Volume One: From Tangier to the Lands of the East

What is Volume One of the Rihla?

The Rihla is the travel account of Ibn Battuta, who set out from Tangier in the 14th century and spent thirty years on the road, covering some 75,000 miles across three continents. Its full title, given at the head of the text, is A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling. The work answers the question every traveller is asked on returning: what did you see? Volume One covers the first half of the journey, from Tangier eastward into the lands of the East.

The volume opens with an introduction that names its author in full: the Shaykh, scholar and pilgrim Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim, called al-Tanji and known as Ibn Battuta, who died in 779 AH. Before a single city is described, the text praises Allah, who subdued the earth for His servants so that they might travel its broad paths, who set the stars as guides through the darkness of land and sea, who made the two seas, one sweet and one salt, and who subjected animal mounts and seafaring ships so that people may ride the desert and the ocean.

The introduction sets travel inside a larger picture. Allah, it says, subdued the earth so that His servants might traverse it, and gave them three journeys to and from it: growth, returning, and resurrection. The reader is invited, as the title says, to contemplate the wonders of cities and the marvels of travelling, not only to hear about them. What follows is a first-person account of the cities Ibn Battuta entered and what he met on the way east.

Last updated 2026-09-11