Ibn Battuta

بطوطة ابنMoroccan explorer

By: Nissrine Kerroum

Ibn Battuta was a traveler and a writer back in the Middle Ages. His

journeys and his accomplishments were similar to another person that you have probably heard of -- Marco Polo. Marco Polo's name appeared in history books everywhere, and he became famous. Ibn Battuta was not famous for a long time.

Ibn Battuta was born in 1304 in Tangier, Morocco. He was brought up as a Muslim. One thing that Muslims believed in was going on a pilgrimage, called a hajj, to the city of Mecca. When he was 21 years old, Ibn Battuta decided that it was time for his first pilgrimage. He set out for Mecca, along the way he joined a group of other travelers for safety.

Battuta must have enjoyed traveling, because, after he finished his visit to Mecca, he just kept on traveling. Battuta kept traveling for 30 years!

During those years he returned to Mecca several more times,

but he also visited many more places in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He visited all of the large Muslim empires of his time.

The places where Battuta traveled included the country of Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, the north coast of the continent of Africa, the Red Sea, the Nile River, the Pacific Ocean, much of the Africa’s East Coast, and parts of Russia. All together, he traveled about 75,000 miles, even farther than Marco Polo!

Like Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta kept records of interesting sites from his journey. He recorded how people lived and new ideas that he learned from them. Also like Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta dictated stories to a writer who could turn them into a good book after he returned. Battuta’s book was called Rihla, or My Travels.

Ibn Battuta’s travel path

One of the places that he described was Baghdad, a city in Iraq that you

have probably heard about on the world news. At that time. He described Baghdad as the “Adobe (home) of peace, and the capital of Islam.”

He wrote about his sea voyages. From his records we know that sea trade on the red sea, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Sea, and the waters around China were controlled by Muslim empires at that time.

He described the city of Damascus as a place where artisans worked making items by hand, including lace and swords. He also wrote about a system in Damascus to provide public money to help its citizens. Damascus’system provided money for sending someone to take your place on a pilgrimage if you were ill, money for wedding dresses, and money for paving the streets.

Battuta also described Pyramids. People who had never seen a pyramid could now imagine what one looked like by reading Battuta’s writings. They would know that a pyramid was huge and made of stone blocks. They would also know that it was not shaped like many other buildings, but instead was pointed on top. These are only a few of the many, many things that Ibn Battuta described.

Baghdad

Damascus

Pyramids Of Egypt

Lots of people get

to travel, but those who can describe their travels to inform and entertain others have a special skill. Battuta is now becoming more famous, as people get to know about his travels and his writing.