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.
10 passages from 4 books in the library
Ibn Battuta reached Baghdad, "the abode of peace," roughly a century after the Mongol catastrophe he himself records: the Tatars' entry into "the seat of Islam and the Caliphate" and the killing of the Caliph al-Mustasim Billah al-Abbasi, whom he prays God to have mercy on. Yet the city still lived. His arrival coincided with the presence of the King of Iraq, the sultan Shaykh Hassan; he met learned men such as the Baghdadi jurist al-Sarsari, and he still rated Baghdad's markets superior to those he saw elsewhere.
Drawn from the classical sources below — in the scholars' own words.
The classical approach.
These passages are drawn from 4 books by Ibn Battuta and Imam al-Ghazali — 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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"We then journeyed from there to Baghdad, the city of Baghdad, Baghdad, the abode of peace"
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"Among its praises by women of Baghdad, alas for its Baghdad and Iraq, and its gazelles"
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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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"My arrival in Baghdad coincided with the presence of the King of Iraq, let us mention him here."
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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"al-Din in Baghdad and confirmed his lineage to the Baghdad scholars. He testified to the Sultan"
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"I compared it to Baghdad, except for Baghdad's superior markets. In Marrakech, there is a"
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"this. During my visit, the sultan of Baghdad and Iraq was Sheikh Hassan, son of Sultan"
11th–12th century · Ṭūs, Khurāsān
Reviving the inner life of Islam through the Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn — one of the most influential works ever written in any religious tradition.
More on Imam al-Ghazali →
· Provenance →
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"It is the majority of grants in this era except for lands in Iraq, which, according to al-Shafi'i,"
11th–12th century · Ṭūs, Khurāsān
Reviving the inner life of Islam through the Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn — one of the most influential works ever written in any religious tradition.
More on Imam al-Ghazali →
· Provenance →
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"It is narrated that Abu al-Hassan al-Daragh set out from Baghdad to visit Yusuf ibn al-Husayn"
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