This dissertation has presented an argument suggesting that scholarship on the early history of the Rus has hitherto not taken full account of the contribution of Arabic literature to the subject. Meanwhile, this evidence is of utmost importance as the most diverse and voluminous contemporary body of source material on the Rus in the ninth and the tenth centuries. Moreover, the preceding analysis points to some significant differences between the Arabic narrative sources and other textual sources as they relate to descriptions of the geography, social structure and cultural milieu of the early Rus.