GREAT TRAVELLER IBN e BATTUTA

All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels. Ibn Battuta was born into a Berber family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco, on February 25, 1304 during the reign of the Marinid dynasty As a young man he would have studied the Sunni Maliki madhhab of Muslim law, which was dominant in North Africa at the time. In June 1325, when he was twenty one years old, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, a journey that would take 16 months, but he would not see Morocco again for 24 years.His journey to Mecca was by land, and followed the North African coast crossing the sultanates of Abd al-Wadid and Hafsid. His route passed through Tlemcen, Béjaïa and then to Tunis where he stayed for two months. He usually chose to join a caravan to reduce the risk of being attacked by wandering Arab bedouin. In the town of Sfax, he got married for the first of several occasions on his journeys.In the early spring of 1326, after a journey of over 3,500 km (2,200 mi), Ibn Battuta arrived at the port of Alexandria, then part of the Bahri Mamluk empire. He spent several weeks visiting the sites and then headed inland to Cairo, a large important city and capital of the Mamluk kingdom, where he stayed for about a month. Within Mamluk territory, travelling was relatively safe and he embarked on the first of his many detours. Three commonly used routes existed to Mecca, and Ibn Battuta chose the least-travelled: a journey up the Nile valley, then east to the Red Sea port of Aydhab. However, upon approaching the town he was forced to turn back due to a local rebellion.Returning to Cairo, Ibn Battuta took a second side trip to Damascus (then controlled by the Mamluks), having encountered a holy man , Shaykh Abul Hasan al Shadili, during his first trip who prophesied that he would only reach Mecca after a journey through Syria. An additional advantage to the side journey was that other holy places lay along the route—Hebron, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem—and the Mamluk authorities made great efforts to keep the routes safe for pilgrims.After spending the Muslim month of Ramadan in Damascus, he joined up with a caravan travelling the 1,500 km (930 mi) from Damascus to Medina, burial place of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. After 4 days in the town, he journeyed on to Mecca. There he completed the usual rituals of a Muslim pilgrim, and having graduated to the status of al-Hajji, faced his return home but instead decided to continue journeying. His next destination was the Ilkhanate situated in modern-day Iraq and Iran.

Visited by Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta travelled almost 75,000 miles in his lifetime. Here is a list of places he visited.

Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia

Tangier

Fes

Marrakech

Tlemcen (Tilimsan)

Miliana

Algiers

Djurdjura Mountains

Béjaïa

Constantine - Named as Qusantînah.

Annaba - Also called Bona.

Tunis - At that time, Abu Yahya (son of Abu Zajaria) was the sultan of Tunis.

Sousse - Also called Susah.

Sfax

Gabès

Libya

Tripoli

Mamluk Empire

Cairo

Alexandria

Jerusalem

Bethlehem

Hebron

Damascus

Latakia

Egypt

Syria

Arabian Peninsula

Medina - Visited the tomb of Prophet Muhammad.

Jeddah

Mecca - Performed the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Rabigh - City north of Jeddah on the Red Sea.

Oman

Dhofar

Bahrain

Al-Hasa

Strait of Hormuz

Yemen

Qatif

Spain

Granada

Valencia

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Europe

Konya

Antalya

Bulgaria

Azov

Kazan

Volga River

Constantinople 

Central Asia

Khwarezm and Khorasan (now Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Balochistan (region) and Afghanistan)

Bukhara and Samarqand

Pashtun areas of eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan (Pashtunistan)

India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh

Punjab region (now in Pakistan and northern India)

Sindh

Multan

Delhi

Present day Uttar Pradesh

Deccan

Konkan Coast

Kozhikode

Malabar

Bengal (now Bangladesh and West Bengal)

Brahmaputra River in Bangladesh visited the area on his way from China.

Meghna River near Dhaka

Sylhet met Muslim saint Hazrat Shah Jalal Yamani, commonly known as Shah Jalal.

China

Quanzhou - as he called in his book the city of donkeys

Hangzhou — Ibn Battuta referred to this city in his book as "Madinat Alkhansa" مدينة الخنساء. He also mentioned that it was the largest city in the world at that time; it took him three days to walk across the city.

Beijing - Ibn Battuta mentioned in his journey to Beijing how neat the city was.

Other places in Asia

Burma (Myanmar)

Maldives

Sri Lanka - Known to the Arabs of his time as Serendip. Battuta visited the Jaffna kingdom and Adam's Peak.

Sumatra Indonesia

Malay Peninsula Malaysia

Philippines - Ibn Battuta visited the Kingdom of Sultan Tawalisi, Tawi-Tawi, the country's southernmost province.

Somalia

Mogadishu

Zeila

Swahili Coast

Kilwa

Mombasa

Mali West Africa

Timbuktu

Gao

Takedda

Mauritania

Oualata (Walata)

During most of his journey in the Mali Empire, Ibn Battuta travelled with a retinue that included slaves, most of whom carried goods for trade but would also be traded as slaves. On the return from Takedda to Morocco, his caravan transported 600 female slaves, suggesting that slavery was a substantial part of the commercial activity of the empire.

Ibn Battuta was the only medieval traveller who is known to have visited the lands of every Muslim ruler of his time. He also travelled in Ceylon (present Sri Lanka), China and Byzantium and South Russia. The mere extent of his travels is estimated at no less than 75,000 miles, a figure which is not likely to have been surpassed before the age of steam.