'Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta' () (born
February 24,
1304; year of death uncertain, possibly
1368 or
1377) was a
Berber[1] Sunni Islamic scholar and
jurisprudent from the
Maliki Madhhab (a school of
Fiqh, or Sunni Islamic law), and at times a
Qadi or judge. However, he is best known as a traveler and
explorer, whose account documents his travels and excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some 73,000 miles (117,000 km). These journeys covered almost the entirety of the known
Islamic world and beyond, extending from
West Africa,
North Africa,
Southern Europe and
Eastern Europe in the west, to
Pakistan,
India, the
Maldives,
Sri Lanka,
Southeast Asia and
China in the east, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary
Marco Polo.
At the instigation of the Sultan of Morocco,
Abu Inan Faris, several years after his return, Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys to a scholar named
Ibn Juzayy, whom he had met while in
Granada. This account, recorded by Ibn Juzayy and interspersed with the latter's own comments, is the primary source of information for his adventures. The title of this initial manuscript may be translated as ''A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling'', but is often simply referred to as the ''Rihla'', or "Journey". Whilst apparently fictional in places, the ''Rihla'' still gives as complete an account as exists of some parts of the world in the
14th century.
Almost all that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from one source – Ibn Battuta himself. In places the things he claims he saw or did are probably fanciful, but in many others there is no way to know whether he is reporting or story-telling. The following account assumes the latter where it is not obviously the former.
A
crater is
named after him on the Moon. A themed
shopping mall in
Dubai also
bears his name, with some of his earlier research and inventions in displays scattered throughout its corridors.
The Hajj
Ibn Battuta was born in
Tangier,
Morocco 1304 during the time of
Merinid Sultanate rule in the
Hijri calendar year 703, into a muslim family. At the age of (approximately) twenty Ibn Battuta went on a ''
hajj'' — a pilgrimage to
Mecca. Once done, however, he continued traveling, eventually covering about 75,000 miles over the length and breadth of the
Muslim world, and beyond (about 44 modern countries). Battuta started his journeys in
1325.
Returning to Cairo he took a second side trip, to
Damascus (then also controlled by the Mameluks), having encountered a holy man during his first trip who prophesied that Ibn Battuta would only reach Mecca after a journey through
Syria. An additional advantage to the side journey was that other holy places were along the route –
Hebron,
Jerusalem, and
Bethlehem, for example – and the
Mameluk authorities put special effort into keeping the journey safe for pilgrims.
After spending
Ramadan in Damascus, Ibn Battuta joined up with a caravan travelling the 800 miles from Damascus to
Medina, burial place of
Muhammad. After four days, he then journeyed on to Mecca. There he completed the usual rituals of a Muslim pilgrim, and having graduated to the status of ''
al-Hajji'' as a result, now faced his return home. Upon reflection, he decided to continue journeying instead. His next destination was the
Il-Khanate in modern-day
Iraq and
Iran.
To Iran and the Silk Roads
Once again joining up with a caravan he crossed the border into
Mesopotamia and visited
al-Najaf, the burial place of the fourth Caliph
Ali. From there he journeyed to
Basra, then
Isfahan, which was only a few decades away from being nearly destroyed by
Central Asian
warlord Timur. Next were
Shiraz and
Baghdad, the latter of which was in poor condition after being heavily damaged by
Hulagu Khan.
There he met
Abu Sa'id, the last ruler of the unified Il-Khanate. Ibn Battuta travelled with the royal caravan for a while, then turned north to
Tabriz on the
Silk Road. The first major city in the region to open its gates to the
Mongols, it had become an important trading centre after most of its nearby rivals were razed.
Second Hajj and East Africa
After this trip, Ibn Battuta returned to Mecca for a 2nd ''
hajj'', and lived there for a year before embarking on a 2nd great trek, this time down the
Red Sea and the
Eastern African coast. His first major stop was
Aden, where his intention was to make his fortune as a trader of the goods that flowed into the Arabian Peninsula from around the
Indian Ocean. Before doing so, however, he determined to have one last adventure, and signed on for a trip down the coast of
Africa.
Spending about a week in each of his destinations, he visited
Mogadishu,
Mombassa,
Zanzibar, and
Kilwa, among others. With the change of the monsoon, he and the ship he was aboard then returned to Saudi Arabia. Having completed his final adventure before settling down, he then immediately decided to go visit
Oman and the
Straits of Hormuz. This done, he journeyed to Mecca again.
Byzantine Empire, Golden Horde, Anatolia, Central Asia and India
Spending another year there, he then resolved to seek employment with the Muslim
Sultan of Delhi. Needing a guide and translator if he was to travel there, he went to
Anatolia, then under the control of the
Seljuqs, to join up with one of the caravans that went from there to
India. A sea voyage from Damascus on a Genoese ship landed him in
Alanya on the southern coast of modern-day
Turkey. From there he travelled by land to
Konya and then
Sinope on the
Black Sea coast.
Crossing the Black Sea, Ibn Battuta landed in Caffa (now
Theodosia), in the Crimea, and entered the lands of the
Golden Horde. There he bought a wagon and fortuitously joined the caravan of
Ozbeg, the Golden Horde's Khan, on a journey as far as
Astrakhan on the
Volga River.
Upon reaching Astrakhan, the Khan allowed one of his pregnant wives to go give birth back in her home city –
Constantinople. It is perhaps of no surprise to the reader that Ibn Battuta talked his way into this expedition, his first beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world.
Arriving there towards the end of
1332, he met the emperor
Andronicus III Palaeologus and saw the outside of
Hagia Sophia. After a month in the city, he retraced his route to Astrakhan, then carried on past the
Caspian and
Aral Seas to
Bokhara and
Samarkand. From there he journeyed south to
Afghanistan, the mountain passes of which he used to cross into India.
The
Sultanate of Delhi was a new addition to ''
Dar al-Islam'', and Sultan
Muhammed Tughlaq had resolved to import as many Muslim scholars and other functionaries as possible to consolidate his rule. On the strength of his years of studies while in Mecca, Ibn Battuta was employed as a ''
qadi'' ("judge") by the sultan.
Tughlaq was erratic even by the standards of the time, and Ibn Battuta veered between living the high life of a trusted subordinate, aiding in the converting of the people that lived along the trade routes that he travelled, and being under suspicion for a variety of reasons against the government. Eventually he resolved to leave on the pretext of taking another ''hajj'', but the Sultan offered the alternative of being ambassador to
China. Given the opportunity to both get away from the Sultan and visit new lands, Ibn Battuta took it.
Southeast Asia and China
En route to the coast, he and his party were attacked by
Hindus, and separated from the others he was robbed and nearly lost his life. Nevertheless, he managed to catch up with his group within two days, and continued the journey to
Cambay. From there they sailed to
Calicut (two centuries later,
Vasco da Gama also landed at the same place). While Ibn Battuta visited a mosque on shore, however, a storm blew up and two of the ships of his expedition were sunk. The third then sailed away without him, and ended up seized by a local king of
Samudera Pasai in today
Aceh of
Sumatra island a few months later. In his travel log, he mentioned about the ruler of Samudera,
Malik ul Salih, who was a
Muslim and performed his religious duties in his utmost zeal. The
madh'hab is
Imam Shafi'i and it reminds him of similar customs he had seen in India.
[2]
Fearful of returning to Delhi as a failure, he stayed for a time in the south
India under the protection of
Jamal al-Din. Jamaluddin was ruler of a small but powerful
Nawayath sultanate on the banks of river
Sharavathi on the
Arabian Sea coast. This place is presently known as Hosapattana and is located in the
Honnavar taluka of
Uttara Kannada district. When the sultanate was overthrown it became necessary for Ibn Battuta to leave India altogether. He resolved to carry on to China, with a detour near the beginning of the journey to the
Maldives.
In the Maldive Islands he spent nine months, much more time than he had intended to. As a ''qadi'' his skills were highly desirable in these formerly
Buddhist islands that had been recently converted to Islam and he was half-bribed, half-kidnapped into staying. Appointed chief judge and marrying into the royal family, he became embroiled in local politics, and ended up leaving after wearing out his welcome by imposing strict judgments in the laissez-faire island kingdom. From there he carried on to
Ceylon for a visit to
Sri Pada (Adam's Peak).
Setting sail from Ceylon, his ship nearly sank in a storm, then the ship that rescued him was attacked by pirates. Stranded on shore, Ibn Battuta once again worked his way back to Calicut, from where he then sailed to the Maldives again before getting onboard a Chinese junk and trying once again to get to China.
This time he succeeded, reaching in quick succession
Chittagong, Sumatra,
Vietnam, and then finally
Quanzhou in
Fujian Province, China. From there he went north to
Hangzhou, not far from modern-day
Shanghai. He also travelled even further north, through the
Grand Canal to
Beijing, although there has been some doubt about whether this actually occurred.
Return home and the Black Death
Returning to Quanzhou, Ibn Battuta decided to return home – though exactly where "home" was a bit of a problem. Returning to Calicut once again, he pondered throwing himself on the mercy of Muhammed Tughlaq, but thought better of it and decided to carry on to Mecca once again. Returning via Hormuz and the Il-Khanate, he saw that state dissolved into civil war, Abu Sa'id having died since his previous trip there.
Returning to Damascus with the intention of retracing the route of his first ''Hajj'', he learned that his father had died. Death was the theme of the next year or so, for the
Black Death had begun, and Ibn Battuta was on hand as it spread through Syria, Palestine, and Arabia. After reaching Mecca, he decided to return to Morocco, nearly a quarter century after leaving it. During the trip he made one last detour to
Sardinia, then returned to Tangier to discover that his mother had also died, a few months before.
Andalus and North Africa
Having settled in Tangier for all of a few days, Ibn Battuta then set out for a trip to
al-Andalus – Muslim
Spain.
Alfonso XI of Castile was threatening the conquest of
Gibraltar, and Ibn Battuta joined up with a group of Muslims leaving Tangier with the intention of defending the port. By the time he arrived the Black Death had killed Alfonso and the threat had receded, so Ibn Battuta decided to visit for pleasure instead. He travelled through
Valencia, and ended up in
Granada.
Leaving Spain he decided to travel through one of the few parts of the Muslim world that he had never explored: Morocco. On his return home he stopped for a while in
Marrakesh, which was nearly a ghost town after the recent plague and the transfer of the capital to
Fez.
Once more he returned to Tangier, and once more he moved on. Two years before his own first visit to Cairo, the
Malian king
Mansa Musa had passed through the same city on his own ''Hajj'' and had caused a sensation with his extravagant riches –
West Africa contained vast quantities of gold, previously unknown to the rest of the world. While Ibn Battuta never mentions this specifically, hearing of this during his own trip must have planted a seed in his mind, for he decided to set out and visit the Muslim kingdom on the far side of the
Sahara Desert.
Mali
In the fall of 1351, Ibn Battuta set out from Fez, reaching the last Moroccan town (
Sijilmasa) a bit more than a week later. When the winter caravans began a few months later, he joined one, and within a month he was in the Central Saharan town of
Taghaza. A centre of the salt trade, Taghaza was awash with salt and Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not have a favorable impression of the place. Another 500 miles through the worst part of the desert brought him to Mali, particularly the town of
Walata.
From there he traveled southwest along a river he believed to be the
Nile (it was actually the
Niger River) until he reached the capital of the
Mali Empire. There he met Mansa
Suleyman, king since
1341. Dubious about the miserly hospitality of the king, he nevertheless stayed for eight months before journeying back up the Niger to
Timbuktu. Though in the next two centuries it would become the most important city in the region, at the time it was small and unimpressive, and Ibn Battuta soon moved on. Partway through his journey back across the desert he received a message from the Sultan of Morocco commanding him to return home. This he did, and this time it lasted.
After the publication of the ''Rihla'', little is known about Ibn Battuta's life. He may have been appointed a ''qadi'' in
Morocco. Ibn Battuta died in Morocco some time between
1368 and
1377 from the same disease that claimed his mother's life, the Black Plague. For centuries his book was obscure, even within the Muslim world, but in the
1800s it was rediscovered and translated into several European languages. Since then Ibn Battuta has grown in fame, and is now a well-known figure in the Middle East, not only for being an extensive traveller and author but also for aiding in the conversion of the people along the trade routes that he took.
See also
★
Travelling route of Ibn Battuta
★
Marco Polo, the Italian traveller and writer
★
Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai
★
Ibn Battuta (crater), the lunar landmark
★
Arab slave trade
★ Ibn Battuta’s Life, writing by
Yousef Alikhani. Madraseh Publication,
Iran. 2004
References
★
The Travels of Ibn Battutah, Mackintosh-Smith, Tim (ed.), , , Picador, 2003, ISBN 0-330-41879-3
★
The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Dunn, Ross E., , , University of California Press, 1986, ISBN 0-520-05771-6 Reissued and revised in 2004 ISBN 0-520-24385-4
1. Ross E. Dunn, ''The Adventures of Ibn Battuta - A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century'', University of California, 2004 ISBN 0520243854.
2. Islam in the Netherlands East Indies, Raden Abdulkadir Widjojoatmodjo, , , The Far Eastern Quarterly,
External links
★
Ibn Battuta on the Web — a Ibn Battuta-centered web directory
★
Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354 — excerpts from H. A. R. Gibb's translation
★
The Longest Hajj: The Journeys of Ibn Battuta — Saudi Aramco World article by Douglas Bullis (July/August 2000)
★
Travels with a Tangerine: Travels in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah and The Hall of a Thousand Columms: Hindustan to Malabar with Ibn Battutah — Books by
Tim Mackintosh-Smith
★
Biography — interactive journeys of Ibn Battuta
★
Girl Solo in Arabia, in the footsteps of Ibn Battuta
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