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Ibn Battuta - The great traveler - (RIHLA) - The marvels of traveling

                 

                            



 

Ibn Battuta - The great traveler - (RIHLA) - The marvels of traveling


Ibn Battuta is the post classical history's most traveled Geographer, Explorer and Scholar.

 

Ibn Battuta is a patronymic literally meaning "son of the duckling".  His most common full name is given as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta.   In his travelogue, the Rihla, he gives his full name as Shams al-Din Abu’Abdallah Muhammad ibn’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf Lawati al-Tanji ibn Battuta.

 

                            

 

 


Ibn Battuta, was a Berber Maghrebi scholar and explorer who traveled extensively in the lands of Afro-Eurasia, largely in the Muslim world. He traveled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around 117,000 km (73,000 mi), surpassing Zheng He with about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) and Marco Polo with 24,000 km (15,000 mi).  Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of southern Eurasia, including Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and the Iberian Peninsula. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling, but commonly known as The Rihla.

 

 

All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels, which records that he was of Berber descent, born into a family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, known as qadis in the Muslim tradition in Morocco, on 24 February 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. His family belonged to a Berber tribe known as the Lawata. As a young man, he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madhhab (Islamic jurisprudence school), the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. Maliki Muslims requested Ibn Battuta serve as their religious judge as he was from an area where it was practiced.



 

I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation.

 


On 2 Rajab in the Muslim year 725 Anno Hegirae (14 June 1325 Anno Domini on the Christian calendar), at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his home town on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would ordinarily take sixteen months. He was eager to learn more about far-away lands and craved adventure. No one knew that he would not return to Morocco again for 24 years.

 

 

He was deeply rooted in orthodox Islam but, like many of his contemporaries, oscillated between the pursuit of its legislative formalism and an adherence to the mystic path and succeeded in combining both. He did not offer any profound philosophy but accepted life as it came to him, leaving to posterity a true picture of himself and his times.

 


When Ibn Battuta arrived in Iznik, it had just been conquered by Orhan, Sultan of the nascent Ottoman Empire. Orhan was away and his wife was in command of the nearby stationed soldiers, Ibn Battuta gave this account of Orhan's wife: "A pious and excellent woman. She treated me honorably, gave me hospitality and sent gifts."

 

 

Ibn Battuta's account of Orhan:

The greatest of the kings of the Turkmens and the richest in wealth, lands and military forces. Of fortresses, he possesses nearly a hundred, and for most of his time, he is continually engaged in making a round of them, staying in each fortress for some days to put it in good order and examine its condition. It is said that he has never stayed for a whole month in any one town. He also fights with the infidels continually and keeps them under siege.

— Ibn Battuta


 

After his third pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Battuta decided to seek employment with the Sultan of Delhi, Muhammad bin Tughluq. In the autumn of 1330 (or 1332), he set off for the Seljuk controlled territory of Anatolia to take an overland route to India.  He crossed the Red Sea and the Eastern Desert to reach the Nile valley and then headed north to Cairo. From there he crossed the Sinai Peninsula to Palestine and then traveled north again through some of the towns that he had visited in 1326. From the Syrian port of Latakia, a Genoese ship took him (and his companions) to Alanya on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey.

 

 

His contemporaries traveled for practical reasons (such as trade, pilgrimage, and education), but Ibn Battuta did it for its own sake, for the joy of learning about new countries and new peoples. He made a living of it, benefiting at the beginning from his scholarly status and later from his increasing fame as a traveler. He enjoyed the generosity and benevolence of numerous sultans, rulers, governors, and high dignitaries in the countries he visited, thus securing an income that enabled him to continue his wanderings.

 

 

How did Ibn Battuta impact the world?


Ibn Battuta’s Riḥla has tremendous documentary value because of its detailed accounts of social, cultural, and political aspects of much of the Islamic world during the 14th century. His unique and mostly reliable historiography is valuable for the study of history.

 

Ibn Bzattuta was born  :  24 February, 1304, Tangier, Morocco

Died : 1369, Marrakesh, Morocco


He was well-versed in Arabic  


He dictated the travelogue "Rihla"

 

 He married several times during his journey and had few kids.

 

 

 

While on the subject let's examine some of the other noteworthy travelers who contributed to the marvels of traveling.

 


Zheng He :

 

Zheng He was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty, and often regarded as the greatest sailor in Chinese History. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferred by the Yongle Emperor.

 

Born: 23 September 1371, Yunnan Fu, China
Died: 1433, Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Nationality: Chinese

 

 

MARCO POLO :


Marco Polo was an Italian merchant, explorer and writer from the Republic of Venice who traveled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. 
Born: 15 September 1254, Venice, Italy
Died: 8 January 1324, Venice, Italy
 
 
 
S.K. Pottekkatt :

 

Born: 14 March 1913, Kozhikode, Kerala, India
Died: 6 August 1982, Kozhikode (Aged 69 years)
Awards: Jnanpith Award (The nation's (India's) most prestigious Award for literature).

 

 

S.K. Pottekkatt is a writer in Malayalam language.  He has written novel, short stories, poetry and drama besides travelogues.   He is well-known for his travel writings.  He is from Kerala, a Malayalam speaking state in India.

 

'Europiloode' documents his journeys through Naples, Pompei, Rome, Vatican, Switzerland, Paris etc. 

 

He also traveled South America, Africa, Sumatra (6th largest-island in the world), Bali Dweep etc. and written travelogues.


He is a writer whom the Malayalees kept close to their chest.  

 

Some of his works have been made as motion pictures in Malayalam.  He possessed a beautiful style of writing.

 

His notable work "Oru Deshathinte Katha" has won Kendra Sahitya Academy Award (1972) and Jnanpith Award (1980).


While you read his travelogues, you will have a feel that you are traveling with him and get to know that country's geography, culture, economy and social life. 

 

Places visited by Ibn Battuta :

 Over his lifetime, Ibn Battuta travelled over 117,000 kilometres (73,000 miles) and visited around 40 present-day countries.

 

In the following list the Romanization used by Gibb and Beckingham is given in parentheses. The states are modern. Within each section the towns are listed in the order that they are first mentioned in Ibn Battuta's rihla. Historians such as Hamilton Gibb and Ross Dunn have argued that some parts of Ibn Battuta's rihla are fictional and it is extremely unlikely that he visited all the places that he claimed. The cities for which Ibn Battuta's visit is believed to be fictional are flagged as "doubtful" in the list below.

MaghrebTangier, Morocco

Mashriq   

 Alexandria (al-Iskandarīya), Egypt

Arabian Peninsula

 Tabuk (Tabūk), Saudi Arabia

Iran and IraqNajaf (al-Najaf), Iraq

East Africauakin (Sawākin), Sudan

AnatoliaAlanya (al-‘Alāyā), Turkey

Central AsiaFeodosia (al-Kafā), Ukraine/Russia

South AsiaUch (Ūja), Pakistan

Southeast Asia[edit]

China

 Quanzhou (Zaitūn), China

  • Guangzhou or Canton (Ṣīn al-Ṣīn), China
  • Fuzhou (Qanjanfū), China Uncertain.
  • Hangzhou (al-Khansā), China - Doubtful.
  • Beijing (Khān Bāliq), China  - Doubtful.

Al-Andalus

Gibraltar (Mountain of Victory), United Kingdom

Mali Empire and West Africa

Taghaza (Taghāzā), Mali



 

 

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