Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around 117,000 km (73,000 mi), surpassingZheng He with about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) andMarco Polo with 24,000 km (15,000 mi).[8][9][10]
All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels, which records that he was ofBerber descent,[9] born into a family of Islamiclegal scholars (known as qadis in the Muslim traditions ofMorocco) inTangier on 24 February 1304, during the reign of theMarinid dynasty.[16] His family belonged to a Berber tribe clan known as theLawata.[17] As a young man, he would have studied at aSunniMaliki school, the dominant form of education inNorth Africa at that time.[18] Maliki Muslims requested that Ibn Battuta serve as their religious judge, as he was from an area where it was practised.[19]
Ibn Battuta Itinerary 1325–1332 (North Africa, Iraq, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Somalia, Swahili Coast)
First pilgrimage
On 2 Rajab 725AH (14 June 1325 AD), Ibn Battuta set off from his home town at the age of 21 to perform ahajj (pilgrimage) toMecca, a journey that would ordinarily take sixteen months. He was eager to learn more about far-away lands and craved adventure. He would not return to Morocco again for 24 years.[20]
I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation.[21]
He travelled to Mecca overland, following the North African coast across the sultanates ofAbd al-Wadid andHafsid. The route took him throughTlemcen,Béjaïa, and thenTunis, where he stayed for two months.[22] For safety, Ibn Battuta usually joined acaravan to reduce the risk of being robbed. He took a bride in the town ofSfax,[23] but soon left her due to a dispute with the father. That was the first in a series of marriages that would feature in his travels.[24]
In the early spring of 1326, after a journey of over 3,500 km (2,200 mi), Ibn Battuta arrived at the port ofAlexandria, at the time part of theBahri Mamluk empire. He met two ascetic pious men in Alexandria. One was Sheikh Burhanuddin, who is supposed to have foretold the destiny of Ibn Battuta as a world traveller and told him, "It seems to me that you are fond of foreign travel. You must visit my brother Fariduddin in India, Rukonuddin in Sind, and Burhanuddin in China. Convey my greetings to them." Another pious man, Sheikh Murshidi, interpreted a dream of Ibn Battuta as being that he was meant to be a world traveller.[25][26]
He spent several weeks visiting sites in the area, and then headed inland toCairo, the capital of theMamluk Sultanate. After spending about a month in Cairo,[27] he embarked on the first of many detours within the relative safety of Mamluk territory. Of the three usual routes to Mecca, Ibn Battuta chose the least-traveled, which involved a journey up theNile valley, then east to theRed Sea port ofʿAydhab.[b] Upon approaching the town, however, a local rebellion forced him to turn back.[29]
Ibn Battuta returned to Cairo and took a second side trip, this time to Mamluk-controlledDamascus. During his first trip he had encountered a holy man who prophesied that he would only reach Mecca by travelling throughSyria.[30] The diversion held an added advantage; because of the holy places that lay along the way, includingHebron,Jerusalem, andBethlehem, the Mamluk authorities kept the route safe for pilgrims. Without this help many travellers would be robbed and murdered.[31][c]
After spending the Muslim month ofRamadan, during August,[36] in Damascus, he joined a caravan travelling the 1,300 km (810 mi) south toMedina, site of the Mosque of the Islamic prophetMuhammad. After four days in the town, he journeyed on to Mecca while visiting holy sites along the way; upon his arrival to Mecca he completed his first pilgrimage, in November, and he took the honorific status ofEl-Hajji. Rather than returning home, Ibn Battuta decided to continue travelling, choosing as his next destination theIlkhanate, aMongolKhanate, to the northeast.[37]
Iraq and Iran
On 17 November 1326, following a month spent in Mecca, Ibn Battuta joined a large caravan of pilgrims returning toIraq across theArabian Peninsula.[38] The group headed north to Medina and then, travelling at night, turned northeast across theNajd plateau toNajaf, on a journey that lasted about two weeks. In Najaf, he visited themausoleum ofAli, theFourth Caliph.[39]
Then, instead of continuing toBaghdad with the caravan, Ibn Battuta started a six-month detour that took him intoIran. From Najaf, he journeyed toWasit, then followed the riverTigris south toBasra. His next destination was the town ofIsfahan across theZagros Mountains in Iran. He then headed south toShiraz, a large, flourishing city spared the destruction wrought byMongol invaders on many more northerly towns. Finally, he returned across the mountains to Baghdad, arriving there in June 1327.[40] Parts of the city were still ruined from the damage inflicted byHulagu Khan's invading army in 1258.[41]
In Baghdad, he foundAbu Sa'id, the last Mongol ruler of the unified Ilkhanate, leaving the city and heading north with a large retinue.[42] Ibn Battuta joined the royal caravan for a while, then turned north on theSilk Road toTabriz, the first major city in the region to open its gates to the Mongols and by then an important trading centre as most of its nearby rivals had been razed by the Mongol invaders.[43]
Ibn Battuta left again for Baghdad, probably in July, but first took an excursion northwards along the river Tigris. He visitedMosul, where he was the guest of the Ilkhanate governor,[44] and then the towns ofCizre (Jazirat ibn 'Umar) andMardin in modern-day Turkey. At a hermitage on a mountain nearSinjar, he met aKurdish mystic who gave him some silver coins.[d][47] Once back in Mosul, he joined a "feeder" caravan of pilgrims heading south to Baghdad, where they would meet up with the main caravan that crossed theArabian Desert to Mecca. Ill with diarrhoea, he arrived in the city weak and exhausted for his secondhajj.[48]
Ibn Battuta remained in Mecca for some time (theRihla suggests about three years, from September 1327 until autumn 1330). Problems with chronology, however, lead commentators to suggest that he may have left after the 1328hajj.[e]
After thehajj in either 1328 or 1330, he made his way to the port ofJeddah on theRed Sea coast. From there he followed the coast in a series of boats (known as a jalbah, these were small craft made of wooden planks sewn together, lacking an established phrase) making slow progress against the prevailing south-easterly winds. Once inYemen he visitedZabīd and later the highland town ofTa'izz, where he met theRasulid dynasty king (Malik) Mujahid Nur al-Din Ali. Ibn Battuta also mentions visitingSana'a, but whether he actually did so is doubtful.[49] In all likelihood, he went directly from Ta'izz to the important trading port ofAden, arriving around the beginning of 1329 or 1331.[50]
FromAden, Ibn Battuta embarked on a ship heading forZeila on the coast ofSomalia. He then moved on toCape Guardafui further down the Somali seaboard, spending about a week in each location. Later he would visitMogadishu, the then pre-eminent city of the "Land of the Berbers" (بلد البربرBalad al-Barbar, the medieval Arabic term for theHorn of Africa).[51][52][53]
When Ibn Battuta arrived in 1332, Mogadishu stood at the zenith of its prosperity. He described it as "an exceedingly large city" with many rich merchants, noted for its high-quality fabric that was exported to other countries, includingEgypt.[54] Battuta added that the city was ruled by aSomali sultan, Abu Bakr ibn Shaikh 'Umar.[55][56] He noted that Sultan Abu Bakr had dark skin complexion and spoke in his native tongue (Somali), but was also fluent in Arabic.[57][56][58] The Sultan also had a retinue ofwazirs (ministers), legal experts, commanders, royaleunuchs, and other officials at his beck and call.[56]
Ibn Battuta continued by ship south to theSwahili coast, a region then known in Arabic as theBilad al-Zanj ("Land of theZanj")[59] with an overnight stop at the island town ofMombasa.[60] Although relatively small at the time, Mombasa would become important in the following century.[61] After a journey along the coast, Ibn Battuta next arrived in the island town ofKilwa in present-dayTanzania,[62] which had become an important transit centre of the gold trade.[63] He described the city as "one of the finest and most beautifully built towns; all the buildings are of wood, and the houses are roofed withdīs reeds".[64]
Ibn Battuta recorded his visit to theKilwa Sultanate in 1330, and commented favourably on the humility and religion of its ruler,Sultan al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman, a descendant of the legendaryAli ibn al-Hassan Shirazi. He further wrote that the authority of the Sultan extended fromMalindi in the north toInhambane in the south and was particularly impressed by the planning of the city, believing it to be the reason for Kilwa's success along the coast. During this period, he described the construction of thePalace of Husuni Kubwa and a significant extension to theGreat Mosque of Kilwa, which was made ofcoral stones and was the largest mosque of its kind. With a change in themonsoon winds, Ibn Battuta sailed back to Arabia, first toOman and theStrait of Hormuz then on to Mecca for thehajj of 1330 (or 1332).[65]
After his third pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Battuta decided to seek employment with theSultan of Delhi,Muhammad bin Tughluq. In the autumn of 1330 (or 1332), he set off for theSeljuk controlled territory ofAnatolia to take an overland route to India.[66] He crossed theRed Sea and theEastern Desert to reach theNile valley and then headed north toCairo. From there he crossed theSinai Peninsula toPalestine and then travelled north again through some of the towns that he had visited in 1326. From the Syrian port ofLatakia, aGenoese ship took him (and his companions) toAlanya on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey.[67]
He then journeyed westwards along the coast to the port ofAntalya.[68] In the town he met members of one of the semi-religiousfityan associations.[69][verification needed] These were a feature of most Anatolian towns in the 13th and 14th centuries. The members were young artisans and had at their head a leader with the title ofAkhil.[70] The associations specialised in welcoming travellers. Ibn Battuta was very impressed with the hospitality that he received and would later stay in their hospices in more than 25 towns in Anatolia.[71] From Antalya Ibn Battuta headed inland toEğirdir which was the capital of theHamidids. He spentRamadan (June 1331 or May 1333) in the city.[72]
From this point his itinerary across Anatolia in theRihla becomes confused. Ibn Battuta describes travelling westwards from Eğirdir toMilas and then skipping 420 km (260 mi) eastward past Eğirdir toKonya. He then continues travelling in an easterly direction, reachingErzurum from where he skips 1,160 km (720 mi) back toBirgi which lies north of Milas.[73] Historians believe that Ibn Battuta visited a number of towns in central Anatolia, but not in the order in which he describes.[74][f]
When Ibn Battuta arrived inİznik, it had just been conquered byOrhan, sultan of theOttoman Beylik. Orhan was away and his wife was in command of the nearby stationed soldiers, Ibn Battuta gave this account of Orhan's wife: "A pious and excellent woman. She treated me honourably, gave me hospitality and sent gifts."[77]
The greatest of the kings of the Turkmens and the richest in wealth, lands and military forces. Of fortresses, he possesses nearly a hundred, and for most of his time, he is continually engaged in making a round of them, staying in each fortress for some days to put it in good order and examine its condition. It is said that he has never stayed for a whole month in any one town. He also fights with the infidels continually and keeps them under siege.
— Ibn Battuta
Ibn Battuta had also visitedBursa which at the time was the capital of the Ottoman Beylik, he described Bursa as "a great and important city with finebazaars and wide streets, surrounded on all sides with gardens and running springs".[79]
He also visited theBeylik of Aydin. Ibn Battuta stated that the ruler of the Beylik of Aydin had twenty Greek slaves at the entrance of his palace and Ibn Battuta was given a Greek slave as a gift.[77] His visit to Anatolia was the first time in his travels he acquired a servant; the ruler of Aydin gifted him his first slave. Later, he purchased a young Greek girl for 40dinars inEphesus, was gifted another slave inİzmir by the Sultan, and purchased a second girl inBalikesir. The conspicuous evidence of his wealth and prestige continued to grow.[80]
FromSinope, he took a sea route to theCrimean Peninsula, arriving in theGolden Horde realm. He went to the port town ofAzov, where he met with the emir of the Khan, then to the large and rich city ofMajar. He left Majar to meet withUzbeg Khan's travelling court (Orda), which was at the time nearMount Beshtau. From there he made a journey toBolghar, which became the northernmost point he reached, and noted its unusually short nights in summer (by the standards of the subtropics). Then he returned to the Khan's court and with it moved toAstrakhan.[citation needed]
Ibn Battuta recorded that while in Bolghar he wanted to travel further north into the land of darkness. The land is snow-covered throughout (northern Siberia) and the only means of transport is dog-drawn sled. There lived a mysterious people who were reluctant to show themselves. They traded with southern people in a peculiar way. Southern merchants brought various goods and placed them in an open area on the snow in the night, then returned to their tents. Next morning they came to the place again and found their merchandise taken by the mysterious people, but in exchange they found fur-skins which could be used for making valuable coats, jackets, and other winter garments. The trade was done between merchants and the mysterious people without seeing each other. As Ibn Battuta was not a merchant and saw no benefit of going there he abandoned the travel to this land of darkness.[81]
When they reached Astrakhan,Öz Beg Khan had just given permission for one of his pregnant wives, Princess Bayalun, a daughter ofByzantine emperorAndronikos III Palaiologos, to return to her home city ofConstantinople to give birth. Ibn Battuta talked his way into this expedition, which would be his first beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world.[82]
Arriving in Constantinople towards the end of 1332 (or 1334), he met theByzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. He visited the great church ofHagia Sophia and spoke with anEastern Orthodox priest about his travels in the city of Jerusalem. After a month in the city, Ibn Battuta returned to Astrakhan, then arrived in the capital citySarai al-Jadid and reported the accounts of his travels to SultanÖz Beg Khan (r. 1313–1341). Then he continued past theCaspian andAral Seas toBukhara andSamarkand, the latter of which he praised as "one of the grandest and finest cities, and the most perfect of them". Here he visited the court of another Mongol khan,Tarmashirin (r. 1331–1334) of theChagatai Khanate.[83] He also noted the ruined state of the city walls, a result of theMongol invasion in 1220 and subsequent infighting.[84] From there, he journeyed south toAfghanistan, then crossed into India via the mountain passes of theHindu Kush.[85] In theRihla, he mentions these mountains and the history of the range in slave trading.[86][87] He wrote,
After this I proceeded to the city ofBarwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold.
— Ibn Battuta, Chapter XIII, Rihla – Khorasan[87][88]
Ibn Battuta and his party reached theIndus River on 12 September 1333.[89] From there, he made his way to Delhi and became acquainted with the sultan,Muhammad bin Tughluq.
Indian subcontinent
Tomb of Feroze Shah Tughluq, successor ofMuhammad bin Tughluq in Delhi. Ibn Battuta served as aqadi or judge for six years during Muhammad bin Tughluq's reign.
Muhammad bin Tughluq was renowned as the wealthiest man in the Muslim world at that time. He patronised various scholars, Sufis,qadis,viziers, and other functionaries in order to consolidate his rule. On the strength of his years of study in Mecca, Ibn Battuta was appointed aqadi (judge) by the sultan.[90] However, he found it difficult to enforceIslamic law beyond the sultan's court inDelhi, due to lack of Islamic appeal in India.[91]
It is uncertain by which route Ibn Battuta entered theIndian subcontinent but it is known that he was kidnapped and robbed by rebels on his journey to the Indian coast. He may have entered via theKhyber Pass andPeshawar, or further south.[93] He crossed theSutlej river near the city ofPakpattan,[94] in modern-day Pakistan, where he paid obeisance at theshrine of Baba Farid,[92] before crossing southwest into Rajput country. From theRajput kingdom of Sarsatti, Battuta visitedHansi in India, describing it as "among the most beautiful cities, the best constructed and the most populated; it is surrounded with a strong wall, and its founder is said to be one of the great non-Muslim kings, called Tara".[95] Upon his arrival inSindh, Ibn Battuta mentions theIndian rhinoceros that lived on the banks of theIndus.[96]
The Sultan was erratic even by the standards of the time and for six years Ibn Battuta veered between living the high life of a trusted subordinate and falling under suspicion oftreason for a variety of offences. His plan to leave on the pretext of taking anotherhajj was stymied by the Sultan. The opportunity for Battuta to leave Delhi finally arose in 1341 when an embassy arrived from theYuan dynasty of China asking for permission to rebuild aHimalayanBuddhist temple popular with Chinese pilgrims.[g][100]
Ibn Battuta was given charge of the embassy but en route to the coast at the start of the journey to China, he and his large retinue were attacked by a group ofbandits.[101] Separated from his companions, he was robbed, kidnapped, and nearly lost his life.[102] Despite this setback, within ten days he had caught up with his group and continued on toKhambhat in the Indian state ofGujarat. From there, they sailed toCalicut (now known as Kozhikode), where Portuguese explorerVasco da Gama would land two centuries later. While in Calicut, Battuta was the guest of the rulingZamorin.[90] While Ibn Battuta visited a mosque on shore, a storm arose and one of the ships of his expedition sank.[103] The other ship then sailed without him only to be seized by a localSumatran king a few months later.
Afraid to return to Delhi and be seen as a failure, he stayed for a time in southern India under the protection of Jamal-ud-Din, ruler of the small but powerfulNawayath Sultanate on the banks of theSharavathi river next to theArabian Sea. This area is today known as Hosapattana and lies in theHonnavar Taluk ofUttara Kannada. Following the overthrow of the sultanate, Ibn Battuta had no choice but to leave India. Although determined to continue his journey to China, he first took a detour to visit theMaldive Islands where he worked as a judge.[104][better source needed]
He spent nine months on the islands, much longer than he had intended. When he arrived at the capital,Malé, Ibn Battuta did not plan to stay. However, the leaders of the formerlyBuddhist nation that had recentlyconverted to Islam were looking for a chief judge, someone who knew Arabic and the Qur'an. To convince him to stay they gave him pearls, gold jewellery, and slaves, while at the same time making it impossible for him to leave by ship. Compelled into staying, he became a chief judge and married into the royal family ofOmar I.
Ibn Battuta took on his duties as a judge with keenness and strived to transform local practices to conform to a stricter application of Muslim law. He commanded that men who did not attend Friday prayer be publicly whipped, and that robbers' right hand be cut off. He forbade women from being topless in public, which had previously been the custom.[105] However, these and other strict judgements began to antagonise the island nation's rulers, and involved him in power struggles and political intrigues. Ibn Battuta resigned from his job as chiefqadi, although in all likelihood it was inevitable that he would have been dismissed.
Throughout his travels, Ibn Battuta kept close company with women, usually taking a wife whenever he stopped for any length of time at one place, and then divorcing her when he moved on. While in the Maldives, Ibn Battuta took four wives. In hisTravels he wrote that in the Maldives the effect of smalldowries and female non-mobility combined to, in effect, make a marriage a convenient temporary arrangement for visiting male travellers and sailors.
From the Maldives, he carried on toSri Lanka and visitedSri Pada andTenavaram temple. Ibn Battuta's ship almost sank on embarking from Sri Lanka, only for the vessel that came to his rescue to suffer an attack by pirates. Stranded onshore, he worked his way back to theMadurai kingdom in India. Here he spent some time in the court of the short-livedMadurai Sultanate under Ghiyas-ud-Din Muhammad Damghani,[106] from where he returned to the Maldives and boarded a Chinesejunk, still intending to reach China and take up his ambassadorial post.
He reached the port ofChittagong in modern-dayBangladesh intending to travel toSylhet to meetShah Jalal, who became so renowned that Ibn Battuta, then in Chittagong, made a one-month journey through the mountains ofKamaru near Sylhet to meet him. On his way to Sylhet, Ibn Battuta was greeted by several of Shah Jalal's disciples who had come to assist him on his journey many days before he had arrived. At the meeting in 1345 CE, Ibn Battuta noted that Shah Jalal was tall and lean, fair in complexion and lived by the mosque in a cave, where his only item of value was a goat he kept for milk, butter, and yogurt. He observed that the companions of the Shah Jalal were foreign and known for their strength and bravery. He also mentions that many people would visit the Shah to seek guidance. Ibn Battuta went further north intoAssam, then turned around and continued with his original plan.[citation needed]
In 1345, Ibn Battuta travelled toSamudra Pasai Sultanate (called "al-Jawa") in present-dayAceh, NorthernSumatra, after 40 days voyage from Sunur Kawan.[107][108] He notes in his travel log that the ruler of Samudra Pasai was a pious Muslim named Sultan Al-Malik Al-Zahir Jamal-ad-Din, who performed his religious duties with utmost zeal and often waged campaigns against animists in the region. The island ofSumatra, according to Ibn Battuta, was rich incamphor,areca nut,cloves, andtin.[109]
Themadh'hab he observed was ImamAl-Shafi‘i, whose customs were similar to those he had previously seen incoastal India, especially among theMappila Muslims, who were also followers of Imam Al-Shafi‘i. At that time Samudra Pasai marked the end ofDar al-Islam, because no territory east of this was ruled by a Muslim. Here he stayed for about two weeks in the wooden walled town as a guest of the sultan, and then the sultan provided him with supplies and sent him on his way on one of his ownjunks to China.[109]
Ibn Battuta first sailed for 21 days to a place called "Mul Jawa" (island of Java orMajapahit Java) which was a center ofa Hindu empire. The empire spanned 2 months of travel, and ruled over the country of Qaqula and Qamara. He arrived at the walled city named Qaqula/Kakula, and observed that the city had war junks for pirate raiding and collecting tolls and that elephants were employed for various purposes. He met the ruler of Mul Jawa and stayed as a guest for three days.[110][111][112]
Ibn Battuta then sailed to a state called Kaylukari in the land ofTawalisi, where he metUrduja, a local princess. Urduja was a brave warrior, and her people were opponents of theYuan dynasty. She was described as an "idolater", but could write the phraseBismillah inIslamic calligraphy. The locations of Kaylukari and Tawalisi are disputed. Kaylukari might referred toPo Klong Garai inChampa (now southern Vietnam), and Urduja might be an aristocrat ofChampa orDai Viet. Filipinos widely believe that Kaylukari was in present-dayPangasinan Province of thePhilippines.[113] Their opposition to the Mongols might indicate 2 possible locations: Japan and Java (Majapahit).[114] In modern times, Urduja has been featured in Filipino textbooks and films as a national heroine. Numerous other locations have been proposed, ranging fromJava to somewhere inGuangdong Province, China. However, SirHenry Yule andWilliam Henry Scott consider both Tawalisi and Urduja to be entirely fictitious. (SeeTawalisi for details.) From Kaylukari, Ibn Battuta finally reachedQuanzhou inFujian Province, China.
China
Ibn Battuta provides the earliest mention of theGreat Wall of China with regard to medieval geographic studies, although he did not see it.
In the year 1345, Ibn Battuta arrived atQuanzhou in China'sFujian province, then under the rule of the Mongol-ledYuan dynasty. One of the first things he noted was that Muslims referred to the city as "Zaitun" (meaningolive), but Ibn Battuta could not find any olives anywhere. He mentioned local artists and their mastery in making portraits of newly arrived foreigners; these were for security purposes. Ibn Battuta praised the craftsmen and theirsilk andporcelain, as well as fruits such asplums andwatermelons and the advantages of paper money.[115]
He described the manufacturing process of large ships in the city ofQuanzhou.[116] He also mentioned Chinese cuisine and its use of animals such as frogs, pigs, and even dogs, which were sold in the markets, and noted that the chickens in China were larger than those in the west. Scholars however have pointed out numerous errors given in Ibn Battuta's account of China, for example confusing theYellow River with theGrand Canal and other waterways, as well as believing that porcelain was made from coal.[117]
In Quanzhou, Ibn Battuta was welcomed by the head of the local Muslim merchants (possibly a fānzhǎng or "Leader of Foreigners"simplified Chinese:番长;traditional Chinese:番長;pinyin:fānzhǎng) and Sheikh al-Islam (Imam), who came to meet him withflags,drums,trumpets, and musicians.[118] Ibn Battuta noted that the Muslim populace lived within a separate portion in the city where they had their own mosques, bazaars, and hospitals. In Quanzhou, he met two prominent Iranians, Burhan al-Din ofKazerun and Sharif al-Din fromTabriz[119] (both of whom were influential figures noted in theYuan History as "A-mi-li-ding" and "Sai-fu-ding", respectively).[120] While in Quanzhou he ascended the "Mount of the Hermit" and briefly visited a well-knownTaoist monk in a cave.
He then travelled south along the Chinese coast toGuangzhou, where he lodged for two weeks with one of the city's wealthy merchants.[121]
From Guangzhou he went north to Quanzhou and then proceeded to the city ofFuzhou, where he took up residence with Zahir al-Din and met Kawam al-Din and a fellow countryman named Al-Bushri ofCeuta, who had become a wealthy merchant in China. Al-Bushri accompanied Ibn Battuta northwards toHangzhou and paid for the gifts that Ibn Battuta would present to theEmperor Huizong of Yuan.[122]
Ibn Battuta said thatHangzhou was one of the largest cities he had ever seen,[123] and he noted its charm, describing that the city sat on abeautiful lake surrounded by gentle green hills.[124] He mentions the city's Muslim quarter and resided as a guest with a family of Egyptian origin.[122] During his stay at Hangzhou he was particularly impressed by the large number of well-crafted and well-painted Chinese wooden ships, with coloured sails and silk awnings, assembling in the canals. Later he attended a banquet of the Yuan administrator of the city named Qurtai, who according to Ibn Battuta, was very fond of the skills of local Chineseconjurers.[125] Ibn Battuta also mentions locals who worshipped asolar deity.[126]
He described floating through theGrand Canal on a boat watching crop fields, orchids, merchants in black silk, and women in flowered silk and priests also in silk.[127] InBeijing, Ibn Battuta referred to himself as the long-lost ambassador from theDelhi Sultanate and was invited to the Yuan imperial court of Emperor Huizong (who according to Ibn Battuta was worshipped by some people in China). Ibn Batutta noted that the palace ofKhanbaliq was made of wood and that the ruler's "head wife" (Empress Qi) held processions in her honour.[128][129]
Ibn Battuta also wrote he had heard of "the rampart ofYajuj and Majuj" that was "sixty days' travel" from the city of Zeitun (Quanzhou);[130]Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb notes that Ibn Battuta believed that theGreat Wall of China was built byDhul-Qarnayn to contain Gog and Magog as mentioned in theQuran.[130] However, Ibn Battuta, who asked about the wall in China, could find no one who had either seen it or knew of anyone who had seen it.[131]
Ibn Battuta travelled fromBeijing to Hangzhou, and then proceeded toFuzhou. Upon his return to Quanzhou, he soon boarded a Chinese junk owned by theSultan ofSamudera Pasai Sultanate heading for Southeast Asia, whereupon Ibn Battuta was unfairly charged a hefty sum by the crew and lost much of what he had collected during his stay in China.[132]
Battuta claimed that the Emperor Huizong of Yuan had interred with him in his grave six slave soldiers and four girl slaves.[133] Silver, gold, weapons, and carpets were put into the grave.[134]
Return
After returning to Quanzhou in 1346, Ibn Battuta began his journey back to Morocco.[135] InKozhikode, he once again considered throwing himself at the mercy of Muhammad bin Tughluq in Delhi, but thought better of it and decided to carry on to Mecca. On his way toBasra he passed through theStrait of Hormuz, where he learned thatAbu Sa'id, last ruler of theIlkhanate Dynasty, had died in Iran. Abu Sa'id's territories had subsequently collapsed due to a fierce civil war between the Iranians and Mongols.[136]
In 1348, Ibn Battuta arrived in Damascus with the intention of retracing the route of his firsthajj. He then learned that his father had died 15 years earlier,[137] and death became the dominant theme for the next year or so. TheBlack Death had struck, and he stopped inHoms as the plague spread through Syria,Palestine, and Arabia. He heard of terrible death tolls inGaza but returned to Damascus that July, where the death toll had reached 2,400 victims each day.[138] When he stopped in Gaza, he found it was depopulated, and in Egypt he stayed atAbu Sir. Reportedly deaths in Cairo had reached levels of 1,100 each day.[139] He madehajj to Mecca, then he decided to return to Morocco, nearly a quarter of a century after leaving home.[140] On the way he made one last detour toSardinia, then, in 1349, returned to Tangier by way ofFez, only to discover that his mother had also died a few months before.[141]
After a few days in Tangier, Ibn Battuta set out for a trip to the Muslim-controlled territory ofal-Andalus on theIberian Peninsula. KingAlfonso XI of Castile and León had threatened to attackGibraltar, so in 1350, Ibn Battuta joined a group of Muslims leaving Tangier with the intention of defending the port.[142] By the time he arrived, the Black Death had killed Alfonso and the threat of invasion had receded, so he turned the trip into a sight-seeing tour ending up inGranada.[143]
After his departure from al-Andalus he decided to travel through Morocco. On his return home, he stopped for a while inMarrakech, which was almost a ghost town following the recent plague and the transfer of the capital toFez.[144]
In the autumn of 1351, Ibn Battuta left Fez and made his way to the town ofSijilmasa on the northern edge of the Sahara in present-day Morocco.[145] There he bought a number of camels and stayed for four months. He set out again with a caravan in February 1352 and, after 25 days, arrived at the dry salt lake bed ofTaghaza with itssalt mines. All of the local buildings were made from slabs of salt by the slaves of the Masufa tribe, who cut the salt in thick slabs for transport by camel. Taghaza was a commercial centre and awash with Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not form a favourable impression of the place, recording that it was plagued by flies and the water wasbrackish.[146]
After a ten-day stay in Taghaza, the caravan set out for the oasis of Tasarahla (probably Bir al-Ksaib),[147][h] where it stopped for three days in preparation for the last and most difficult leg of the journey across the vast desert. From Tasarahla, a Masufa scout was sent ahead to the oasis town ofOualata, where he arranged for water to be transported a distance of four days travel where it would meet the thirsty caravan. Oualata was the southern terminus of thetrans-Saharan trade route and had recently become part of theMali Empire. Altogether, the caravan took two months to cross the 1,600 km (990 mi) of desert from Sijilmasa.[148]
From there, Ibn Battuta travelled southwest along a river he believed to be the Nile (it was actually theNiger River), until he reached the capital of the Mali Empire.[i] There he metMansaSuleyman, king since 1341. Ibn Battuta disapproved of the fact that female slaves, servants, and even the daughters of the sultan went about exposingparts of their bodies not befitting a Muslim.[150] He wrote in hisRihla that black Africans were characterised by "ill manners" and "contempt for white men", and that he "was long astonished at their feeble intellect and their respect for mean things."[151] He left the capital in February accompanied by a local Malian merchant and journeyed overland by camel toTimbuktu.[152] Though in the next two centuries it would become the most important city in the region, at that time it was a small city and relatively unimportant.[153] It was during this journey that Ibn Battuta first encountered ahippopotamus. The animals were feared by the local boatmen and hunted with lances to which strong cords were attached.[154] After a short stay in Timbuktu, Ibn Battuta journeyed down the Niger toGao in a canoe carved from a single tree. At the time Gao was an important commercial center.[155]
After spending a month in Gao, Ibn Battuta set off with a large caravan for the oasis ofTakedda. On his journey across the desert, he received a message from theSultan of Morocco commanding him to return home. He set off for Sijilmasa in September 1353, accompanying a large caravan transporting 600 female slaves, and arrived back in Morocco early in 1354.[156]
Ibn Battuta's itinerary gives scholars a glimpse as to when Islam first began to spread into the heart of west Africa.[157]
Purported Mausoleum of Ibn Battuta inTangierHistoric copy of selected parts of the Travel Report by Ibn Battuta, 1836 CE, Cairo
After returning home from his travels in 1354, and at the suggestion of theMarinid ruler of Morocco,Abu Inan Faris, Ibn Battuta dictated an account in Arabic of his journeys toIbn Juzayy, a scholar whom he had previously met in Granada. The account is the only source for Ibn Battuta's adventures. The full title of the manuscript may be translated asA Masterpiece to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling (تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار,Tuḥfat an-Nuẓẓār fī Gharāʾib al-Amṣār wa ʿAjāʾib al-Asfār).[158][j] However, it is often simply referred to asTheTravels (الرحلة,Rihla),[160] in reference to astandard form of Arabic literature.
There is no indication that Ibn Battuta made any notes or had any journal during his twenty-nine years of travelling.[k] When he came to dictate an account of his experiences he had to rely on memory and manuscripts produced by earlier travellers. Ibn Juzayy did not acknowledge his sources and presented some of the earlier descriptions as Ibn Battuta's own observations. When describing Damascus, Mecca, Medina, and some other places in the Middle East, he clearly copied passages from the account by theAndalusianIbn Jubayr which had been written more than 150 years earlier.[162] Similarly, most of Ibn Juzayy's descriptions of places in Palestine were copied from an account by the 13th-century travellerMuhammad al-Abdari.[163]
Scholars do not believe that Ibn Battuta visited all the places he described and argue that in order to provide a comprehensive description of places in the Muslim world, he relied on hearsay evidence and made use of accounts by earlier travellers. For example, it is considered very unlikely that Ibn Battuta made a trip up theVolga River fromNew Sarai to visitBolghar[164] and there are serious doubts about a number of other journeys such as his trip to Sana'a in Yemen,[165] his journey fromBalkh toBistam inKhorasan,[166] and his trip around Anatolia.[167]
Ibn Battuta's claim that aMaghrebian called "Abu'l Barakat the Berber" converted the Maldives to Islam is contradicted by an entirely different story which says that theMaldives were converted to Islam after miracles were performed by aTabrizi named Maulana Shaikh Yusuf Shams-ud-din according to theTarikh, the official history of the Maldives.[168]
Some scholars have also questioned whether he really visited China.[169] Ibn Battuta may have plagiarised entire sections of his descriptions of China lifted from works by other authors like "Masalik al-absar fi mamalik al-amsar" byShihab al-Umari,Sulaiman al-Tajir, and possibly fromAl Juwayni,Rashid al din, and anAlexander romance. Furthermore, Ibn Battuta's description and Marco Polo's writings share extremely similar sections and themes, with some of the same commentary, e.g. it is unlikely that the 3rd CaliphUthman ibn Affan had someone with the identical name in China who was encountered by Ibn Battuta.[170]
However, even if theRihla is not fully based on what its author personally witnessed, it provides an important account of much of the 14th-century world.Concubines were used by Ibn Battuta such as in Delhi.[161]: 111–113, 137, 141, 238 [171] He wedded several women, divorced at least some of them, and in Damascus, Malabar, Delhi, Bukhara, and the Maldives had children by them or by concubines.[172] Ibn Battuta insulted Greeks as "enemies of Allah", drunkards and "swine eaters", while at the same time in Ephesus he purchased and used a Greek girl who was one of his many slave girls in his "harem" throughByzantium, Khorasan, Africa, and Palestine.[173] It was two decades before he again returned to find out what happened to one of his wives and child in Damascus.[174]
Ibn Battuta often experiencedculture shock in regions he visited where the local customs of recently converted peoples did not fit in with his orthodox Muslim background. Among the Turks and Mongols, he remarked that on seeing a Turkic couple in a bazaar one might assume that the man was the woman's servant when he was in fact her husband.[175] He also felt that dress customs in the Maldives, and somesub-Saharan regions in Africa were too revealing.[citation needed]
Little is known about Ibn Battuta's life after completion of hisRihla in 1355. He was appointed a judge in Morocco and died in 1368 or 1369.[176]
Ibn Battuta's work was unknown outside the Muslim world until the beginning of the 19th century, when the German traveller-explorerUlrich Jasper Seetzen (1767–1811) acquired a collection of manuscripts in the Middle East, among which was a 94-page volume containing an abridged version of Ibn Juzayy's text. Three extracts were published in 1818 by the German orientalistJohann Kosegarten.[177] A fourth extract was published the following year.[178] French scholars were alerted to the initial publication by a lengthy review published in theJournal de Savants by the orientalistSilvestre de Sacy.[179]
Three copies of another abridged manuscript were acquired by the Swiss travellerJohann Burckhardt and bequeathed to theUniversity of Cambridge. He gave a brief overview of their content in a book published posthumously in 1819.[180] The Arabic text was translated into English by the orientalistSamuel Lee and published inLondon in 1829.[181]
In the 1830s, during the French occupation ofAlgeria, theBibliothèque Nationale (BNF) inParis acquired five manuscripts of Ibn Battuta's travels, two of which were complete.[l] One manuscript containing just the second part of the work is dated 1356 and is believed to be Ibn Juzayy's autograph.[186] The BNF manuscripts were used in 1843 by the Irish-French orientalistBaron de Slane to produce a translation into French of Ibn Battuta's visit to the Sudan.[187] They were also studied by the French scholarsCharles Defrémery and Beniamino Sanguinetti. Beginning in 1853 they published a series of four volumes containing acritical edition of the Arabic text together with a translation into French.[188] In their introduction Defrémery and Sanguinetti praised Lee's annotations but were critical of his translation which they claimed lacked precision, even in straightforward passages.[m]
In 1929, exactly a century after the publication of Lee's translation, the historian and orientalistHamilton Gibb published an English translation of selected portions of Defrémery and Sanguinetti's Arabic text.[190] Gibb had proposed to theHakluyt Society in 1922 that he should prepare an annotated translation of the entireRihla into English.[191] His intention was to divide the translated text into four volumes, each volume corresponding to one of the volumes published by Defrémery and Sanguinetti. The first volume was not published until 1958.[192] Gibb died in 1971, having completed the first three volumes. The fourth volume was prepared by Charles Beckingham and published in 1994.[193] Defrémery and Sanguinetti's printed text has now been translated into number of other languages.[citation needed]
Historicity
GermanIslamic studies scholar Ralph Elger views Battuta's travel account as an important literary work but doubts the historicity of much of its content, which he suspects to be a work of fiction compiled and inspired from other contemporary travel reports.[194] Various other scholars have raised similar doubts.[195]
In 1987,Ross E. Dunn similarly expressed doubts that any evidence would be found to support the narrative of theRihla, but in 2010,Tim Mackintosh-Smith completed a multi-volume field study in dozens of the locales mentioned in theRihla, in which he reports on previously unknown manuscripts of Islamic law kept in the archives ofAl-Azhar University in Cairo that were copied by Ibn Battuta inDamascus in 1326, corroborating the date in theRihla of his sojourn in Syria.[196]
Present-day cultural references
Borj en-Nâam barracks inTangier, repurposed as Ibn Battuta Memorial Museum
The largest themed mall inDubai,UAE, theIbn Battuta Mall is named for him and features both areas designed to recreate the exotic lands he visited on his travels and statuary tableaus depicting scenes from his life history.[197][198]
A giant semblance of Battuta, alongside two others from the history of Arab exploration, the geographer and historianAl Bakri and the navigator and cartographerIbn Majid, is displayed at theMobility pavilion atExpo 2020 in Dubai in a section of the exhibition designed byWeta Workshop.[199]
^Arabic:ابن بطوطة; fully:Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf al-Lawātī al-Ṭanji; Arabic:شمس الدين أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله بن محمد بن إبراهيم بن محمد بن إبراهيم بن يوسف اللواتي الطنجي
^Ibn Battuta left Cairo on around 16 July 1326 and arrived in Damascus three weeks later on 9 August 1326.[32] He described travelling on a complicated zig-zag route across Palestine in which he visited more than twenty cities. Such a journey would have been impossible in the allotted time and both Gibb (1958) and Hrbek (1962) have argued that Ibn Battuta conflated this journey with later journeys that he made in the region.[33][34] Elad (1987) has shown that Ibn Battuta's descriptions of most of the sites in Palestine were not original but were copied (without acknowledgement) from the earlierrihla by the travellerMohammed al-Abdari. Because of these difficulties, it is not possible to determine an accurate chronology of Ibn Battuta's travels in the region.[35]
^Most of Ibn Battuta's descriptions of the towns along theTigris are copied fromIbn Jabayr'sRihla from 1184.[45][46]
^Ibn Battuta states that he stayed in Mecca for thehajj of 1327, 1328, 1329 and 1330 but gives comparatively little information on his stays. After thehajj of 1330 he left for East Africa, arriving back again in Mecca before the 1332hajj. He states that he then left for India and arrived at the Indus river on 12 September 1333; however, although he does not specify exact dates, the description of his complex itinerary and the clues in the text to the chronology suggest that this journey to India lasted around three years. He must have therefore either left Mecca two years earlier than stated or arrived in India two years later. The issue is discussed byGibb 1962, pp. 528–537 Vol. 2,Hrbek 1962 andDunn 2005, pp. 132–133.
^This is one of several occasions where Ibn Battuta interrupts a journey to branch out on a side trip only to later skip back and resume the original journey. Gibb describes these side trips as "divagations".[75] The divagation through Anatolia is considered credible as Ibn Battuta describes numerous personal experiences and there is sufficient time between leaving Mecca in mid-November 1330 and reaching Eğirdir on the way back from Erzurum at the start of Ramadan (8 June) in 1331.[74] Gibb still admits that he found it difficult to believe that Ibn Battuta actually travelled as far east as Erzurum.[76]
^In theRihla the date of Ibn Battuta's departure from Delhi is given as 17 Safar 743 AH or 22 July 1342.[97][98] Dunn has argued that this is probably an error and to accommodate Ibn Battuta's subsequent travels and visits to the Maldives it is more likely that he left Delhi in 1341.[99]
^The location of the Malian capital has been the subject of considerable scholarly debate, but there is no consensus. The historianJohn Hunwick has studied the times given by Ibn Battuta for the various stages of his journey and proposed that the capital is likely to have been on the left side of theNiger River somewhere betweenBamako andNyamina.[149]
^Dunn gives the clunkier translationA Gift to the Observers Concerning the Curiosities of the Cities and the Marvels Encountered in Travels.[159]
^Though he mentions being robbed of some notes[161]
^Neither de Slane's 19th century catalogue[182] nor the modern online equivalent provide any information on the provenance of the manuscripts.[183] Dunn states that all five manuscripts were "found in Algeria"[184] but in their introduction Defrémery and Sanguinetti mention that the BNF had acquired one manuscript (MS Supplément arabe 909/Arabe 2287) from M. Delaporte, a former French consul to Morocco.[185]
^French: "La version de M. Lee manque quelquefois d'exactitude, même dans des passage fort simples et très-faciles".[189]
References
Citations
^Norris, H. T. (1959). "Ibn Baṭṭūṭah's Andalusian Journey".The Geographical Journal.125 (2):185–196.ISSN0016-7398.JSTOR1790500.
^Chism, Christine (2013). "Between Islam and Christendom: Ibn Battuta's Travels in Asia Minor and the North".Cosmopolitanism and the Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 59–78.doi:10.1057/9781137045096_4.ISBN978-1-349-34108-5.
^Nehru, Jawaharlal (1989).Glimpses of World History. Oxford University Press. p. 752.ISBN978-0-19-561323-0. After outlining the extensive route of Ibn Battuta's Journey, Nehru notes: "This is a record of travel which is rare enough today with our many conveniences. ... In any event, Ibn Battuta must be amongst the great travelers of all time."
^Mark, Joshua J."Ibn Battuta".World History Encyclopedia.Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved7 February 2023. His full name, as given in the Rihla, was Shams al-Din Abu’Abdallah Muhammad ibn’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Lawati al-Tanji ibn Battuta and all that is known of his family comes from the Rihla which records references to his education and provides his lineage.
^"Ibn Battuta".Encyclopædia Britannica.Archived from the original on 9 November 2022. Retrieved7 February 2023.Ibn Battuta, also spelled Ibn Baṭṭūṭah, in full Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Lawātī al-Ṭanjī ibn Baṭṭūṭah, (born February 24, 1304, Tangier, Morocco—died 1368/69 or 1377, Morocco), the greatest medieval Muslim traveler and the author of one of the most famous travel books, the Riḥlah (Travels).
^Sanjay Subrahmanyam,The Career and Legend of Vasco Da Gama, (Cambridge University Press: 1998), pp. 120–121.
^J. D. Fage, Roland Oliver, Roland Anthony Oliver,The Cambridge History of Africa (Cambridge University Press: 1977), p. 190.
^George Wynn Brereton Huntingford, Agatharchides,The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: With Some Extracts from Agatharkhidēs "On the Erythraean Sea" (Hakluyt Society: 1980), p. 83.
^André Wink,Al-Hind, the Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th–13th Centuries, Volume 2 of Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11th–13th Centuries (Brill, 2002), p. 229.
^Jerry Bently,Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 131.
^El Hamel, Chouki (2002). "'Race', slavery and Islam in Maghribi Mediterranean thought: the question of the Haratin in Morocco".The Journal of North African Studies.7 (3):29–52.doi:10.1080/13629380208718472.S2CID219625829.
^Noel King (ed.),Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, Princeton 2005, pp. 45–46. Four generations before Mansa Suleiman who died in 1360 CE, his grandfather's grandfather (Saraq Jata) had embraced Islam.
^Pearson, Michael N. (2003).The Indian Ocean. Routledge. p. 112.ISBN978-1-134-60959-8.He had a son to a Moroccan woman/wife in Damascus ... a daughter to a slave girl in Bukhara ... a daughter in Delhi to a wife, another to a slave girl in Malabar, a son in the Maldives to a wife ... in the Maldives at least he divorced his wives before he left.
^Gropp, Lewis (17 September 2010)."Zeitzeuge oder Fälscher?".Deutschlandfunk (in German).Archived from the original on 9 January 2023. Retrieved7 February 2023.
Chittick, H. Neville (1977), "The East Coast, Madagascar and the Indian Ocean", in Oliver, Roland (ed.),Cambridge History of Africa Vol. 3. From c. 1050 to c. 1600, Cambridge University Press, pp. 183–231,ISBN978-0-521-20981-6.
Defrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B. R., eds. (1853),Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah (in French and Arabic), vol. 1, Paris: Société Asiatic. The text of these volumes has been used as the source for translations into other languages.
Defrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B. R., eds. (1854),Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah (in French and Arabic), vol. 2, Paris: Société Asiatic.
Defrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B. R., eds. (1855),Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah (in French and Arabic), vol. 3, Paris: Société Asiatic.
Defrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B. R., eds. (1858),Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah (in French and Arabic), vol. 4, Paris: Société Asiatic.
Elad, Amikam (1987), "The description of the travels of Ibn Baṭūṭṭa in Palestine: is it original?",Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,119 (2):256–272,doi:10.1017/S0035869X00140651,S2CID162501637.
Gibb, H. A. R., ed. (1929),Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa (selections), London: Routledge. Reissued several times. Extracts are available on theFordham University siteArchived 13 May 2011 at theWayback Machine.
Levtzion, Nehemia; Hopkins, John F. P., eds. (2000),Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West Africa, New York: Marcus Weiner Press,ISBN978-1-55876-241-1. First published in 1981. pp. 279–304 contain a translation of Ibn Battuta's account of his visit to West Africa.
Mattock, J. N. (1981), "Ibn Baṭṭūṭa's use of Ibn Jubayr'sRiḥla", in Peters, R. (ed.),Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants: Amsterdam, 1st to 7th September 1978, Leiden: Brill, pp. 209–218,ISBN978-90-04-06380-8.
de Slane, Baron (1843a)."Voyage dans la Soudan par Ibn Batouta".Journal Asiatique. Series 4 (in French).1 (March):181–240.Archived from the original on 7 October 2022. Retrieved14 November 2014.
de Slane, Baron (1843b)."Lettre à M. Reinaud".Journal Asiatique. Series 4 (in French).1 (March):241–246.Archived from the original on 6 October 2022. Retrieved14 November 2014.
Taeschner, Franz (1986) [1960]."Akhī".The Encyclopaedia of Islam. Vol. 1: A–B. Leiden: Brill. pp. 321–323.
Yule, Henry (1916), "IV. Ibn Battuta's travels in Bengal and China",Cathay and the Way Thither (Volume 4), London: Hakluyt Society, pp. 1–106. Includes the text of Ibn Battuta's account of his visit to China. The translation is from the French text of Defrémery & Sanguinetti (1858) Volume 4.
Euben, Roxanne L. (2006), "Ibn Battuta",Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslim and Western Travelers in Search of Knowledge, Princeton University Press, pp. 63–89,ISBN978-0-691-12721-7
Ferrand, Gabriel (1913),"Ibn Batūtā",Relations de voyages et textes géographiques arabes, persans et turks relatifs à l'Extrème-Orient du 8e au 18e siècles (Volumes 1 and 2) (in French), Paris: Ernest Laroux, pp. 426–437.
Gordon, Stewart (2008),When Asia was the World: Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks who created the "Riches of the East", Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, Perseus Books,ISBN978-0-306-81556-0.
Mackintosh-Smith, Tim, ed. (2003),The Travels of Ibn Battutah, London: Picador,ISBN978-0-330-41879-9. Contains an introduction by Mackintosh-Smith and then an abridged version (around 40 per cent of the original) of the translation by H. A. R. Gibb and C. E. Beckingham (1958–1994).
Mackintosh-Smith, Tim (2005),Hall of a Thousand Columns: Hindustan to Malabar with Ibn Battutah, London: John Murray,ISBN978-0-7195-6710-0.
Mackintosh-Smith, Tim (2010),Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah, London: John Murray,ISBN978-0-7195-6787-2.
Norris, H. T. (1994), "Ibn Baṭṭūṭa's journey in the north-eastern Balkans",Journal of Islamic Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 209–220,doi:10.1093/jis/5.2.209.
Waines, David (2010),The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of a Medieval Adventurer, Chicago: University of Chicago Press,ISBN978-0-226-86985-8.
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