Month: November 2025 (Page 5 of 6)

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville: Egypt

November 6, 2025 / Sophie Harberson / 0 Comments

John Mandeville begins his account of Egypt by taking a page from Caesar’s book. But rather than saying, “Gallia est omnes divisa in partes tres,” Mandeville asserts, “Egypt is divided into two parts.” By marking these distinct regions, Mandeville associates them with specific ethnographic details, leaving behind his previous custom of merely listing place after place.

Most of Mandeville’s geographical knowledge of Egypt is based on the Nile River. Mandeville describes that Egypt is home to both fertile and barren lands based on proximity to the river. He expresses his own concerns about the region’s climate, noting that though Egypt is a desert, the land is inundated by the river several times a year. By his description, it is apparent that such a contrast of desert and flooding, in the same country, is unfamiliar to Mandeville.

On the same note of the unfamiliar, Egypt is the first instance in which Mandeville explicitly recounts meeting people with dark skin: the Nubians. He details them as being black in color while also being Christian, and that they believe a darker complexion to signify beauty. Mandeville believes that the Nubians’ skin color is directly tethered to the heat of the region in which they live. Mandeville says that if the Nubians could, they would paint an angel in black and a devil in white. Additionally, Mandeville states that if people are not dark enough when they are born that they are essentially doctored to become darker. The choice to include a racial description of the Nubians within Mandeville’s fictionalized journey reflects the author’s intention to highlight ‘the other.’ Although there is no indication that the Nubians are practicing Christianity incorrectly, by describing their cultural values in opposition to Mandeville’s, their status as Christians is negated.

Similar to other places he travels, Mandeville incorporates local myth within his account of Egypt. He highlights the city of Heliopolis, ‘the city of the sun.’ He tells his reader that Heliopolis is home to a round temple–similar to the Temple at Jerusalem–with a sacred book harboring the details of the Phoenix. Mandeville details the role of the priest in the arrival of the Phoenix and the preparation of the temple’s altar with various spices and twigs. The intention of the ceremony is for the Phoenix to burn itself upon the altar, before recuperating and flying back to its home on the third day. Mandeville acknowledges the similarity between the Phoenix and Jesus Christ, being that there is only one of each, and both rise from the dead on the third day.

Although this myth is not categorically Christian, it is included to echo Christian ideology while drawing on pagan customs. Mandeville goes on to describe the Phoenix as bird-like, remarking that if a man sees it fly overhead that he will have good fortune. This idea draws upon earlier, Greek conventions of eagles flying over one’s shoulder to signify a good omen.

Mandeville’s account of Egypt reflects both the author’s bias and ability to connect unexpected locations to the text’s Christian purpose.

The Travels of Margery Kempe – Chapter 27

November 6, 2025 / Taylor Morrow / 0 Comments

In Chapter 27, Margery Kempe continues her travels in Constance. As with her descriptions of most places, Kempe doesn’t discuss much about the landscape or journey there. The specifics of her travel and what she did to get to each place are far less important to her than the religious and oppressive actions of her companions.

In Constance, Kempe describes further harassment for her religiously influenced lifestyle decisions. Her companions are described as constantly attempting to get Kempe to alter her diet, insisting that she eat meat even though she refuses in the name of the Christian God. Kempe also describes meeting a well-respected member of the clergy. The legate became a trusted outsider to Kempe, who asked him to watch how her companions treated her to see who was truly in the wrong.

When Kempe’s companions complain about her annoying religious habits, the legate takes Kempe’s side, only furthering the divide between Kempe and her companions. This squabble results in Kempe’s companions discarding her, telling the legate to take over in caring for her.

Then, Kempe found a man named William Wever to guide her on her travels. When describing her travels from Constance to Bologna, the most information Kempe writes is, “Then they went on day by day and met many excellent people. And they didn’t say a bad word to this creature, but gave her and her man food and drink, and the good wives at the lodgings where they put up laid her in their own beds for God’s love in many places where they went. And our lord visited her with great grace of spiritual comfort as she went on her way (Kempe 101).” Through her writing, it is evident that Kempe cares not about the minutiae of traveling, but only describes how she gets the necessities. The things she describes in detail are mostly about the moral and ethical code of the people she meets along the way, and she rarely gets specific unless she is deeply personally slighted.

Kempe’s relationship with God is one of the major recurring themes throughout her travel narrative, and, especially in times of great need and uncertainty, Kempe writes about having an unusually personal relationship with God. In her conversations with Him, He is often reassuring her that everything will work out and gives her insight into future events, including predicting William Wever’s entrance into Kempe’s journey.

By the end of the Chapter, Kempe sees her old companions once again in Bologna. When she notes that they have not changed their stance on how they believe Kempe should behave, she refused to eat with them for over a month. Kempe’s relationship with God supersedes any earthly relationship she builds, especially if those relationships deny Kempe’s religious fervor as sane. She cares less about what others think of her, and maintains a one-track mind to reaching the Holy Land. It is for God that she began this journey, and it is through God that Kempe overcomes struggle and hardship and keeps her courage to continue and eventually complete her journey.

The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Damascus

November 6, 2025 / Delilah Seaman / 0 Comments

In this excerpt, Benjamin of Tudela enters Damascus and spends two pages describing it. He takes on a tone of admiration throughout most of the section, writing appreciatively about the city overall. He says that they trade “with all countries,” indicating wealth and cosmopolitanism. They seem to have rich architecture and large marketplaces. There is abundant water from the two rivers which flow into the city, and infrastructure that brings the water to houses and gardens. He describes building features of glass, gold, and silver. Particularly impressive to him are the Gami mosque and the palace. In the mosque there is a wall of crystal glass “of magic workmanship,” with an integrated sundial. It seems that he has not seen anything like this before either at home or in his travels so far. His journey took place during the Islamic Golden Age, during which such technological and artistic innovations flourished, and we experience it through Benjamin of Tudela’s outsider’s perspective.

It can already be assumed that Benjamin of Tudela, as a product of his upbringing in recently Muslim-controlled Navarre, would have been quite familiar with Islam and its cultural influences. It shows up in this excerpt; it does not seem as though the people or practices as particularly foreign to him, nor does he pass judgment on the people and practices as he does in other sections (such as the children of Ammon). For example, he admires their mosque, saying that there is no building like it in the whole world, and does not state any further opinions. In this passage, like in several of our other readings, there is a mention of the ancient giants which once ruled the world. A rib of one of these giants is said to be housed in the palace. He is told that this rib belonged to the King Anak, or so it said on his grave. It’s interesting that the biblical mythology of the giants was so prevalent across the Abrahamic religions in the medieval era, brought up frequently throughout the writings of all the travelers. It’s not something that’s brought up often in modern life.

As usual, Benjamin completes the passage by cataloguing the Jewish population in Damascus, noting population, particular important individuals, and relationship with others in the city. He does not explicitly discuss the state of Jewish rights in Damascus, but since three thousand Jews lived in the city at the time it was probably accepting to his people to a fairly high degree, and perhaps they enjoyed some privileges. Many Palestinian Jews came to Damascus escaping the crusaders, bolstering the Jewish population in the city before Benjamin of Tudela’s arrival. Damascus was under Seljuk rule at the time: he writes that the city is the beginning of the empire of Nur-ed-din, the king of the Turks. The place of Jews under Turkish rule often changed from king to king. It’s unclear based on this text alone exactly where Nur-ed-din stood. There are several notable Jewish scholars in Damascus that he names, all of which work in some fashion for the Academy of the Land of Israel, including the head of the Academy. There are also 400 Cuthim (Samaritans) and a hundred Karaites, which are an alternative sect of Judaism. According to him, their relationship is peaceful, but they don’t intermarry. He doesn’t specify if this peaceful relationship extends between them and the rest of the Jews of Damascus, but he doesn’t mention any conflict either. As I’ve touched on in other posts, Benjamin of Tudela could have been writing a sort of guide for other Jews across the diaspora. The introduction to the Project Gutenberg edition speculates that wide-scale upheaval in Jewish communities during the era of the Crusades and of Christian encroachment into Spain may have motivated Benjamin to find places suited for asylum if needed and convey the information back to the Jews of Navarre. This seems like a reasonable extrapolation.

The Travels of Ibn Battutah: India

November 5, 2025 / Joshua Crilly / 0 Comments

When he reached India, Ibn Battutah was very concerned with the people he met there. His focus in this regard was not due to intrigue like in other locations he described, usually taking more notice to the locals if they showed impressive faith or Islamic values. In India however, his perspective was far more critical, partly because of the more foreign elements of the culture confusing him but usually passing judgment on these customs and practices. An example of this was the manner in which funerals are held in this country, as Ibn Battutah describes the act of cremation in horrific and demeaning detail. He pauses during his describing of the events to proclaims “the place looked like a spot in hell – God preserve us from it!”, clearly disgusted by how much this act goes against his beliefs (159). In the city of Delhi, he serves the sultan there for several years, though not willingly. The chapter on Delhi and its government ends with a series of anecdotes on brutal executions ordered by the sultan there, each being explained as unjust in some capacity. It should not be a surprise that some of these stories involve men of similar social standing and profession as Ibn Battutah himself, with one section even titled as “His killing of two other jurists, men of Sind, who were in his service” (179). His staying in the sultan’s service can be equated to fear of his own brutal execution, and lack of trust in the sultan to be fair and just in his punishments.

Though much of his stay in India was fairly static, the journey to and from the country involved more seafaring and river based travel. Ibn Battutah did not appear to be very fond of boats, or the crews that sailed them, but still gave good accounts of the vessels. When he travels with a new type of ship, he describes its appearance and craftsmanship, such as when he sees an ahawrah for the first time, “In the centre of it there was a wooden cabin to which one climbed up by steps…while the crew of about forty men rowed” (153). Considering he travelled with a group, even if just a few slaves and guides, each voyage by water had a small entourage of ships traveling together. Often they split up his group onto different vessels, so that there was enough space for the crew and cargo Ibn Battutah brought everywhere with him, among other things. This made sailing places tedious and often dangerous, as later on much of their party dies in a shipwreck. This does not happen until Ibn Battutah had left India however.

In this section of the journey, I think Ibn Battutah’s goals in writing about India are as a form of moral lesson to Muslims. While retelling of his time there, he delves into many terrible acts of murder performed by the sultan’s command, and also expresses distaste in local customs. Many of these customs and practices are uncomfortable to him because of his Muslim values, which he makes clear as well. By expressing the disgust or unjust nature of these events he has either witnessed or heard of, Ibn Battutah is telling a cautionary tale to his people, should they also not follow the rules of their religion.

The Travels of Ibn Battutah: Constantinople

November 5, 2025 / Helen Malone / 0 Comments

Upon his arrival in Constantinople, Ibn Battutah describes the welcome procession that comes out to greet them. However, this seems to be far more for the sake of the Khatun, who had escorted Ibn Battutah’s party on a recent leg of their journey, as her parents, the sultan and his wife, welcome her home. Their procession kicks up so much dust that he is afraid of being trampled in the confusion, so he sticks close to the Khatun’s party. He notes that Muslims are not allowed to enter the palace without permission, and so special permission has to be granted by the Sultan for them to be let inside. He is also concerned with the gifts of hospitality that are made to him, which are mostly food, but seem acceptable based on his lack of further commentary. Before meeting the Sultan, Ibn Battutah is searched for knives, but he is assured that this practice is common and would be done no matter who he was— that is, they are not doing this merely because he is a traveler or a Muslim. He notes that the mosaics of the Sultan’s hall depict both animate and inanimate beings, which would be important to him because in Islamic art, it is forbidden to depict living creatures. The Sultan asks him about the Christian landmarks he has visited, and their conversation is interpreted by a Jew. Continuing with his custom of noting the marvels and holy people he encounters, Ibn Battutah describes the exterior of the great Aya Sufiya church, and the former King Jirjis, who renounced the throne in order to become a monk. He notes that within the Aya Sufiya, there is a separate church exclusively for women, but that he was unable to see the inside of the church for himself, because he would be required to prostrate himself before the cross in order to enter. He doesn’t voice any opinion on the women’s church, and it isn’t clear from his writing whether he judges them for letting women study, or appreciates that they are kept separate from the men. In fact, there are very few aspects of religious life here that Ibn Battutah appears to judge, even when they differ from his own beliefs, such as the artistic depictions of living beings. However, as an Islamic jurist traveling to insure Islam is being practiced properly and its laws are being upheld, his concern lies solely among fellow Muslims, and so what the Christians are doing is of no concern to him. His negative comments in this section are few: that the bazaars are dirty, that the coinage the Khatun gives him as a parting gift is not good money, and that with the exception of the Aya Sufiya, their churches are also “dirty and mean” (132). In total, he spends a month and six days in the city, being provided for by the Khatun and her family. Though he disapproves of the money they give him, he is made many more valuable and useful parting gifts, such as a fine woolen cloth, silks, and horses for his journey.

The Book of Margery Kempe: Jerusalem

November 5, 2025 / Elisa Germanis / 0 Comments

Margery travels from Venice to Jerusalem by ship with her group of pilgrims. She does not note how long this journey takes, however she states that her pilgrims arrange a ship and obtain wine containers and bedding for themselves for this journey, though not for her (so she must obtain bedding herself). She then describes receiving a warning from God not to travel on the ship her fellow pilgrims had arranged, assigning her a different ship to sail in. She tells this information to her party, who sells their wine containers to join her on this other ship. This description of travel focuses on Margery’s relationship with God and the other pilgrims. While the pilgrims frequently express dislike towards Margery and exclude her, here Margery describes a reversal of power dynamics. Margery draws on religious authority and places herself in a position of power, even expressing that rather than her needing the pilgrims, they need her (“though it was against her will, she went on with them in their company, for they did not dare to do otherwise”)(103). Funnily, the pilgrims even have to sell the wine containers that they excluded her from.

Margery describes more mistreatment on the sea voyage to Jerusalem, expressing that a priest in the party took away her bedclothes and her sheet, rebuking her for being “false” (103). She does not explain why the priest does so, though says “she supposed they were annoyed with her” and proceeds to apologize to the group for any annoyance she has caused, and tells the party that she forgives them for any wrongdoing they have done upon her (103). By describing this drama on the ship, Margery emphasizes overcoming struggles on her journey for God. She also places herself in a position of religious virtuosity (above the other pilgrims) by apologizing (when she has not described having anything to apologize for) and forgiving the party for their mistreatment of her. She even says “God forgive you for it, as I do,” very closely linking herself with God and God’s feelings (and therefore authority) (103).

Once reaching land, Margery rides a donkey into Jerusalem. Rather than describing her surroundings, Margery focuses on her emotional reaction to seeing the holy land, and expresses that her emotions are so strong they are reflected through her body. She notes that one of these bodily reactions is almost falling off of her donkey. She writes that two German pilgrims helped keep her from falling, suggesting that Jerusalem was a center of interaction between many different cultures, all connected through the act of pilgrimage.

Rather than describing Jerusalem physically, Margery uses words such as “earthly” and “blissful” to describe it (103). This word choice demonstrates that Margery’s attention is very much focused on the divine aspects of Jerusalem, rather than anything cultural or visual. She does not describe any logistical aspects of her stay, though she does write about visiting sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount of Cavalry. In these locations, Margery weeps more loudly and dramatically than she ever has before, explaining that she is unable to control the divine sensations and passion she feels when being in such holy locations. Like before, many pilgrims are frustrated with her displays of passion, and so she expresses that she attempts to withhold her tears for as long as possible. However, she ultimately bursts into tears, reflecting the power of Margery’s religious devotion. She says that those who haven’t seen her tears before are amazed and astounded, highlighting the uniquely intense nature of her sobbing.

Margery’s focus on her relationship to God, divine locations, and how people perceive (and usually mistreat) her and her religious devotion suggest not only that Margery prioritizes all that has religious connection, but that Margery is recording her story in order to demonstrate how devoutly passionate (and close with God) she is. Further, by framing her faith as stronger than and superior to the faith of others (meaning she is more closely linked with God), she is able to place herself in a position of some power through religion.

Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Jurjaniya

November 5, 2025 / Avery Butcher / 0 Comments

In this section of the book, Ibn Fadlan mostly focuses on the extremely cold climate of Jurjaniya. The way to travel through Jurjaniya was to travel across the Jayhun River; however, due to the frigid weather, the river froze for three months, and they could not cross it. Ibn Fadlan stayed in a house during the duration of his stay, but even in the house, he was freezing. He and his group stayed in Jurjaniya for over three months due to this cold: “The cold and the hardships it causes were the reasons for the length of the stay” (Fadlan 8). He gives an anecdote about how two men took their camels into the woods without the ability to make a fire, and their camels froze to death by the next morning. He also mentions how beggars are even allowed to come inside other people’s homes and sit by the fire while they beg for bread. This place was unbelievably cold, even for those who live there. It was impossible for Ibn Fadlan and his traveling companions to do anything, let alone carry on with their journey, due to these conditions. He describes how his beard froze into “a block of ice,” and how the markets and streets were all bare because no one could withstand the freezing temperatures (Fadlan 9). After three months, the Jayhun River melted, and the group purchased camels and made foldable boats made out of camel skin to continue on their journey.

I think Ibn Fadlan was particularly scarred by his visit to Jurjaniya due to the coldness. He goes on for multiple pages, intently describing how Jurjaniya was “the cold of hell,” but interestingly enough, he does not speak ill of the people in this city (Fadlan 7). In many different instances of this book, Ibn Fadlan does not hesitate to pass judgment on the people he encounters on his travels, but here, he describes, “The local people, with whom we were on friendly terms, urged us to be prudent as regards to clothing and to take large quantities” (Fadlan 9). I assumed that Ibn Fadlan would not be very friendly or warm to the people of this place because of his horrible experiences, but instead, he does not pass judgment and accepts their help. I also thought Ibn Fadlan might attribute the bitter cold to the people of Jurjaniya, pertaining to the seven climes ideology that was popular during this time, which stated that if the climate of a place was bitterly cold, they were closer to hell. Regardless, he spends a lot of time in Jurjaniya but did not say much about the culture or the people because the cold weather was so insufferable that he could not think about anything else. He may also have included such intense detail about the cold to excuse the delay of his journey. His caliph, back in Baghdad, sent him on this mission to spread his religion to the land of the Turks, and he was the original audience of this book. If Ibn Fadlan returned and the caliph was upset about how long his journey took, Ibn Fadlan would want to have these details that explain, or even exaggerate, the circumstances that led to his delay.

Select The Travels of Marco Polo: Hormuz (Andrew Conte Post #4)

November 5, 2025 / Andrew Conte / 0 Comments

In this post I want to discuss how Marco Polo’s travel through India and China shows the evolving style of travel narratives/accounts. When we first started this class with Ibn Fadlan, his narrative of the “Land of Darkness” has a very personal feel to the story. While this has been the base line for our class, I want to put it into conversation with Benjamin of Tudela. While Benjamin still has his personal notes on his journey (specifically race, which I will discuss next blog post) it is not the same as Fadlan. We see that both the travel narrative and the travel account are blooming at very similar times alongside one another. How does this connect to Marco Polo? Polo is a culmination of the two ideas of what a travel text looks like. Polo (or Rustichello) blends the impersonal strictly “factual” (or as factual as one can get with personal bias obscuring the world) such as the four qualities that belongs to the people of the Khans while still talking about his own stories during his travels. We see that the idea of a travel text has evolved not only to show people back at home (who could afford to read the text) serves to inform people of foreign areas (or also reinforce their ideas of what they want to believe) but also to fill their heads with mystical stories of wonder. The factual evidence begins with writers such as Benjamin of Tudela who was very goal focused. Additionally, it is only natural to assume the human condition will add in it’s own perceptions of the world based on how the individual was raised. This can be seen with writers such as Ibn Fadlan.

The Book of Wanderings of Felix Fabri: Venice

November 5, 2025 / gillie / 0 Comments

Venice

After about two weeks traveling through Southern Austria and into Northern Italy, Felix Fabri and his group of travelers make it to the “Mistress of the Mediterranean,” Venice (Fabri, 22). The arrival in Venice marks critical progress in the pilgrimage towards Jerusalem and an important adjustment in his caravan’s means of travel. Fabri arrives in Venice on the 27th of April where he plans to stay for fourteen days to completely prepare for their long journey across the sea. The tone of Fabri’s narrative changes in Venice, he focuses more on details of specific people of importance, and a new lighthearted and joyful energy is woven into his description of his journeys and the city of Venice itself.

Once Fabri arrives at the spot where the “river glides into the jaws of the Mediterranean” he is overcome with an uncharacteristic sense of joy (Fabri 21). The crew sings a pilgrim song to praise the Lord and celebrate their feat of reaching the Mediterranean Sea. Fabri writes the song in his native German tongue, but it is translated into English and Latin which reflects his general interest in linguistics. The pivot from land travel to water travel is thoroughly described, Fabri notes many small trials and tribulations of the boats he embarked upon. This pattern mirrors Felix Fabri’s previous interest in the trails of his journey but through a different medium: “our boat was driven to one side by the shock, and struck upon a post which stood in the water, so as to threaten to overset” which shows his broader fascination into means of travel (Fabri 21). Despite the initial difficulties of boat travel, Fabri’s spirits remain uplifted as he slowly sails to the “famous, great, wealthy, and noble city of Venice” (Fabri 22).

In Venice, Fabri narrates a more well-rounded description of the city. He cares about the architecture, the natural beauty, the history, the language, the demeanor of the residents, as well as the influential people he meets. He names the Rialto and remarks on the impressive feat of Venice’s existence “we were astonished to see such weighty and such tall structures with their foundations in the water” presenting the city as a marvel itself (Fabri 22). When they reach their place of residence, Fabri is characteristically focused on language as a means of morality. He describes his hosts as “especially friendly…eager to wait upon us” and attributes this to their German nationality and speech (Fabri 22). Because “no word of Italian was to be heard in the house, which was a very great comfort to us; for it is very distressing to live with people without being able to converse with them” he asserts German’s superiority over Italians (Fabri 23). However, in this description, Fabri leans into something new – superstition – to further separate Italians and Germans. He describes a dog’s response to people of different nationalities. The dog (of German descent) receives “all Germans with joy” whereas it greets Italians (and people from all other countries that are not Germany) “as if it had gone mad, runs at them, barking loudly, leaps furiously upon them, and will not cease from troubling them till someone quiets him” (Fabri 23). Fabri dedicates a whole page to the dog and its varied reactions which differs from the rest of the narrative where he is greatly unconcerned with both non-religious superstition and animals. As Fabri travels farther away from his native land, he becomes more attuned to cultural differences and more focused on presenting Germans as the superior group of people.

Ibn Fadlan: Jurjanya

November 5, 2025 / Iona Nelson / 0 Comments

Ibn Fadlan’s last stopping place, described before he arrived in Bulghar, was Jurjanya. He and his caravan stayed here for quite some time due to the weather. They were trapped in this “country,” as he describes it. Jurjanya is near the Jayhun River, which he needed to pass in order to reach Bulghar. Upon his arrival in Jurjanya, the Jayhun river froze, which wasn’t necessarily what precluded them from continuing as “ horses, mules, donkeys, and carts slid over the ice” (8). It was the sheer cold that prevented them from continuing. They initially intended to stay here for a few days, but ended up staying for a little over three months. They had to have arrived in late November, as he states they leave in the middle of February, (this also lines up with the months the river would have been frozen). He also details the practicalities of his departure from Jurjanya: “ We bought Turkish camels and had boats made out of camel skin… We laid in three months’ supply of bread, millet, and dried and salted meat”(9). Fadlan describes the people as hospitable; a man invites him into his home to warm up by the fire, and he describes this custom as “it is a rule among them that beggars do not wait at the door but come into the house and sit for an hour by the fire to warm up”(8). Fadlan gives details about where he slept (more details than usual). He was provided a house to stay in. This house was “inside, which was another, inside which was a Turkish felt tent” (9). He also gives great detail of his clothing that he wore while attempting to stay warm. He said he was “wrapped in clothes and fur” while inside his house to keep warm (9). He also has an entire section describing the clothes they wore in Jurjanya.

Fadlan heavily focuses on the weather and how these people survive the cold. He touches a bit on the customs of these people, yet those customs are still related to the weather. He describes the clothes that the “local people with whom we were on friendly terms” wore; they warned Fadlan about the importance of keeping warm (9). They wore “a tunic and over that a caftan, on top a cloak of sheepskin, and over that a felt outer garment, with a head covering…plain trousers, and another padded pair, socks. Horse hide boots… other boots” (9-10). This is the most description we get of anything from this culture… their clothes. In this section, Fadlan uses very specific and vibrant language to describe the weather. He is sure to get his point across about how cold it is.

In other locations, Fadlan typically passes judgment on the people he is interacting with. These judgments typically reflect the culture that he comes from. In Jurijanya, his observations reflect a different aspect of his Islamic culture. He is very focused on the cold and describes the cold as “ a gate to the cold of hell” (8). Hell in Islam is imagined as cold and icy rather than hot and burning. They also believe the farther towards the poles they go, the stranger the people who inhabit these places are. Using this view of the world, it is clear why he was so focused on the cold: he may have believed he was on the cusp of hell. His reactions and focus on the weather also show the climate he is used to. He has never before experienced such weather in Baghdad. Instead of telling stories that show cultural practices, he tells stories of people who have died of the cold. He also recounts personal experiences with the cold, such as “returning to the house, I looked at my beard. It was a block of ice,” and “I saw the earth split and great crevasses form from the intense cold” (9). Remembering that he is writing his stories for the Calif can help discern why he focuses so much on the cold. He is trying to convey to people who have never experienced this cold before what it is like. This description of the cold sheds light on the climate and geographical “culture” he comes from.