Everything about Ibn Battutah totally explained
Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ِAbdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta (born
February 24,
1304; year of death uncertain, possibly 1368 or 1377) was a Moroccan
Berber scholar and
jurisprudent from the
Maliki Madhhab (a school of
Fiqh, or Sunni Islamic law), and at times a
Qadi or judge. However, he's 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
North Africa,
West Africa,
Southern Europe and
Eastern Europe in the West, to the
Middle East,
Indian subcontinent,
Central Asia,
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'd 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 تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار 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 الرحلة, 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's known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from one source—Ibn Battuta himself. In some places, the things he claims he saw or did are probably fanciful, but in many others, there's no way to know whether he's reporting or storytelling. However, due to the complexity and thoroughness of his accounts, we're left to assume that his chronicles were in fact true.
An
impact crater on the moon, the
Ibn Battuta crater, is named after him. A themed
shopping mall in
Dubai, the
Ibn Battuta Mall, 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, 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
hajj—the 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). Ibn 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 traveling the 800 miles from Damascus to
Medina, burial place of the prophet
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.
Second Hajj and East Africa
After this trip, Ibn Battuta returned to Mecca for a second
hajj and lived there for a year before embarking on a second 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 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 traveled 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 treasons 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 was
Imam Shafi'i, and it reminded him of similar customs he'd seen in India.
Fearful of returning to Delhi as a failure, he stayed for a time in the south of
India under the protection of
Jamal al-Din. Jamaluddin was ruler of a small but powerful
Nawayath sultanate on the banks of the 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.
He spent nine months in the Maldive Islands, much longer than he'd intended. 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 on board 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 traveled 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
Iberia.
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
al-Andalus, he decided to travel through one of the few parts of the Muslim world that he'd 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.
The Sahara Desert to Mali and Timbuktu
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, together with two of his cousins, ibn Ziri and ibn 'Adi. After a month, he arrived at the Central Saharan town of
Taghaza. Taghaza was actually a dry salt lake bed, and its buildings were constructed from slabs of salt by slaves of the Massufa tribe, who cut the salt from the lake bed in thick slabs for transport by camel. Taghaza was a profitable commercial center and awash with Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta didn't have a favorable impression of the place. A long and difficult journey lay ahead, requiring special advance guides or
takshif with local experience to arrange a passage. When the
takshif became lost, the entire caravan usually disappeared without a trace. Ibn Battuta had his own tragedy: after quarreling with ibn 'Adi, ibn Ziri lagged behind the caravan until he became lost, and was never seen again. Traversing the open wastes of the Sahara Desert was therefore terrifying to many travelers, and Ibn Battuta noted the difficulty of navigating without landmarks, writing that there was "no visible road or track in these parts, nothing but sand blown here and there by the wind." After another 900 harrowing km through the worst part of the desert, Ibn Battuta finally arrived in Mali, particularly the town of Iwalatan (
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 Death. 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.
Travelling route of Ibn Batutta
Ibn Battuta travelled almost 75,000 miles in his lifetime. Here is a list of places he visited.
Tunis - At that time, Abu Yahya (son of Abu Zajaria) was the sultan of Tunis.
Sousse - also called Susah.
Sfax
Gabes
Jeddah - A major port for pilgims to Makkah
Makkah - The original plan of his journey was to pilgimage to Makkah.
Rabigh - Small city north of Jeddah on the Red Sea
Medina - Where Ibn Batuta visited the grave of the prophet Muhammad.
Oman
Dhofar
Bahrain
Al-Hasa
Strait of Hormuz
Konya
Antalya
Bulgaria - His intension, as he mentions in his book, is that he wanted to go the Land of Darkness.
Azov
Kazan
Volga River
Istanbul - "Constantinople" as it was called in his time
Tripoli
Khwarezm
Khorasan (Province)
Afghanistan
Punjab region
Delhi
Alibag - Ibn Batuta was imprisoned in this area as mentioned in his book.
Other places in Asia
Myanmar
Maldives
Sri Lanka - known in his time as Ceylon
Coromandel Coast- in India
Brahmaputra River - Ibn Batuta visited the area on his way to China. This place is in Bangladesh.
Meghna River - Near Dakha
Sumatra
Malay Peninsula
Quanzhou - as he called in his book the city of jackass's
Hangzhou -- Ibn Batuta referred to this city in his book as "Madinat Alkhansa" مدينة الخنساء. He also mentioned that it was the largest city in the world at that time; it took him three days to walk across the city, which is huge even by today's standards.
Beijing - Ibn Batuta mentioned in his journey to Beijing how neat the city was.
Mogadishu
Kilwa
Mombasa
Walata
Timbuktu
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