Researchers find ‘Allah’ embroidered on Viking burial textiles

Researchers with Uppsala University in Sweden recently took a closer look at a collection of burial garments gathered from 9th and 10th-century Viking graves and discovered that ‘Allah’ and ‘Ali’ were embroidered on some of the pieces.

Long thought to be a Viking geometric pattern, an examination of the design revealed it was actually Kufic script, an early form of Arabic writing.

As to how Islamic script ended up on grave garments, Annika Larsson, one of the researchers, commented, “Presumably, Viking Age burial customs were influenced by Islam and the idea of an eternal life in Paradise after death."

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“Grave goods such as beautiful clothing, finely sewn in exotic fabrics, hardly reflect the deceased’s everyday life, just as little as the formal attire of our era reflects our own daily lives,” Larsson noted. "The rich material of grave goods should rather be seen as tangible expressions of underlying values.”

Larsson has also suggested that some of those in the graves could be Muslims.

“We know from other Viking tomb excavations that DNA analysis has shown some of the people buried in them originated from places like Persia, where Islam was very dominant,” she told the BBC.