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Smithsonian Institution Libraries From the Library of Ladislas Segy 1988 IBN BATTUTA TRAVELS IN ASIA AND AFRICA 1326-54 -BROAD WAY TRAVELLERS THE BROADWAY TRAVELLERS EDITED BY SIR E. DENISON ROSS AND EILEEN POWER DON JUAN OF PERSIA A SHl'.4H CATHOLIC. i560-!i64 MEMOIRS OF AN XVIJI CENTURY FOOTMAN, Br yOHN MACDONALD LETTERS OF HERNANDO CORTES, iS19-26 TRUE HISTORY OF HANS STADEN, 1557 THE ENGLISH AMERICAN BY THOMAS GAGE, t648 TRAVELS IN ASIA AND AFRICA, 1325-54 BY IBN BATTUTA THE EAST INDIAN VOYAGE BY WILLEM BONTEKOR, z618-25 AN ACCOUNT OF TIBET: THE TRAVELS OF IPPOLITO DESIDERI, 1712- 27 THE FIRST ENGLISHMEN IN INDIA YAkIANG1R AND THE JESUITS Br F. GUERREIRO SIR ANTHONY SHERLEY AND HIS PERSIAN A19VENTURE TRAVELS IN INDIA BY CAPTAIN BASIL HALL TRAVELS INTO SPAIN, 691 Br MADAME D'AULNOr THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO Pkblis~ed 6y ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LTD INDIAN HAREM SCENE THE BROADWAY TRAVELLERS EDITED BY SIR E. DENISON AND EILEEN POWER ROSS IBN BATTUTA TRAVELS IN ASIA AND AFRICA 1325-1354 W10~ Translated and selected by ) H. a R. GIBB Lecturer in Arabic, School of Oriental Studies, University of London With an Introduction and .Xo(tes PM/s~d hy ROUTLEDGE & KEGAN PAUL LTD BROADWAY HOUSE, CARTER LANE, LONDON I. j! L ; f) First published in this Series 1929 Second impression 1939 Third impression 1953 PRiINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY LUND IUMPIIIES LONDON * BRADFORD CONTENTS INTRODUCTION BOOK I CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV 43 78 io6 123 167 BOOK II - 183 - 214 - 241 - 261 - 272 . 282 - 301 - 3'' - 317 - 34' - 385 - 395 NOTES - - INDEX OF GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES INDEX OF PERSONAL NAMES, ETC. PAGR - I LIST OF MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS INDIAN HAREM SCENE FrO TO F A GROUP OF DARWISHES DANCING MAP OF PERSIA . .. MAP OF ANATOLIA . .. MAP OF INDIA PILGRIMS CLIMBING TO ADAM'S FOOT (VALENTYN: Oud en Nievw Oofl-Indien, 1724) CANTON IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY (NIEvHOFF: L'AYmbassade de La Compagnie Orientale, 1665) .... MAP OF WEST AFRICA - - itispiece ACE PAGE 50 84 122 184 258 288 310 Selections from the Travels of Ibn Battiita INTRODUCTION § I. IBN BATTU1TA AND HIS WORK To the world of today the men of medieval Chrifendom already seem remote and unfamiliar. Their names and deeds are recorded in our hiftory-books, their monuments fill adorn our cities, but our kinship with them is a thing unreal, which cogts an effort of the imagination. How much more muft this apply to the great Islamic civilization, that-ftood over againf medieval Europe, menacing its exifence and yet linked to it by a hundred ties that even war and fear could not sever. Its monuments too abide, for those who may have the fortune to visit them, but its men and manners are to moft of us utterly unknown, or dimly conceived in the romantic image of the Arabian Nights. Even for the specialif it is difficult to reconfru& their lives and see them as they were. Hifories and biographies there are in quantity, but the hiftorians, for all their pi&uresque details, seldom show the ability to sele& the essential and to give their figures that touch of the intimate which makes them live again for the reader. It is in this faculty that Ibn Battfta excels. Of the multitudes that crowd upon the fage in the pageant of medieval Islam there is no figure more infin& with life than his. In his book he not only lays before us a faithful portrait of himself, with all his virtues and his failings, but evokes B SELECTIONS FROM THE a whole age as it were from the dead. These travels have been ransacked by historians and geographers, but no etimate of his work is even faintly satisfa&ory which does not bear in mind that it is first and foremoft a human diary, in which the tale of fa&s is subordinated to the interests and preoccupations of the diarist and his audience. It is impossible not to feel a liking for the chara&er it reveals to us, generous to excess, humane in an age when life was its at cheapest, bold (did ever medieval traveller fear the sea less ?),fond of pleasure and uxorious to a degree, but controlled withal by a deep vein of piety and devotion, a man with all the makings of a sinner, and something of a saint. Of the external events of Ibn Battdtta's life we know little beyond what he himself tells us. The editor of the travels, Ibn Juzayy, notes that he was born at Tangier on 24th February, 1304, and from a brief reference in a-later- bo-k-of- b-gi-aphies we know that after his return to Morocco he was appointed QAdi or judge in one of the Moroccan towns, and died there in 1368 or i369. His own name was Muhammad son of Abdalla'h, Ibn Batt'ita being the family name, still to be found in Morocco. His family had apparently been settled in Tangier for some generations and belonged to the Berber tribe of the Luw~ta, which firt appears in history as a nomadic tribe in Cyrenaica and on the borders of Egypt. For the reft he divulges incidentally in a passage relating to his appointment as qidi ir Delhi, that he came of a house which had produced a succession of qidis, and later on he mentions a cousin who was qidf of Rondah in Spain. He belonged, in consequence, to the religious upper-class, if the term may be used, of the Muhammadan community, and muft have received the usual literary and scholastic education of the theologians. On one occasion he quotes a poem-6f OF IBN BATTTJTA his own composition, but the other verses quoted here and there obviously bear a more popular chara&er than the elaborate produafions of the best Arabic poetic schools. His professional interet in men and matters religious may be seen on nearly every page of his work. It is evident from the lift of qidis and other theologians whom he saw in every town on his travels (sometimes to the exclusion of all other details), but above all from his eagerness to visit famous shaykhs and saints wherever he went, and the enthusiasm with which he relates intances of their miraculous gifts. But to rate him, as some European scholars have done, for his " rigmaroles about Muhammadan saints and spiritualits " and for his "tupidity " in paying more attention to theologians than to details of the places he visited, is singularly out of place. Such religious details were matters in which he and his audience were moft closely interested, and are by no means devoid of interest and value even to us. Out of them, moreover, spring some of the mot lively passages of his narrative, such as his escape at Koel (the modern Aligarh), and his account of the Sharif Abd Ghurra. But it is of far greater importance to remember that it was because he was a theologian and because of his interest in theologians that he un-deritbok _his-travcels-atalla nd-survved to complete them. When as a young man of twenty-one he set out from his native town with a light heart, and not much heavier purse, it was with no other aim than that of making the pilgrimage to Mecca and the holy places of his faith. The duty laid upon every Muslim of visiting Mecca at leat once in his lifetime, so long as it lies within his power to do so, has been in all ages a stimulus to travel, far greater in degree than -the- tilmulus of Chritian pilgrimage injhe- Middle Ages. At the same time, it created the organization necessary to enable Muslims of every class from every TRAVELS SELECTIONS FROM THE country to carry out this obligation. The pilgrim on his journey travelled in a caravan whose numbers swelled at every tage. He found all arrangements made for his marches and his halts, and if the road lay through dangerous country, his caravan was pro,te&ed by an escort of soldiers. In all large centres as well as many intermediate ftations were reft houses and hospices where he was hospitably welcomed an& entertained outoFendowments created by generations of benefa&ors. When such was the lot of every pilgrim, the theolo-gian received still greater consideration. His brethren in every town received him as one of themselves, furnished his wants, and recommended him to those at the next station. Under these circumstances the brotherhood of Islim, which knows no difference of race or birth, showed at its bef, and provided an incentive to. travel unknown in any other age or community. Nor was the Pilgrimage the only inftitution which smoothed the traveller's path. Throughout the Middle Ages the trade routes of Africa and Asia and the sea- borne trade of the Indian Ocean were almost exclusively in the hands of the Muslim merchants. The travels of Ibn Battdita are but one of many sources which reveal how widespread were their acfivities. Though their caravans were exposed to greater dangers in times of lawlessness and disorganization than were the pilgrim caravans, they offered at leaft a measure of security to the casual traveller. It is evident from our narratives that in the great majority of cases they were animated by the same spirit of kindliness and generosity that has always marked the mutual relations of Muslims, and readily shared their resources with their fellow-travellers in case of need.