Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves

Post by jpatokal » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 9:36 AM UTC

jlebrech wrote: post #70

eponeponepon wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you so swift to cast this as political? All this suggests - at most- is that individuals might have decided they wanted to be muslims, or more likely just liked the iconography. Whichever way you slice it, islam is a part, however small, of Sweden's history, on account of its symbolism being found on Swedish historical artifacts.

it's by the BBC

Post by mentallimits » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 9:43 AM UTC

jpatokal wrote: post #91

jlebrech wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's by the BBC

While not perfect and generally on the "liberal" side of the spectrum, the BBC is remarkably apolitical by US standards and I very much doubt they have any (Viking) axes to grind when it comes to Swedish politics. Disclaimer: I used to work at a BBC company, although nowhere near the news department.

Post by jpatokal » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 9:46 AM UTC

smnrchrds wrote: post #54

anovikov wrote: post #26

Well, why don't they think that Vikings simply seen these as a decoration, not understanding what they mean? That happens in much much more recent times. Late Russian ex-foreign minister, and ex-prime minister Primakov, who is Arab states specialist and reads Arabic scripts very well, once saw a garment with 'No god except Allah...' on Patriarch of Russia Alexy II, shocking him because similar ritual garments were us…

Allah literally means God in Arabic. It is comprised of definite prefix 'Al' and the word for god 'Elah'. In English, to show the difference between generic god and specific God, the first letter is capitalized. Arabic does not have the same capitalization rule , so instead they call the specific deity 'Allah', literally meaning 'the god', or 'God'. This is important because not all Mulsims are Arab and not all Arabs…

Post by rusk » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:02 AM UTC

diminish wrote: post #85

rusk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That all sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me. A more likely explanation is trade and cultural exchange [EDIT] and expropriation. The Vikings roamed far and wide [0] [1], and Islam even made it as far as Spain at one stage [2] As far as they went though they probably never got as far as East Asia where they could have encountered Buddhism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Viking_Age [1] https://en.wikipedi…

Does "cultural exchange" include looting and pillage? It may seem hard to accept nationalistically for Scandinavians but most Vikings stuff in tombs are the result of not a production economy.

Post by dghf » Thu, Oct 12, 2017, 10:09 AM UTC

mentallimits wrote: post #93

jpatokal wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While not perfect and generally on the "liberal" side of the spectrum, the BBC is remarkably apolitical by US standards and I very much doubt they have any (Viking) axes to grind when it comes to Swedish politics. Disclaimer: I used to work at a BBC company, although nowhere near the news department.

The BBC has a strong left wing bias. This doesn't come through so much in how they report mainstream political news but in the stories they choose to run on their website. A good example is the choice of stories for the "Society" section.