The Intrepid Ibn Battuta

Marco Polo, step aside! A far more interesting tale of world travel in the Middle Ages is the three decade-long journey of Ibn Battuta, an Islamic judge who traveled from Mali to China. Professor Ross E. Dunro’s chronicle of the journey in his book The Adventures of Ibn Battuta give western readers insight into world history we don’t study at school.

Ibn Battuta was a Muslim Berber from Morocco. Nowadays the Berbers are challenging the Arab governments of North Africa for recognition of their language and culture, much like the Basques in Spain. But at the peak of Islamic power in the 14th century, many Berbers were assimilated into Arab culture and were educated in the madrassa holy schools. Ibn Battuta received that training before heading to Mecca at the age of twenty on what started out as a routine pilgrimage.

It didn’t take long for Ibn Battuta to part company with his caravan. For whatever reason he decided to cross the Red Sea to Arabia, not the Sinai. He dawdled for months traveling the Nile before turning around—pirates were terrorizing merchant ships and it wasn’t safe to cross, and he eventually crossed the Sinai, and after spending no fewer than three years in Mecca, he decided to head further east.

He traveled onwards to Persia before heading down the coast of eastern Africa to Mogadishu, and then Kilwa in modern-day Mozambique. It was here that he learned that the new Moghul Empire in northern India was currently hiring Islamic judges trained in the Arab world, and he decided to head to the subcontinent in search of a post.

You would have thought he would have gone back to Persia and go to India overland. But Ibn Battuta wanted a guide and could find none in east Africa, so he turned around and went back to Cairo and on to Asia Minor. He stopped briefly at Constantinople (his only journey to Christendom) before trekking overland through Kazar country, Samarkand, and into India. Sometimes it was just him and some slaves; at one point he was traveling with over one-hundred horses and camels.

The Sultan of Delhi and Egypt both had reputations as champions of Islamic civilization—both successfully kept the Mongol hordes at bay. Ibn Battuta quickly ingratiated himself with the Sultan and was appointed to a minor judicial post. But he soon became caught up in the intrigue of the royal court and was accused of treason. Imprisoned for several months, he was freed after his accuser was discredited, but he decided that he should look for a job farther a field. Because of his extensive travels, the Sultan assigned him the job of Minister to China. As fate would have it, he never arrived there in that function—traveling southward he was captured by Hindu rebels and almost killed. These two close brushes with death proved to be too much for Ibn Battuta, and he deserted India for the Maldives, which had recently converted to Islam, and again he became a judge before being kicked out by political rivals.

We know that Ibn Battuta reached Ache in modern-day Indonesia before heading home. He also describes a trip to China, but whether or not he actually went or not is hard to ascertain. What we do know is that afterwards he traveled directly home to Morocco and arrived in 1349, twenty-five years after he set out. Marco Polo was imprisoned for telling his fantastic stories. Ibn Battuta spent his years after arriving home entertaining the Governor of Morocco, who found Ibn Battuta’s travels fascinating.

After briefly joining the jihad to defend Isalmic Granada from the Christians in Spain, his final journey was south, where he trekked to the Kingdom of Mali. His last journey is rather amusing to read as he painfully rejects the idea that “Blacks”Â? could ever manage “civilization,”Â? even though Mali, he reluctantly writes, was the safest and most civilized place he visited.

Ibn Battuta traveled at around the same time as Polo. Why? Pax Mongolica. Once the Mongol Hordes stopped slaughtering and set up governments, they welcomed traders and travelers.