Notes on Ibn Battuta

Camels

Camels across the desert; this is how ibn Battuta traveled; photo credit Nicole LaFarge

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Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn 'Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Lawati ibn Battuta, or "ibn Battuta" for short, (1304-1368?) was a Muslim legal scholar and traveler of the fourteenth century.

Let me start by saying that we just don't know very many details about his personal history. Born and raised in Morocco, ibn Battuta set off on the hajj to Mecca in 1325 and did not come back for a very long time. His journeys included trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa and Eastern Europe in the west, and to the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and even China in the east. Although some scholars doubt whether he actually made it to all of these places, that is still an impressive list of travels for the fourteenth century, and it indicates that long-distance travel was still going on at that time.

When Battuta did finally return home, he dictated an account of his travels, the Rihla (travels, or journey, or quest). Though possibly fictional in places, or inclusive of materials from other travel accounts, the Rihla, which scholar Ross Dunn has loosely translated and adapted as The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, (2004) remains an important account and one of the most important historical sources about the nature and scope of Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) in the fourteenth century. In this course, we focus on Battuta's travels to the kingdom of Mali in western Africa.

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