Ibn Battûta (Arab: ابنبطوطة ibn) or Aldine Shams Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn 'Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Yusuf Al-Lawati Al-Tanji Ibn Battûta, born the February 24th 1304 (17 Rajab 703) with Tangier (Morocco) and deceased in 1369 with the Morocco, was one of the largest explorers of all times. This Berber traveller finished his life with the Morocco like judges pertaining to the school malikite after having dictated his voyages twelve years lasting with Ibn Juzayy. This one put in the form of work: the rihla (voyage).

Ibn Battûta, the “Marco Polo” of the Islam, traversed 120  000 km in 28 years of voyages, Tombouctou in Bulghar (into current Russia, on the the Volga) and of Tangier to Beijing. Its accounts are more precise and less fabulateurs that those of Marco Polo, but contain several passages which raise clearly of pure imagination, in particular those describing of the supernatural beings.

The town of Dubai devoted a shopping mall set of themes to him, the Ibn Battuta Mall, one of largest of the Middle East, evoking on the one hand its voyages, and on the other hand more generally the great figures of medieval Islam in the field cultural, scientific, philosophical and artistic, their influence on the world and more particularly on Europe and the future Rebirth.

Voyages

In the beginning simple usual Moslem pilgrim, Ibn Battûta benefitted from the propagation of the Islam and the Arab language which facilitated its displacements largely. He also benefitted from the development of the trade since he often united with caravans, or embarked on commercial vessels. He met many personalities and became often their adviser at the time of his tours with extension.

One can distinguish four periods in these voyages:

Crossing of Libya

June 14th, 1325, Ibn Battûta starts from Tangier for its pilgrimage to Mecque. It quickly crosses the Algérie then in full civil war (Ibn Battûta made there however no allusion). It arrives at Tunis under the reign of the sultan hafside Abû Yahyâ Abû Bakr Al-Mutawakkil at the time of the festival of the end of the Ramadan. It joint with a caravan leaving itself for Arabia. Of passage to Tripoli, it Marie first once and sets out again with his wife. In the course of way, a disagreement with his/her father-in-law makes it divorce. It remarie with another woman of the caravan, girl of a well-read man originating in Fès.

Increase of the valley of the Nile

In January 1326, it arrives at Alexandria. Ibn Battûta gives a detailed description of the Phare of Alexandria and announces that on its return in 1349 it found on these places only one heap of ruins.

Ibn Battûta passes to the Cairo. He then explains the local tax system based on the height of the annual rising of the Nile, this rising being the sign of more or less abundant harvests. He passed close to the pyramids of Gizeh. At the time them were still covered with a limestone facing which returned them luisantes to the sun. Ibn Battûta tells that a sovereign wanted to penetrate in a pyramid by attacking the calcareous facing with hot vinegar until opening a breach.

On the basis of the Cairo, it goes up the the Nile. In the passing, one learns that a man grew rich while making use of the stones of the ancient temples to build a Koranic school. Arrived at the edge of the Red Sea, it cannot cross and must make half-turn towards Cairo. In this way of return since Assouan to Cairo it seems to be delayed a little more with each stage.

Crossing of Syria and Palestine

For this part of the account, Ibn Battûta seems to make a synthesis of several stays in the région.
Of Egypt, it goes up towards Gaza and from there towards Hebron, then Jerusalem. Fear to see the cross returning to take Jerusalem and to settle there, had made make the paradoxical decision to shave all the fortifications. Ibn Battûta is filled with wonder in front of the Dôme at the Rock.

Ibn Battûta then goes up along the Mediterranean coast while passing by Tyr, Sayda, Beirut, and makes a hook by Damas. Return to Tripoli on the coast. It makes a new hook by the Krak of the Knights and Homs (Emèse) and descends the course from the Oronte towards Hama, “city charming and exquisite surrounded by orchards where turn of the waterwheels. ”. Always moving towards north it reaches Alep. It is delayed on the description of the citadel, quoting a poet: “the rough citadel is drawn up against those which want to take it with its high watchtower and its sides precipice. ” From there, it turns over once again towards the coast to Antioche. It goes down again towards the south until Lattaquié, passes to the foot of the fortress of Marquuab which it known as similar to the Krak of the Knights, then towards Baalbek and returns to Damas to be delayed there because “if the paradise is on the ground, it is in Damas and nowhere elsewhere”.

In the mosque omeyyade of Damas, he says to see the tomb of Zacharie, the father of Jean-Baptiste, whereas Ibn Joubayr (1145-1217) one century before him spoke about the “mausoleum of the head of Jean, wire of Zacharie. ” like wants it the current tradition.

It receives with Damas the license to teach in 1326 and leaves towards Mecque with a caravan.

Towards Mecque

The caravan makes halt with Bosra for a few days. In the passing it passes close “from the residence of Thamûd dug in red sandstone mountains with carved thresholds and which one would believe built recently. The decayed bones are inside the residences. ” It is certainly about the site of Pétra in Jordan where the majority of the shelters dug in cliff were not houses but tombs, but the interpretation of Ibn Battûta goes in the direction of the Coran:
the Al Hijr inhabitants had treated the envoys of impostors.
had shown We to them our signs but they were diverted some.
They dug their houses in the mountain and believed themselves in it in safety.
Their acts do not have was used to them for nothing.
Coran (XV; 80-84)
Arrived at Médine, Ibn Battûta will be collected on the tomb of the Prophet Mahomet. He tells the various stages of the enlarging of the mosque and the quarrels that brought between the various clans of the family. After having made the turn of the sites which the prophet had attended, it sets out again for Mecque. Ibn Battûta makes rather long and specifies description of the places and the rites of the pilgrimage. Ten days after the end of the pilgrimage, it leaves with a caravan in direction the Iraq (November 17th, 1326).

Iraq

Ibn Battûta passes to Nadjaf to see the tomb of there “Ali, it makes the account of miracles taking place on this tomb but it specifies not there to have assisted itself. Whereas the caravan sets out again towards Baghdad, Ibn Battûta decides to go to Al-Basra (Bassora). There while attending the prayer it is astonished to see the Imam making faults of language.

Iran

It makes a passage by Abadan then goes to Ispahan.

Eastern Africa, Yemen and Oman

Anatolia

The Central Asia

Maldives, Ceylon and Bengal

Sumatra and China

Return to the country

Andalusia

After some time spent with Tangier, Ibn Battûta sets out again on a journey towards Al-Andalus - Moslem Spain. Alphonse XI of Castille threatening to invade Gibraltar, Ibn Battûta joined a group of Moslems of Tangier with the intention to fight to defend this port. By chance for them, the Black Death had killed the king little before their arrival (in May 1350) and Ibn Battûta can then travel in safety. He visits the Royaume of Valence and finishes his tour with Grenade.

Leaving Spain, it decides to visit one of the rare countries of the Arab world that, paradoxically, it had never yet visited, its native Morocco. It stops with Marrakech, then almost a phantom city, following the epidemic of plague and continues towards Fès, the capital of the kingdom of the Mérinide S, and in addition seat of the Quaraouiyine, one of most important centers knowledge of the time, to finish its tour in its good town of Tangier.

The gold of the Empire of Mali

Two years before its first visit in Cairo, the mansa of the Empire of Mali, Kouta Foamed, had passed by the city in direction of Mecque to achieve its Hajj and had strongly impressed the population by the opulence of her prerogative. West Africa was rich in Or and this richness was a discovery for the Muslim world. When well even it referred there not explicitly, Ibn Battûta had had to intend some to speak and that undoubtedly justified its decision to travel in sub-Saharan Africa to the Western margins of the Muslim world and the Sahara.

In 1352, it leaves once again Morocco to reach the frontier town of Sijilmasa which it leaves in its turn with the caravans of winter a few months later. It reaches the Saharan city of Taghaza, then an important center of the trade of the Sel, enriched by gold by Mali but which does not make great impression on our traveller. Eight hundred kilometers through the most hostile part of the Sahara, and here with Walata. From there, it continues in south-western direction, along what it believes being the Nile but which is the Niger, for finally reaching Gao, the capital of the Empire of Mali. Mansa Souleymane, which reigns on the Empire since 1341, receives it chichement but Ibn Battûta remains however eight month before taking again the road until Tombouctou, then a small town of no importance, common measurement with what it will become in the following decades. It leaves it to recross the desert and to join its native Morocco, where it finishes a life, finally sedentary and peaceful, according to all probabilities with the service of the sultan.

Sources

  • Ibn Battûta, Voyages , Three volumes with the editions FM/the Discovery (1982).
  • Arab Travellers , Compilation of texts in the Gallimard collection the Pleiad (1995).
  • Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures off Ibn Battuta - has Muslim Traveler off the 14th Century , University off California, 2004.
  • Patrick Merienne, Atlas of explorations and discovered the , Ouest-France editions, Rennes, 2005.
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