What did Ibn Battuta see in Damascus?
Ibn Battuta arrived in Damascus on his first journey, years before the Black Death devastated the city. His description is the classical portrait of a Muslim metropolis at its height.
10 passages from 4 books in the library
Ibn Battuta found Damascus a flourishing Muslim metropolis, ringed on every side except the east by spacious, well-watered suburbs. In his Riḥlah he describes its commerce — carob sweets sent from Nablus, merchants extending credit in dirhams — and a city dense with scholars and Sufi shaykhs, including a companion of Shaykh ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Kūnawī who had settled there. Returning after twenty years, he traveled onward through Homs, Hama, Maʿarra and Sarmīn to Aleppo. His account is the classical portrait of Damascus at its height, before the Black Death.
Drawn from the classical sources below — in the scholars' own words.
The classical approach.
These passages are drawn from 4 books by Ibn Battuta, Ibn Kathir, 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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"from there to Egypt and Damascus. Nablus is also noted for making carob sweets sent to Damascus"
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"Muhammad ibn Juzay stated, one of the latter-day poets of Damascus rightfully said, Damascus,"
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"of Damascus, around Damascus, except on the eastern side, are spacious suburbs, their"
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"He once recounted his story of borrowing 6,000 dirhams kirad from a merchant in Damascus, which he sold on credit."
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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"city of Damascus in Syria. I had been absent from it for a full twenty years. When I left,"
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"one of Shaykh ala al-Din al-Kunawi's companions who had come with him to Damascus and gained recognition there."
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"Then I traveled from Damascus to Homs, then to Hama, then Ma'ara, and then to Sarman before arriving in Aleppo."
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"I did not meet anyone in Syria or Egypt who had reached the stature of Adam, peace be upon him, aside from him."
14th century · Bosra, Syria
Monumental history Al-Bidāyah wa al-Nihāyah, the world's most widely read Qurʾanic commentary, and the classical Stories of the Prophets.
More on Ibn Kathir →
· Provenance →
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"Israel in Syria, and when he arrived in Syria, he reconciled with them. The people"
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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"When Abd al-malik Ibn Marwan lay dying he observed a washerman beside Damascus twisting a cloth and striking it against the washing board"
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