Ibn Battuta

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta (February 24 1304 to 1368 to 1377, year of death uncertain) was born in Tangier, Morocco during the time of Merinid Sultanate rule in the Islamic calendar year 703, into a Berber family. He was a Sunni Islamic scholar and jurisprudent from the Maliki Madhhab (a school of Fiqh, or Sunni Islamic law), and at times a Qadi or judge. However, he is best known as an extensive traveller or explorer, whose account documents his travels and side-excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some 75,000 miles (120,700 km). This journeying covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic world, extending also to present-day India, the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia and China, a distance readily surpassing that of his prior, near-contemporary and traveller Marco Polo.

Andalus and North Africa

Having settled in Tangier for all of a few days, Ibn Battuta then set out for a trip to al-Andalus – Muslim Spain. Alfonso XI of Castile was threatening the conquest of Gibraltar, and Ibn Battuta joined up with a group of Muslims leaving Tangier with the intention of defending the port. By the time he arrived the Black Death had killed Alfonso and the threat had receded, so Ibn Battuta decided to visit for pleasure instead. He travelled through Valencia, and ended up in Granada.

Related Topics:
Muslim Spain - Alfonso XI of Castile - Gibraltar - Valencia - Granada

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Leaving Spain he decided to travel through one of the few parts of the Muslim world that he had never explored: Morocco. On his return home he stopped for a while in Marrakesh, which was nearly a ghost town after the recent plague and the transfer of the capital to Fez.

Related Topics:
Marrakesh - Fez

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Once more he returned to Tangier, and once more he moved on. Two years before his own first visit to Cairo, the Malian king Mansa Musa had passed through the same city on his own Hajj and had caused a sensation with his extravagant riches -- something like half the world's gold supply at the time was coming from West Africa. While Ibn Battuta never mentions this specifically, hearing of this during his own trip must have planted a seed in his mind, for he decided to set out and visit the Muslim kingdom on the far side of the Sahara Desert.

Related Topics:
Mali - Mansa Musa - West Africa - Sahara Desert

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