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.

Turkey and India

Spending another year there, he then resolved to seek employment with the Muslim sultan of Delhi. Needing a guide and translator if he was to travel there, he went to Anatolia, then under the control of the Seljuk Turks, to join up with one of the caravans that went from there to India. A sea voyage from Damascus on a Genoese ship landed him in Alanya on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey. From there he travelled by land to Konya and then Sinope on the Black Sea coast.

Related Topics:
Sultan of - Delhi - Anatolia - Seljuk Turks - India - Alanya - Turkey - Konya - Sinope - Black Sea

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Crossing the Black Sea, Ibn Battuta landed in Caffa (now Feodosiya), in the Crimea, and entered the lands of the Golden Horde. There he bought a wagon and fortuitously joined the caravan of Ozbeg, the Golden Horde's Khan, on a journey as far as Astrakhan on the Volga River.

Related Topics:
Feodosiya - Golden Horde - Ozbeg - Astrakhan - Volga River

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Upon reaching Astrakhan, the Khan allowed one of his pregnant wives to go give birth back in her home city – Constantinople. It is perhaps of no surprise to the reader that Ibn Battuta talked his way into this expedition, his first beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world.

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Arriving there towards the end of 1332, he met the emperor Andronicus III and saw the outside of Hagia Sophia. After a month in the city, he retraced his route to Astrakhan, then carried on past the Caspian and Aral Seas to Bokhara and Samarkand. From there he journeyed south to Afghanistan, the mountain passes of which he used to cross into India.

Related Topics:
1332 - Andronicus III - Hagia Sophia - Caspian - Aral Sea - Bokhara - Samarkand - Afghanistan

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The Sultanate of Delhi was a relatively new addition to Dar al-Islam, and Sultan Muhammed Tughlaq had resolved to import as many Muslim scholars and other functionaries as possible to consolidate his rule. On the strength of his years of studies while in Mecca, Ibn Battuta was employed as a qadi ("judge") by the sultan.

Related Topics:
Sultanate of Delhi - Dar al-Islam - Muhammed Tughlaq - Qadi

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Tughlaq was erratic even by the standards of the time, and Ibn Battuta veered between living the high life of a trusted subordinate, and being under suspicion for a variety of reasons. Eventually he resolved to leave on the pretext of taking another hajj, but the Sultan offered the alternative of being ambassador to China. Given the opportunity to both get away from the Sultan and visit new lands, Ibn Battuta took it.

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