Ahmad ibn Fadlan – Origins of Hungarians

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Ahmad ibn Fadlan is one of the most prominent Arab scholars and travelers of the 10th century. His reputation is due to his accounts of his travels. He started his journey in 921, during which he visited the Khazars and the Bulgarians, and he also got in touch with the Hungarians. However, the original of the report was destroyed, leaving the audience with only one copy of the content, the XX. century.

Ahmad ibn Fadlan departed from Baghdad to the Bulgarian Volga in 921 on behalf of the al-Muqtadir caliph. Diplomats from Baghdad were invited by Bulgarian Prince Almiš of Volga. The Bulgarian ruler and his surroundings converted to the Muslim faith, but through the inexperience of the doctrines of religion, he demanded prayerful and religious teachers from the Baghdad Caliph. The rich embassy arrived at the Volga-Kama Volga Bulgarians, touching Khorezm and the Kazak steppe, and probably returned home in 923 on the same route.

Tomb of Kőrösi

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Sándor Kőrösi Csoma, born in Transylvania in 1784, studied in Nagyenyed and Göttingen. He had already formulated the idea of ​​visiting the Hungarian homeland back in his university years. In 1819 he cut his way to head east by already speaking 13 languages. He first traveled to Istanbul via Bucharest, from where he had to leave quickly due to the plague epidemic, and he wanted to settle in Egypt to improve his Arabic language knowledge.

However, the plague epidemic in Egypt caught him up, so he had to leave soon. He eventually reached Zangla on an adventurous journey, where he spent nearly a year studying the Tibetan language. He continued his journey, spending three years in Kanam and five years in Calcutta. During this time, he completed the Tibetan-English dictionary, the first in this field. By this time the Orientalist had spoken 20 languages.

On his way to Lhasa in 1842, he became ill with malaria. He died in Darziling, where he was laid to rest in a European cemetery. The tomb of one of the most famous Hungarian travelers is located here, at an altitude of 2100 meters, in northern India. A painting was also made of the tomb, which was placed on the table of István Széchenyi. Széchenyi wrote the following about Kőrösi:

„A POOR ORPHAN HUNGARIAN, WITHOUT MONEY AND CHEERING, LED
BY CONSTANT AND RESPECTFUL RESEARCH HAVE QUESTED AND FOUND THE
ORIGIN OF HUNGARIANS…”