The most famous of all travelers of the medieval world is Marco Polo. He was a remarkable man who ventured into unknown distant lands. He was a man who discovered extraordinary places on his vast journeys, and who told the magnificent tale of his encounters with foreign peoples and unfamiliar cultures. But how many of us know that another man, living and traveling in roughly the same period of history, had journeyed more than Marco Polo? This man was an Arab by the name of Ibn Battuta, the most traveled person of his time, traveling an estimated 75,000 miles. He was also the only medieval traveler to have seen the lands of every Muslim ruler of his time.

   On what was planned to be his Hajj trip to Mecca, Ibn Battuta journeyed throughout North Africa and Syria. Then he explored the Middle East, Persia, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. He traveled to the Indian Subcontinent, spending there nearly a decade at the palace of the Sultan of Delhi. The Sultan appointed him as an ambassador to China.

    After about 30 years for exploring, around the year 1350, Ibn Battuta started making his way back to his homeland. He went back to Fez, Morocco. There, at the court of Sultan Abu 'Inan, he read out accounts of his travels to Ibn Juzay who made them into a book. This book exists today and is known as Rihla or The Travels.

    The Rihla told of the adventures Ibn Battuta experienced on his travels. Numerous times he was assaulted, once he nearly drowned in a shipwreck; another time he was close to being executed by a tyrant leader. He married a number of times and had more than one lover, which consequently made him a father to several children along his journeys.

    The following paragraphs offer a closer account and some alluring details about the life of the greatest Arab and medieval traveler. 

From Tangier to 30 Years of Travels

    Ibn Battuta was a North African Arab born in Tangier, Morocco in 1304. His family was a traditional Muslim family of judges. As a youth, he learned Muslim law. In 1325, at the age of 21, he left his hometown of Tangier to perform his Hajj. Through his travels he also hoped to learn more the practice of law across the Arab world.

    In the course of his first journey, Ibn Battuta traveled through Algiers, Tunis, Egypt, Palestine and Syria to Mecca. The following is a passage from his own records:

    "My departure from Tangier, my birthplace, took place ... with the object of making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House (in Mecca) and of visiting the tomb of the Prophet (in Medina), God's richest blessing and peace be on him. I set out all by myself, having neither a fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor a caravan whose party I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit all my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation."

    In those years, traveling such great distances and venturing into foreign territories was risky. Ibn Battuta was daring, or at least determined, enough to start his journey alone on a donkey. Along the way, perhaps for safety, he became a member of a caravan of traders, which grew as more and more people joined in. By the time they made it to Cairo, the caravan had several thousand members and was still growing. Ibn Battuta must have been very excited about the progress of his trip. It was a first-hand experience at learning about his primary fascination - the larger world of Islam, or Dar al-Islam. Thus he was able to meet with learned fellow Muslims and to gain increased experience in religion and law.

Algiers and Libya

    Upon reaching Algiers, the caravan spent some time outside the city walls where more pilgrims joined the group. As the caravan reached Bijaya, Battuta’s health deteriorated. He was determined to continue however, and decided not to stay behind in spite his poor health. In reference to this incident he said: "If God decrees my death, then my death shall be on the road, with my face set towards ...[Mecca]."

    When the caravan traveled through Libya, Ibn Battuta found it appropriate to marry the daughter of a Tunisian trader who was traveling with the caravan for the Hajj. Ibn Battuta married the girl in Tripoli, but soon the marriage was broken because of a quarrel between Ibn Battuta and his new father-in-law. This didn’t seem to bother Ibn Battuta, for he soon approached another girl, a daughter of a pilgrim from Fez. This time, the wedding was a lavish celebration, which lasted a whole day.

Egypt and Syria

    The caravan then headed toward Egypt. Ibn Battuta was so immensely impressed with Cairo – then, as now, the most opulent Arabic city that he decided to spend several months there. In any occasion, there was still eight months before the Hajj. In his own words, the city of Cairo was “mother of cities ... mistress of broad provinces and fruitful lands, boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendor, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the stopping-place of feeble and strong. ... She surges as the waves of the sea with her throngs of folk and can scarce contain them...”

    Ibn Battuta stayed in Cairo for about one month. Upon leaving the city he decided on taking a less direct path to Mecca since there were still several months before the Hajj. He decided to visit Damascus – at that time the second capital of the Egyptian Mamluk Empire. This part of Ibn Battuta’s journey was somewhat uneventful, perhaps because he enjoyed relative safety in this Mamluk governed terrain. Damascus charmed Ibn Battuta with its atmosphere of tolerance and supportiveness. "The variety and expenditure of the religious endowments at Damascus are beyond computation,” he wrote. “There are endowments in aid of persons who cannot undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca, out of which are paid the expenses of those who go in their stead. There are other endowments for supplying wedding outfits to girls whose families are unable to provide them, and others for the freeing of prisoners. There are endowments for travelers, out of the revenues of which they are given food, clothing, and the expenses of conveyance to their countries. Then there are endowments for the improvement and paving of the streets, because all the lanes in Damascus have pavements on either side, on which the foot passengers walk, while those who ride use the roadway in the centre"

    In around 1326, Ibn Battuta at long last performed his pilgrimage to Mecca. After this, he realized that he was interested more than ever in continuing to travel. He had no special destination, and with his only goal being to visit as many lands as possible, he took care in choosing different routes. He traveled across the entire Middle East, from South in Ethipoia to the north in Persia. "Then we traveled to Baghdad, the Abode of Peace and Capital of Islam. Here there are two bridges like that at Hilla, on which the people promenade night and day, both men and women. The baths at Baghdad are numerous and excellently constructed, most of them being painted with pitch, which has the appearance of black marble. This pitch is brought from a spring between Kufa and Basra, from which it flows continually. It gathers at the sides of the spring like clay and is shovelled up and brought to Baghdad. Each establishment has a number of private bathrooms, every one of which has also a wash-basin in the corner, with two taps supplying hot and cold water. Every bather is given three towels, one to wear round his waist when he goes in, another to wear round his waist when he comes out, and the third to dry himself with."

    Moving along further North, Ibn Battuta took to exploring the Caspian and Black Sea regions as well as the South of Russia. His more interesting later travels were to be further east in Asia. He reached India, where he impressed the ruling Mongol emperor with his knowledge and tales. The emperor offered him a position at his court, which Ibn Battuta accepted. This gave him a chance to explore the whole of India. Having gained considerable experience during his travels around the country, he was then appointed as the Indian ambassador to China. This occupation was destined to be the final one for Battuta before he decided to return home. Facing a long journey back, he set out to his native lands. He reached north-west Africa around 1351. He made a short trip to Spain and then south to the Sahara before finally coming to Fez, Morocco in about 1353.

Back home and the Rihla

    Back in Fez, the Sultan of Morocco, Abu Inan (1348-1358 C.E), was so impressed to hear Ibn Battuta’s account of his travels, that he commanded him to remain in Fez and store his tales in a book. Then, with the help of an aspiring writer – Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi (1321-1356 C.E.) – Ibn Battuta composed his popular “Rihla.” The Rihla, or “The Travels” if translated, was comprised of four separate volumes. Perhaps, Ibn Juzayy has added a little fiction from time to time for the purpose of entertainment and easy communication, but on the whole he is believed to have strictly followed Ibn Battuta’s narrative. Strangely enough, the Rihla did not become popular until relatively recently, in the 19^th century. This is when increased contacts with Europe introduced the book there and it was translated into French, English, and other European languages. The Europeans valued the records of Ibn Battuta as an important document of historical significance.

    After finishing the Rihla, Ibn Battuta, already a man of age, did not make any long traveling through the deserts or elsewhere. He took up a position as a judge and continued to spread the wisdom he had accumulated on his travels. Although there are fewer records for the last part of Ibn Battuta’s life, it is known that he died in 1369 at the age of sixty-five. Long years after this, Ibn-Battuta remained the most traveled man in the world.

    Today, quite suitably, Ibn Battuta has been honored in the field of exploration. To commemorate his remarkable achievements in voyaging, modern scientists have named one of the Moon’s craters Ibn Battuta.