What did Ibn Battuta see in Baghdad after the Mongols?
A century after the Mongol sack of Baghdad, Ibn Battuta walked its diminished streets and recorded what had been lost — and what, against every expectation, had survived.
5 passages from 2 books in the library
The classical approach.
These passages are drawn from 2 books by Ibn Battuta — part of the classical Sunni tradition that carries over a thousand years of reflection on the Qurʾān, the authentic Sunnah, and the consensus of the early community. Nothing below is a paraphrase. The words are the scholars' own, translated from the original Arabic manuscripts.
14th century · Tangier, Morocco
The Riḥlah — a 30-year, 75,000-mile journey across three continents, and the most important travel account of the pre-modern world.
More on Ibn Battuta →
· Provenance →
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"Tenghis later returned to Iraq, culminating in the Tatar's entry into the seat of Islam and the Caliphate, Baghdad, leading to the massacre of the Caliph al-Mustasim Billah al-Abbasi. May God have mercy on him."
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"This city was the capital of the lands beyond the Jehun River and was ruined by the cursed Tenghis, the Tatar, the progenitor of the kings of Iraq."
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"He advanced into the lands of Khorasan and the Persian Iraq, where the Muslims rose against him in Balkh and beyond the river."
14th century · Tangier, Morocco
The Riḥlah — a 30-year, 75,000-mile journey across three continents, and the most important travel account of the pre-modern world.
More on Ibn Battuta →
· Provenance →
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"There, I encountered a distinguished jurist from Baghdad called al-Sarsari, named after a town ten miles from Baghdad on the road to Kufa, its name being the same as the sur sur near us in the Maghreb."
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"He had a brother in this city with substantial wealth who left young children under his care, and I left him preparing to take them to Baghdad."
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