Did the Vikings influence the Arab world economically, culturally and otherwise?
The Arab writers did call the tall, blond traders “Vikings,” but by the ethnonym Rus (pronounced “Roos’). Byzantine and Arab writers referred to the Swedish traders and settlers, as well as the local population among whom they settled and intermarried, as Rus, and this is the source of the modern name of Russia. The Rus were primarily explorers, colonizers and tradesmen, and although they were well-armed, Muslim accounts describe them as merchant-warriors whose primary business was trade. ‘I’heir only occupation is trading in sable and squirrel and other kinds of skins, which they sell to those who will buy from them. In payment, they take coins which they keep in their belts.” The Vikings paid little attention to the face value of the coins; rather, they used an Arab system of weights to measure the silver on portable balance scales. When it suited them, the coins were hewn into smaller pieces, melted down into ingots or fashioned into arm-rings for subsequent “hacksilver” transaction
