arabic travel account of Aḥmad Ibn Faḍlān has seen many reactions, receptions, and afterlives in Islamicate languages and in European settings. These relate both to the identity and presumed authority of Ibn Faḍlān as an eyewitness observer and presumed diplomat, and to the contents of his account. Considering different presentations of Ibn Faḍlān’s role and identity, this article approaches reactions to and uses of Ibn Faḍlān’s descriptions of the Bāshghird, particularly within a 1918 British military intelligence document, in order to consider Ibn Faḍlān’s potential as an imperial agent who could make authoritative and lasting judgements on an Orientalized other. Drawing on a combination of British imperial political thought and Volga-Ural local historical writing, descriptions of the Bāshghird by Ibn Faḍlān are weighed against Sara Ahmed’s reflections on ethnographic authority.