 bu Abdullah al-Lawati Ibn Batuta
was arguably, the greatest traveller of the medieval world. He was born on 25 Feb. 1304 CE in the red city of Tangier on northern coast of Morocco; his family were descendants of the Berber tribe of Lawita. Very little of his early life is known.
By implication from his Rihla (travelogue) which he recited to the Andalusian scholar Ibn Juzayy at the end of his career, we know that he received a Maaliki education in the sciences and quranic law— the sharia'a.In 1325 CE (2 Rajab, 725 AH), at the age of 21, he decided to go to Mecca for Hajj. He writes : ' I braced my resolution to quit all my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests.' What started as a pilg rimage to the holy lands of Mecca and Medina turned into a fantastic voyage. By the time he had returned home in 1350, he had travelled for 25 years, traversing more than 70,000 miles. He had travelled extensively through the fast expanding Islamic lands; traveling across North and East Africa, the Levant, the Middle East, Mesopotamia, the Steppes of Anatolia and Russia, India, Maldives, Sumatra, Eastern China and Manchuria and the Karakoram. A remarkable journey by any standards. After his return to Tangier, he could not stay long at one place. He travelled to Andalusia and crossed the Sahara to visit Timbuktu and the River Niger.
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The Kasbah in the capital city of Rabat, built by the Ummayad dynasty in Ibn Batuta's time. Batuta's original intention was to never take the same road twice. He tried very hard to stick by the rule, although he was forced to backtrack several times w
hen faced with adversity or opportunity. He married several times in various lands and probably sired many children. He attained great wealth in the courts of Tughlaq and Ujbek Khan, and lost it all in a ship wreck off the Malabar coast. His travels occurred at a fascinating period of history and is a document to the spread of Islam from the lands of Arabia to far reaches of the world. In a short span of 300 yea
rs, the Islamic flag had spread from to the coasts of Europe to China. Spain, the Balkans, the Eastern Roman empire of Turkey and Anatolia, parts of Russia, Mesopotamia, India, Indonesia and even parts of China had been conquered by the invading Islamic a
rmies. Islam had become a potent force in a short period of time. |
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In the course of his travels he met several holy sufis, studied law in madrassas across the land, fought alongsid
e the descendants of Genghis Khan, became the chief judge (Qadi) of Delhi under the patronage of Muhammed bin Tughlaq (and almost lost his head to trampling elephants when he lost favor with the whimsical king), served in the courts of the Zamorins
of Calicut, married into the royal family in Maldives and plotted a coup to take over the kingdom, sailed to Sumatra and China as an Ambassador from India, and of course, accomplished his original goal of performing the hajj, over a dozen times.
While comparisons to the travels of the Polo family are inevitable in the discussion of pre-modern travel, one distinction needs to be made. Unlike the Polos who were traders and had travelled across the lands in search of trade routes, Batuta was a member of the learned gentry, his trip remains one of a personal and spiritual nature. His stated goal was to travel across the fast growing Islamic world, to visit holy sufis and monuments to the Prophet, and to administer the rule o f the sharia'a in the Islamic frontier.
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Dhow builders at work in Nungwe, Unguja, part of the Zanzibar archipelago. Basic techniques of dhow building were developed a century prior to Batuta's travels.
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