{"id":707,"date":"2022-03-30T08:11:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T13:11:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/?p=707"},"modified":"2022-03-30T08:11:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T13:11:19","slug":"travels-of-ibn-battutah-amjari","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/2022\/03\/30\/travels-of-ibn-battutah-amjari\/","title":{"rendered":"Travels of Ibn Battutah: Amjari"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eight years after Ibn Battutah\u2019s original departure from his home in Morocco, he describes his arrival and experiences in Sind and North-Western India. In his narrative, he provides a detailed description of the town Amjari, its \u201cinfidel\u201d inhabitants, and their cultural customs. Battutah does not provide an exact date of his arrival in Amjari, however his first accounts of Sind and North-Western India begins in mid-1333; with this in mind, and accounting for his time spent in other towns before arriving in Amjari,\u00a0 it is likely that he made this visit in late 1333 or early 1334. Battutah did not spend a significant amount of time in Amjari, as he only passed through the community while traveling to the near-by town of Ajudahan. Despite his limited time spent in Amjari, Battutah\u2019s detailed descriptions and strong reactions to their cultural customs show how certain groups of people cope with painful concepts such as death, as well as his own difficulty understanding cultures different from his own.<\/span><\/p>\n

During this small section of his narrative, Battutah writes about the ritual in Amjari to burn widowed women to death. Although the widows get to make the choice to die or not, those who do not burn themselves \u201cdress in coarse garments\u201d, \u201clive with their own people in misery\u201d, and are \u201cdespised for their lack of fidelity\u201d ( 158). The people of Amjari ostracize and look down upon widows who do not die with their husbands and choose to continue living as their own person. Even after dying, the husband has more agency and respect than the wife. This shows that the women of Amjari are not seen as separate beings from their husbands and have limited rights and opportunities because of it. It also implies that the Amjarians have strict beliefs regarding fidelity and marriage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While the widows who do not choose to burn to death face negative consequences, those who do choose to engage in this ritual are celebrated for their prestige and fidelity. This shows that for women, it is better to be dead than husbandless and outcasted. Battutah describes an extravagant, three-day celebration that precedes the burning of a widow.\u00a0 These festivities include singing, dancing, concerts, and feasts, and it gives the widows an opportunity to say their farewells. After the third day of celebration, however, the widows are covered in oil and cast themselves into a large bonfire. Despite the excitement and fanfare of the townspeople during the burning, Battutah struggles to watch the events and notes that he \u201chad all but fallen off [his] horse\u201d (160). Battutah\u2019s distressed response to the burning shows that, although he promotes modesty, piety, and fidelity among women, he still sees the value of a woman\u2019s life even in widowhood.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Battutah compares this practice to that of the \u201cIndians\u201d where they drown themselves in a \u201criver of Paradise\u201d to show their commitment to their God (160). Battutah directly compares these two practices because he struggles to understand how and why different cultures celebrate death under certain circumstances. His response is not surprising, though, considering that the Islamic faith highly values proper burials and holds specific beliefs about an afterlife.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ibn-Bat\u0323t\u0323u\u0304t\u0323a Muh\u0323ammad Ibn-\u02bfAbdalla\u0304h, and Tim Mackintosh-Smith. The Travels of Ibn Battutah<\/i>. Translated by Gibb Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen, Picador, 2002.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight years after Ibn Battutah\u2019s original departure from his home in Morocco, he describes his arrival and experiences in Sind and North-Western India. In his narrative, he provides a detailed description of the town Amjari, its \u201cinfidel\u201d inhabitants, and their cultural customs. Battutah does not provide an exact date of his arrival in Amjari, however […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4793,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ibn-battutah","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4793"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/mapping-the-middle-ages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}