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14th century · 1304–1369 CE / 703–770 AH
Ibn Battuta
أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله بن بطوطة
Abū ʿAbdullāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Baṭṭūṭah
- Birthplace
- Tangier, Morocco
- Reference
- Wikipedia ↗
The Riḥlah — a 30-year, 75,000-mile journey across three continents, and the most important travel account of the pre-modern world.
Ibn Battuta set out from Tangier at age 21 intending to perform Hajj. He did not return home for nearly three decades. His Riḥlah records his travels from Morocco to China, from the Volga to Sri Lanka, through courts, caravanserais, and shrines — a living portrait of the 14th-century Muslim world at its most connected.
- Tuḥfat al-Nuẓẓār fī Gharāʾib al-Amṣār wa ʿAjāʾib al-Asfār (The Rihla)
Ibn Battuta travelled further than any person before the age of steam. The Riḥlah is the single richest first-hand source we have on the world of the Islamicate in the 1300s.
