Category: Ibn Battuta (Page 2 of 2)

Having joined a new caravan, Ibn Battutah travels over land and sea before arriving in Baghdad. He is far less impressed by this city than the others he has come to, as it seems to be on the decline and there is nothing stunningly beautiful about the city, save the Tigris river flowing through it, which he compares to “a necklace ranged between two breasts,” once again ascribing feminine traits to a city in his descriptions (75).  At this point Ibn Juzayy inserts a segment of a poem by Abu Tammam, which similarly laments the deterioration of Baghdad. While unimpressed by the city as a whole, Ibn Battutah is, however, greatly amazed by the bathhouses of the city, which have individual cubicles for privacy and provide their patrons with multiple towels in order to cover themselves properly. It’s clear from his tone that this is what he feels a bathhouse should be like, unlike the one in Egypt, where he was horrified by the way the patrons did not cover themselves. 

Ibn Battutah also lists the number of mosques within the city, and describes the Mustansiriyah College, and how teaching is carried out within it. He again speaks of the great men he encounters, this time the Sultan Abu Sa’id, who is of course also a man of great generosity and excellence. He breaks his account of Abu Sa’id’s charity towards a group of blind beggars to tell of the Sultan’s later life, how he killed the amir that had held power over him when he ascended to the throne at a young age, and his later death at the hands of one of his jealous wives. This section seemed a sharp contrast to the ones surrounding it, and I wondered whether it was inserted to give some more dramatic entertainment to the audience through a story of political and romantic intrigue. It is unclear when or from who Ibn Battutah heard this story, since he is recounting both his journey and the events of Abu Sa’id’s death after they happened, but it’s unlikely that Ibn Battutah was there himself when the fateful murders took place. So it is very likely that, even if he is getting this from another source, it may have already been dramatically embellished by the time it reached him.

Ibn Battutah then returns to the account of his journey, traveling along with the Sultan in his mahallah so that he can see all the ceremonials performed for him. He describes the musicians that play for him, the amirs, the standard-bearers, and the many soldiers that march with them, as well as the punishments they suffer for lagging behind their company. By doing this Ibn Battutah demonstrates the great power of the Sultan, to command so many, as well as a sort of equality in his treatment, as no one, whether they be of high or low rank, is exempt from being punished for wrongdoing. Ibn Battutah journeys with them for ten days, until they arrive in the city of Tabriz.

From a brief stint in the city of Ba’labakk, Battuta travels at last to the city of Damascus, noting his hurry to arrive there. He takes a whopping six pages to tell of its tales, sights, and histories, the longest he has spent in one place up until this point. Interestingly, he favors this even over the arguably greater religious cities he has already traveled through, including Bethlehem and Jerusalem, noting that it “is the city that surpasses all others in beauty and takes precedence of them in loveliness” (36). Much like he does in other holy lands, he begins by relaying the city’s significance through the poems/stories of other writers; what he shares in this instance are the words of his father which call her a “lover’s torment,” for all her beauty, as well as the words of another poet. The relaying of others’ writing displays a love or trust in the works of others. Unlike other writers we have read, Battuta is not at all concerned with only speaking of what he himself sees. He loves to speak of the stories he hears from others and eagerly shares and praises them. It also showcases great respect and pride of the father, possibly a value of his culture.

To the point of embracing the tales of others, Battuta primarily relates Damascus through the narrative of Shaikh Abu Abdallah. He begins by moving through its religious buildings, firstly the great Mosque of the Umayyads which he designates the “greatest mosque on earth” with “no rival” (36). Once again, he takes time to praise the architects themselves. This may show a reverence and respect in Battuta’s homeland for hard work, creativity, and the beauty of design, for this is a theme he discusses in nearly every location he visits. Of the creation of the buildings, he is careful to note their loyalty to God – even their creativity and art is something of religious service.

For what I believe is the first time, he begins to discuss non-construction/religious professions (in the sense of priests) and begins to focus much on education practices – most importantly the virtue of those in that profession. He dedicates one section of his Damascus tale to the professors and teachers of the mosque. He seems very interested in the breadth of readings taught, as well as how specialized these courses are. In fact, there is one teacher for each subject, and students move classes to study the Qur’an, the Book of God, the books of Tradition, as well as writing and calligraphy. In almost a dumbfounded way, Battutah says they become masters in calligraphy because the teacher of writing “teaches nothing else” (38). From this, we can interpret that in Battuta’s home, education is much more “jumbled” and less individual in depth study rather than a general knowledge about a breadth of teachings.

Returning again to his own witness, Battutah is fascinated by religious cohabitation. All faiths seem to, with no animosity, pray and exist together: “they all walk…carrying Qur’ans in their hands…the Jews went out with their book of the Law and the Christians with their Gospel” (39). At a time when religious divide is much more apparent and forms the basis of many civilizations, Battutah likely hasn’t experienced this form of religious acceptance and freedom without tension.

Finally, Battutah praises the customs of the inhabitants of Damascus, including their graciousness and virtue, and how they nearly all expenses for those on Pilgrimage (again, we find that the focus is on religious piety). He recalls seeing this charity in action, writing about seeing a young boy accidentally drop and break an expensive dish. Marvelously, members of the crowd and the local custodian supply him with the means to purchase a new one. He is also amazed by their hospitality and communal style of living, for he experiences that no one eats breakfast alone during Ramadan, and he is invited to a home each day to join the locals in breaking the fast. Battutah holds virtue in high esteem.

Map Link: https:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1hkQKf45XcmjMVuCAmPp4r1d6uf_AFXc&usp=sharing

Category 1: The Beginning (Green)

I grouped the first few cities before Alexandria together as marking the start of Ibn Battutah’s long journey. These cities are not important to him religiously or culturally so much as they are the first major locations he visits and introduce the young traveler to his new life of pilgrimage.

Category 2: Holy Land (Red)

This category involves many of the cities Ibn Battutah seemed excited to visit for their religious significance. From Alexandria to Jerusalem, his focus was on the spiritual and it drove him to detour in search of these significant places.

Category 3: New Perspectives (Purple)

The last two cities of Aleppo and Damascus were hard to place, but due to the paths Ibn Battutah took, I felt it was a more freeing part of his journey. He had a less direct course and seemed in no rush to reach his destinations, staying in smaller towns and cities longer than before and appreciating local cultures far more.

Please find below the link to my map.

Journey of Ibn Battutah

Key:

Dark Yellow/Mustard: Focus on architecture/terrain

Bright Yellow: Focus on Hospitality

Pink: Focus on Religion

Purple: Focus on Local History/Folklore

Upon leaving Cairo, Ibn Battutah made his way to Syria, specifically highlighting many of the religious cities he passes through. These include several places of significance to Christianity and Judaism, mainly he mentions Jerusalem and Bethlehem. This portion of his travels involves much more architectural description of holy sites, such as when he wrote of the congregational mosque at Damascus, the capital of Syria. “The inner faces of all the walls of this mosque are decorated with cut stones of gold known as fusaifisa, intermingled with various colours of extraordinary beauty” (37). Culture also remained at he center of his attention, as Ibn Battutah was engrossed in the religious significance of these cities, such as his visiting of religious tombs of what we now more commonly associate with prominent Christian figures. In Islam, many of these people are still acknowledged as prophets appointed by God. This was very interesting to see in Ibn Battutah’s writings, as I would not have expected his religious pilgrimage to include stops at the graves of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and even Jesus and his mother Mary. The mention of these names is also usually followed by the customary “(peace be upon him)” or some derivative of this prayer for speaking a notable name.

This portion of the text does not as much concern the physical aspects of travel, at least not in comparison to how his journey started. Much of Ibn Battutah’s writing concerns his description of the holy lands he visits and their customs. There were a few mentions of illness while he was in Damascus it seemed, as he claims to have “witnessed at the time of the Great Plague at Damascus…a remarkable instance of the veneration of the people of Damascus for this mosque” (39). He again chooses to focus on the religious resilience of the city residents, but before leaving the city himself he appears to fall ill as well.

After being treated for this illness, he claims the medical bill has depleted all his funds and he would not have been able to travel. Had it not been for his host’s hospitality, he would have been stuck in Damascus. “Nur al-Din, learning this, hired camels for me and gave me travelling provisions, etc., and money in addition,” (41). While not anecdotes about his actual travels, the fact his pilgrimage was almost completely halted due to health and funding should not be overlooked. It speaks to his inexperience as a young traveler, clearly enamored by the locations and probably not being careful with planning and conserving his resources for the journey ahead.

Much of Ibn Battutah’s travels through this region contained anecdotes and stories of other people’s lives, most of which he obviously heard from the locals and is simply recording. The consistency of these stories was strange to me, almost uncharacteristic of how he is usually so excited to write about the people he meets, not someone already dead long before his arrival. It only makes sense to me in the context of the religious nature of these cities, that many of these stories he retells are relating to the devotion of the people there. The story of Ad’ham seems to be some sort of lesson on prayer, as the man (metaphorically) prays himself to death after being forced into marriage and fornication (34). At least, that is my guess considering the message is not clearly stated in my opinion. Either way, it is intrinsically tied to the act of prayer and the man’s relationship God, so it can be assumed that its retelling bears some lesson regarding this or Ibn Battutah would not have felt the need to write it down.

I found this portion of Ibn Battutah’s journey less compelling. Though he seemed easily influenced by the Shaikh in Cairo and other notable people up until now, parroting the stories of the region and not offering as much of his own insight and experiences. It was however interesting to see how he viewed the many places considered sacred to more than just Islam, as the perspective it gives was something I knew of but had not thought would affect him as it did.

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.

Ibn Battuta, born in Tangier, leaves on a pilgrimage for Jerusalem from his birthplace in roughly 1325 at 22-years-old. From there, he travels along the Nile, going first through Egypt. Traveling alone seems to be peculiar for his time, as he takes particular care to mention that he does not travel with a caravan, and that though others offer him kindness and suggest they travel together, he continues on his own after sickness continues to render them immobile. One great hindrance to the early part of Ibn Battuta’s travels is sickness. He discusses coming down with fever multiple times, causing him to have to continue to camp out for nights longer than he plans – though these visits still usually land around 3-10 days. Battuta is not one for staying somewhere long – rather, he intends to make the most of his travels, hitting as many new towns and cities as he can along the way. One imam he meets even notes about him that he seems “fond of travelling and wandering from land to land,” which he confirms (8). Interestingly, though he is highly concerned with religion (though he is by no means critical of other religions. Rather, he is much more open about it than past authors, and comments with either curiosity or simply apathy when he notices other towns go about their practices differently) he seems only concerned with his own piousness. Any time God is mentioned, in a passing story or his own narration, he takes a number of lines to praise him, and dedicates an entire two of twenty-five pages in this section to the recitation of a litany. 

In each town or city he visits, he is primarily concerned with their local religious leaders. He makes sure to visit their holy sites or homes in each place to meet their shaikh. He talks at length of their conversations, but particularly the ways in which they display themselves as benevolent and kind leaders and make their towns better. He does not criticize any of their tactics, nor any of the people of the land. In fact, except for a couple of lines about clothing he finds interesting, he hardly mentions the physical characteristics of the townspeople at all. Though, like with each shaikh, he holds hospitality in the highest regard. One of his only criticisms throughout the journey is that one town refused to give him more guest-gifts after finding out he was traveling light and had nothing to offer them. Tied in with hospitality, he also discusses, again with curiosity and not contempt, the dining practices of each town or city he visits. He complains only when some Mongols he comes across don’t eat enough, and he constantly finds himself hungry in their presence (with the caveat that he himself is a larger man with a good appetite, while they are much more petite). He is also fascinated with local monuments and architecture. Though he never says exactly what buildings look like, he will go on for lines about how they seem to have been built with such grace, and how their buildings are fit to host the grandest of peoples and nature – he does this in many places. He has a genuine concern for the man-made wonders of the world. He disregards false wonders. He only shows true disgust once, when he discovers that the men in the bath house bathe naked together, and complains enough to get the law changed before he leaves. 

From his writing, I can assume his own culture is far more accepting of differences than earlier writers we have read, though this does come from a time with more cross-cultural contact. This does reflect a more open and less religiously strict – in terms of religious diversity and hatred across religious borders – than seems to have existed in earlier times. However, we also know from his concern with his own religiousness that Tangier likely followed religious doctrine very strictly – he is traveling to Jerusalem after all. It is unclear who he is writing to; he is merely accounting his journey. He wishes to visit all the great sites he has heard about through such religion, and longs to receive wisdom from religious leaders across the continent. He is a man with far more curiosity, acceptance, and genuine love of God and the world for its creation of humanity and longs to appreciate it all with his own eyes in order to understand it as best he can. 

Upon arriving in Cairo, Ibn Battutah focuses most on the religious people living there, the structures within the city, such as the pyramids and mosques, and the natural features, particularly the Nile river. As it is such a large city, he lists the many sorts of people that can be found within— “learned and simple, grave and gay, prudent and foolish, base and noble, of high estate and low estate, unknown and famous” (15). He does not seem to have a particularly low or high opinion of the people, as this general overview is really the only description he gives of most of the city’s population. He does however concern himself with the lives of those in the numerous convents of Cairo, one of which he stays at, describing the food and clothing its members receive, and the Qur’an readers hired by the people in the al-Qarafah cemetery. He stayed for what sounds to be a single night in a convent at Dair al-Tin which contained some relics from the Prophet himself, such as the awl for sewing his sandals, a fragment of his wooden basin, and his kohl pencil. However, he does not make any mention as to what his stay was like there, such as what he ate and who else was with him, only that the Sahib (of whom no description is provided, therefore it is possible Ibn Battutah never met him) provides it with funds to feed the travelers who stay there.He shows reverence for the current sultan and some of the amirs, describing him as “a man of generous character and great virtues,” who demonstrates his nobility through his service to causes of religion and charity, as do many amirs (18). He seems overall wonderstruck by the city and all it has to offer, making no mention of any negative experience he has while staying there.

Ibn Battutah is fascinated with the mosques and convents of Cairo, and offers a blessing after many of the names listed, such as (God’s blessing and peace upon him). Thus it can be assumed that Ibn Battutah is also Muslim, as he seems knowledgeable about the religion and writes in a similar manner to other Muslim travelers we have read. He also does not make mention of any cultural differences between Cairo and where he comes from, which implies that he comes from a similar culture—otherwise, he would likely note any differences in culture, food, or practices.However, from the sound of his writings, we know that many pilgrims travel through Cairo along their journeys, as one of the things the Sultan does is provide supplies for pilgrims without the means to supply themselves, and the convent he stays overnight at seems to be outfitted specifically to house travelers in need of shelter during their stay in the city. The Nile river is particularly unusual to him, as it runs south to north, the opposite direction of all the other great rivers, and that it floods during the dry season but diminishes when other rivers typically rise. 

Ibn Battutah was a young Moroccan Muslim that set out on pilgrimage of his own volition. He explains early that he had no caravan initially and set out totally alone, instead requesting to travel with an envoy of the ‘king of Africa’. This was not a king of Africa but instead a Roman province of the time, consisting of territory in modern Tunisia and Algeria. I call the beginning of his journey to attention not just to emphasize the imperative safety a caravan offers that is almost a necessity for traveling in this time, but also in an effort to understand how Ibn Battutah writes about the places he visits. His focus in each new location they reach tends to lean towards the behavior of people he meets, even remarking that upon reaching Tunis he was overcome by a grave loneliness at having no one to welcome him. By joining a caravan of frequent and seasoned travelers, the young Ibn Battutah did not receive the same enthusiasm as those who had been to Tunis before. He soon forgets this loneliness it seems, as much of his focus shifts to the festival the locals celebrate, claiming to be “overtaken” by this feast he was now participating in.

Upon reaching Alexandria, Ibn Battutah’s fascination for the people only grows as well. While he first praises the divine architecture of the citadel, saying it to be “of memorable edifices both secular and religious”, his attention seems to once again gravitate towards the people he finds there. In not just Alexandria but almost every settlement along the Nile, Ibn Battutah praises the local Shaikh as wise and displaying various forms of power. Whether or not there is any truth to the miracles he writes of, these local elders each leave an impression on his travels. The Shaikh of Alexandria seemed to affect Ibn Battutah most of all, as he gives him gifts of money and provisions and tasks him with sending a greeting to three of his cousins in different countries. Ibn Battutah spares the suspense and immediately writes in past tense that he has already met and greeted these three men in his travels, further cementing the influence this Shaikh had on his will to travel. Once reaching Cairo, Ibn Battutah does express fascination at the Nile River and how unique it is compared to other Great Rivers, but his attention overall still remains on the peoples and cultures he encounters.

Where his focus in the cities and towns was drawn to the interesting people he met, the process of travel bore clear hardships that draws his attention as well. Before reaching Cairo, Ibn Battutah describes points in their journey when the caravan had to take shelter from rain in stone or wood structures for days at a time. This seems to me that they were travelling during North Africa’s wet season, as is evident by the dates of these reports being after leaving Tunis in early November. The dry season has sparce rain, while the wet season has rainstorms that can last weeks, as his travel account clearly shows. Also be aware that the months these seasons occur differ depending location, with Northern Africa beginning its wet season around November. There is also some run in with dangerous wildlife, as Ibn Battutah recounts a night where hyenas raided their camp, though I doubt this was a one and only time wild animals posed a problem. This particular incident ends in his own personal sack of dates being stolen, leading me to believe that this was simply the worst instance he decided to write about.

Of the travel narratives we have collectively experienced as a class, Ibn Battutah stands out to me as travelling solely for personal reasons. His travels begin simply because he was encouraged to journey to Mecca to deepen his spiritual and religious understanding. Throughout his travels he meets people that tell him stories and give him advice that he seems more then happy to transcribe and take to heart. I can say I’m very intrigued at how the remainder of his journey plays out, as his accounts Egypt were fascinating.