Leaving Cairo, Ibn Battutah continues along through some other cities before arriving in Mecca. He and his companions are overcome with wonder and joy, since making this pilgrimage to Mecca was the point of their journey, and completing the Hajj is an important part of every Muslim’s life. Before entering the city, they stop at a wadi, or river valley, to bathe themselves, exchange their regular clothes for pilgrim garments, and pray. He describes the shape of the city of Mecca, noting that, as is written in the Quran, it is within “a valley bare of corn,” and so “fruits of every kind” are brought to the city, providing it with many fine foods from different countries (48). He has nothing but praise for the people of Mecca, enumerating their generosity for the poor, their excellent grooming habits, and the beauty of their women who would sooner go hungry than not have the money to buy perfume. He also describes their eating habits, and that they only eat one meal a day and otherwise only eat dried dates if they get hungry, so they are all very healthy and don’t often get sick. Ibn Battutah mostly describes the people he meets and the interactions he has with them. While he is staying in Mecca at the Muzaffariyah college, he has a dream of the Apostle of God in which many, including the Shaikh Abu Abdallah, come in and give them his allegiance. When he wakes up he recounts this dream to the Shaikh, who weeps and, from then on, always upholds the pledge he made in the dream to never again turn away a hungry supplicant from his house. He also tells the story of the strange demoniac living in Mecca at the time of his visit, although he doesn’t specify whether or not he ever personally met him. Instead, he narrates the tale of the strange faqir Hasan met, and how he came to lose his voice and his reason. The people of the town looked after him until he was taken back to Egypt by a pilgrim.
Interestingly, Ibn Battutah doesn’t describe the rites of the pilgrimage itself, only writing the date he left the city on after they were completed, and which caravan he was hired onto. Perhaps he feels he doesn’t need to describe the rites, since they would be familiar already to his imagined audience, who would have undoubtedly also been Muslims. Or he assumes they would have already heard accounts of it already from other writers, or perhaps people they knew personally who had made the pilgrimage. So instead he focuses on the personal details of his own journey: the interesting people he meets, the religious vision he has, and so on. Perhaps this is why he wishes to continue traveling rather than simply returning home after completing his Hajj, since he wants to tell stories of all the marvels and strange things he has seen, and collect experiences that can’t be found in other accounts.