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.

Mali

In the fall of 1351, Ibn Battuta set out from Fez, reaching the last Moroccan town (Sijilmasa) a bit more than a week later. When the winter caravans began a few months later, he was with one, and within a month he was in the Central Saharan town of Taghaza. A centre of the salt trade, Taghaza was awash with salt and Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not have a favorable impression of the place. Another 500 miles through the worst part of the desert brought him to Mali, particularly the town of Walata.

Related Topics:
Sijilmasa - Taghaza

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From there he travelled southwest along a river he believed to be the Nile (but that was, in actuality, the Niger River) until he reached the capital of the Mali Empire. There he met Mansa Suleyman, king since 1341. Dubious about the miserly hospitality of the king, he nevertheless stayed for eight months before journeying back up the Niger to Timbuktu. Though in the next two centuries it would become the most important city in the region, at the time it was small and unimpressive, and Ibn Battuta soon moved on. Partway through his journey back across the desert, he received a message from the Sultan of Morocco, commanding him to return home. This he did, and this time it lasted.

Related Topics:
Nile - Niger River - Suleyman - 1341 - Timbuktu

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After the publication of the Rihla, little is known about Ibn Battuta's life. He may have been appointed a qadi in Morocco. Ibn Battuta died in Morocco some time between 1368 and 1377. For centuries his book was obscure, even within the Muslim world, but in the 1800s it was rediscovered and translated into several European languages. Since then Ibn Battuta has grown in fame, and is now a well-known figure in the Middle East.

Related Topics:
Morocco - 1368 - 1377 - 1800s

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