Anybody else thought of the movie "The 13th Warrior" after reading the article?
Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
171–180 of 180 posts
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is no grammatical difference. @smnrchrds above is spot on in his explanation of the etymology. "Elah" is "god" with a lowercase g (as in, a god). "Al" means "the" in Arabic. "Allah" = "Al Elah" = "the god" = "God." Now, whether the Abrahamic religions consider their God to be one and the same is a philosophical question. It depends on what "the same" means. Each of them claims to refer to the same entity, at le…
Islam is, AIUI quite explicit in saying that they worship the same deity as Christians, agree that Mary was a virgin, and that the birth of Christ was a miracle. They just consider Christ to be (one of?) God’s favourite prophet, rather than God incarnate.
There is even an empty tomb next to Mohamed's tomb for when the Christians kill Jesus when He returns and proclaims Mohamed the greatest Prophet. The religions have interesting intersections but I have never had a good conversation with a person about it because they always assume I am trying to convert them.
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's entirely possible that there were converts, as well. Many European cultures pre-Christianization had pretty broad-minded attitudes towards religion, and while the majority would adhere to the predominant pagan tradition, some individuals and families would sometimes convert to another religion when exposed to it. Especially given the rather pragmatic attitude towards religious worship among pagans at the time, c…
Is there a reason given why he wanted to choose a religion ?
The country (Kievan Rus) was basically just freshly minted at that point, and its various constituent regions, and their respective tribes, didn't really see themselves as a single nation yet - Vladimir's grandfather Igor was killed in a rebellion when trying to collect tribute from one, for example. It occurred to Vladimir that to strengthen the centralized rule of a single king - himself - a monotheistic religion, mirroring the desired arrangement in the spiritual sphere, and providing religious backing to his right to rule ("divine right of kings" etc), would be helpful.
Initially, he tried to reform the existing pagan religion, by taking one god - Perun (god of war and thunder) - and elevating him above others as the supreme god. But that didn't take up too well, and meanwhile, he saw the far more successful examples of what he was trying to do happening in Bulgaria and Poland, with Christianity as the unifying force.
He also wanted to have a strong relationship with neighboring Byzantium. In particular, after getting involved into their ongoing civil war, and supporting the ruling emperor against the rebels, he convinced (or forced, depending on your perspective - it was a condition for his support) the emperor to give his sister in marriage to him - but converting to Christianity was a prerequisite for that. And, of course, a Christian ruler needed Christianity as a state religion, if he wanted religious backing. This last part is why the legend is most likely just that, a legend - Greek-rite Christianity was really the obvious pragmatic choice in the circumstances.
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#174The Swedish vikings are known to have travelled, traded and served as guards for the Ottomans. Most people equate Vikings with the Danish/Norwegian raids and voyages in western europe and the atlantic. It’s an interesting discovery, but the article lacks a bit of context. (Source: Historical Atlas of the Vikings by John Haywood, also a history interested dane/norseman).
The Ottoman Turkey did not exists at the time. Even for Seljuk Turkish state it was a little too early. You mean Byzantium - Constantinople was called Miklagard by Vikings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangians http://www.viking.no/e/turkey/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seljuq_dynasty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
Right, sorry about the offhand naming, yes, the same region at least.
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a reason given why he wanted to choose a religion ?
The country (Kievan Rus) was basically just freshly minted at that point, and its various constituent regions, and their respective tribes, didn't really see themselves as a single nation yet - Vladimir's grandfather Igor was killed in a rebellion when trying to collect tribute from one, for example. It occurred to Vladimir that to strengthen the centralized rule of a single king - himself - a monotheistic religion,…
Thanks for this detailed answer.
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "but other religions survive in Persia till this day" Just to be clear, what is known as Persia is a subset of modern day Iran: http://www.heritageinstitute.com/zoroastrianism/iranpersia Quick note about non-Islamic religions in Iran: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Iran "The remaining 0.6% associate themselves with non-Islamic religious minorities, including Bahá'ís, Mandeans, Yarsanis, Zoroastrians, J…
> what is known as Persia is a subset of modern day Iran Subset? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achaemenid_Empire
Persia != Persian Empire. Just like Britain != British Empire, Rome != Roman Empire, etc...
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
What would be the purpose of in including Islam as part of Swedish culture? Does Sweden want to get into OPEC?
No, just wants to open an opposed part of the population into integrating an increasing number of muslim economic migration.
I think other countries like Germany also have structural problems - a low birth rate will lead to a collapse of the pension system. They also need more people to keep it going in the long term.
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#178It seems most of the pattern was made up by the researchers: https://stringgeek.blogspot.dk/2017/10/viking-age-tablet-wea...
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#179Placed in the perspective of the current political climate in Sweden I can not be but sceptic against research which tries to make islam part of Sweden's history. While the article is published by the BBC, the research - for what it is - was done in Uppsala. That Vikings travelled to islamic countries is known. That they traded with them - willingly or unwillingly - is also known. They did the same with many other cu…
https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/919897406031978496/ph...
Given that this is twitter the whole thing has been chopped into bite-sized chunks but if you add them together it reads something like the following:
https://tttthreads.com/thread/919897406031978496
In other words, the "research" behind the BBC article is faulty and there is no mention of allah or ali on that Viking artifact.
Re: Arabic characters found woven into burial costumes from Viking boat graves
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, just wants to open an opposed part of the population into integrating an increasing number of muslim economic migration.
I think other countries like Germany also have structural problems - a low birth rate will lead to a collapse of the pension system. They also need more people to keep it going in the long term.
The Swedish pension authorities ("Pensionsmyndigheten") has now published a - belated - study which shows that migration to Sweden will double the pension costs by the year 2060 [1]. This studt is 'belated' because these numbers had already been calculated and made known by others but that news was labelled 'främlingsfientligt' (xenophobic) and 'racist' to quench any chance of a fact-based discussion on the subject.
The problem with (current and recent) migration to Sweden is that most migrants come from places with low 'human development index' (Afghanistan and Syria are the top 2 countries at this moment) while the Swedish job market requires high levels of education compared to surrounding countries. This makes it hard for migrants to find jobs and to establish themselves, leading to a high dependence on government subsidies and state-subsidised pensions ('garantipension').
In other words, by allowing (until recently unlimited) economically-motivated migration of people from countries with a low HDI, Sweden has worsened any future pension problems dramatically and reduced the chance of the state pension system to survive in the long term.
In 2014 Sweden had a birth rate of 1.88 per woman [2], the third best in Europe. While not at the 2.1 level required to keep the population at the current level there was no obvious need to import a large contingent of people from the Middle-East and Africa to avoid the "collapse of the pension system".
[1] https://ledarsidorna.se/2017/10/pensionerna-migrationens-kos...
[2] https://www.thelocal.se/20160316/swedes-are-europes-third-be...