Abu
Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battutah was a legendary Berber explorer from the Maghrebi
(western) region of North Africa. In the year 1325 at the age of twenty-one,
having completed his education as a Qadi (Islamic legal scholar), Ibn Battutah set off from Tangier, Morocco to fulfill his Hajj pilgrimage to
Mecca. He would not return home again until 1354.
After
completing his pilgrimage Ibn Battutah then continued on to wander across much of the known
world, as far east as China. The Travels of Ibn Battutah is an
English translation of The Rihla, a travelogue of his journeys,
dictated later in his life. Ibn Battutah’s travels were four times longer than
those of Marco Polo, who traveled to China via the Silk Road from 1271 through
1295; and it would be over a century before Christopher Columbus would leave
port in 1492. Importantly, both Polo’s and Columbus’ travels were for trade development
purposes; Ibn Battutah’s travels were for personal exploration.
In
addition to Ibn Battutah’s geographic explorations, his studies/observations of
cultural differences are extensive. One will learn a great deal about Islam the
religion and how it relates to the geo-politics of the time.
As the
story progresses from one place to another, there are descriptions of day-to-day
living, manner of dress, diet, family structure, variety of slavery situations,
architecture – from mosques to cathedrals to shuls to Hindu & Buddhist temples
-- agricultural economics, shipbuilding (this perhaps being the first western
exposure to Chinese junks), diplomacy via marriage, diplomacy via tribute, and
much more.
Places
visited include Iberia, north & east Africa, Mali, Egypt, Jerusalem, Damascus,
Constantinople, the Arab gulf states, Persia, Afghanistan, Turkestan, the Dihli Sultanate
(Hindu India), Moslem India, Ceylon, the Maldives, Sumatra, and Canton.
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