
Ibn Battuta and his adventure - jurnalanas
https://www.jurnalanas.com/2018/03/25/ibn-battuta-and-his-journey/
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zbentley
I researched this story previously, and it really is fascinating--especially
as counterpoint to the stories of Marco Polo, a lot of which are, if not
actually fabricated by the man himself and his colleagues[1], definitely
"stretched" for truth to the extreme.

On the other hand, the documentation on Ibn Battuta's travels, even accounting
for a large amount of historical skew, is informed by a lot more primary
source material and other parties' accounts than Marco Polo's.

Because his writings are (in translation at least) incredibly accessible as
stories, I've always hoped to see them getting assigned as reading to young
primary school kids. A long time ago, I lobbied for that at some
private/public schools in Colorado (and offered to help formulate curricula or
engage with the material in after school history clubs), but because of some
pretty blatant Islamophobia, nothing came of it. Ah well, boring, unengaging
textbooks it is, then.

[1] [http://www.davidmeyercreations.com/mysteries-of-
history/was-...](http://www.davidmeyercreations.com/mysteries-of-history/was-
marco-polo-a-fraud/)

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DougBTX
Is there a book you'd recommend for casual adult reading?

~~~
zbentley
As ibn_ibid suggested, getting a translation of The Travels is really the best
thing to do. It's a lovely read, with none of the archaic oddities of, say,
more-or-less literal translations of Homer or older texts. I think that high
quality is due to three things: an excellent translation by Mackintosh-Smith;
the fact that the original material was written as reportage/prose, not poetry
or correspondence; and that Ibn Battuta was just a damn good writer--
Rusticello wrote like a paperback novelist forced to write nonfiction, and it
showed.

Dunn's "The Adventures of Ibn Battuta" is also trenchant. But really start
with The Travels.

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tboyd47
I'm reading an abridged version of the _Rihla_ right now and just finished the
section on Syria. One interesting point is the system of "waqf" or charitable
foundations, that apparently encompassed every aspect of society. He relates a
story where he saw a servant boy in Damascus carrying a delicate Chinese plate
down the street. He accidentally dropped the plate on the ground and it broke.
A passerby told him to take the pieces to the "Charitable Foundation for
Utensils" and they would give him the money to buy an equivalent plate. Ibn
Battuta goes on to praise the person who set up this foundation, without
knowing their identity, since if the boy had gone back home with the broken
plate, he would have been scolded or whipped. It seems the sole purpose of the
charity was to prevent these sorts of small mistakes from spoiling relations
between people. I don't know why, but I just find this remarkable.

The way that Ibn Battuta adeptly navigates tricky social situations in faraway
lands is notable as well. At one point he is pressured into being part of a
mourning ritual which clearly offends him, but afterwards, still manages to
secure a private meeting with the local governor, in which he advises him not
to drink alcohol. He is thanked by the governor for this advice and the
townspeople as well.

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agumonkey
I recently read about usury. I never knew the proper history of the term. I
was surprised by the human side of it in the middle ages.

I feel that a lot of ways of the past had high values for the human existence
and is never passed down.

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boreas
I recently read the IB text and loved it. Someone already mentioned the fact
that IB has more historical material than Marco Polo, but there are a bunch of
other contrasts as well.

Most importantly to me, Marco Polo follows a sort of ethnographic style which
arranges the narrative around the description of all the peoples and regions
he encountered. IB describes his journey linearly in chronological order,
which makes more sense to the modern reader. Secondly, we get a much greater
sense of the personality of IB in his travelogue. He talks about bursting into
tears from loneliness, he talks about longing to be able to stay forever on an
idyllic tropical islet, etc.

For those who are interested, my favorite medieval travelogues are:

\- William of Rubruck [1] Friar who traveled to the court of the Mongols. Very
sharp and strong personality. Featuring a three-way debate between Muslims,
Christians, and Buddhists.

\- Ibn Fadlan [2] Abbasid envoy to the Volga Bulgars. Featuring pre-Islamic
Turks, Jewish Khazars, and of course the absolutely insane viking ship burial.

[1]
[https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html](https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/rubruck.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan)

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walterbell
_> They had been observing us (in the palace) and drawing our portraits
without our noticing it. This is a custom of theirs, I mean making portraits
of all who pass through their country. In fact they have brought this to such
perfection that if a stranger commits any offence that obliges him to flee
from China, they send his portrait far and wide. A search is then made for him
and where so ever the person bearing a resemblance to that portrait is found
is arrested._

Facial recognition! How did this craft/profession arise historically?

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toyg
_> How did this craft/profession arise historically?_

I suspect Battuta himself is suggesting why it started, right there - he's
just swapping cause and effect, likely out of courtesy.

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geverett
In college I researched Abd Allah Ibn Buluggin, the last of the Zirid rulers
of Granada (ruled 1073-1090). He wrote a snarky memoir in exile (1091-1095)
that describes his travels, a bit, but mostly lists all the people who did him
wrong during his rule. It feels like you're reading the diary of a teenage
girl who has been kicked out of the cool club. This led me down a rabbit hole
of reading all sorts of Islamic scholars/travelers' works, and the overriding
feeling in all of it is that we're all, deep down, pretty much the same. (you
can read the diary here:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=ltcUAAAAIAAJ](https://books.google.com/books?id=ltcUAAAAIAAJ)
)

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Mediterraneo10
I was enchanted by Ibn Battuta’s travels, but I came away from them feeling
that he was a bit of a jerk. Multiple times on his journey he’d marry a local
woman, get her pregnant, and then move on, leaving her only a paltry sum to
support herself and their kid.

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boreas
Totally agree. And the amount of sexual access these upper class medieval
Muslims had is pretty insane. Not only does IB marry women and leave them, he
buys "slave girls" all the time on the cheap.

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alsadi
Why do you think non-muslim communities of that time were any different. Do
you when USA end slavery or when they recognize women as full human beings?

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vowelless
حبيبي I read his comment many times but I do not read that what you read. He
doesn't say other communities were strictly superior.

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hnmullany
Another travelogue ~ 100 years earlier. Ibn Jubayr goes from Cordoba to the
Haj and on to a crumbling Baghdad (pre-mongol - interesting).

Stops in norman sicily on the way back: [https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Ibn-
Jubayr-J-C-Broadhurst/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Ibn-Jubayr-J-C-
Broadhurst/dp/8187570555)

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gadders
Ibn Fadlan is a similar Arab "travelogue":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan)

He gets to meet a bunch of Volga Vikings and sees a ship burial.

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vram22
I had read Marco Polo's story as a kid. It was somewhat entertaining, IIRC,
whether made up or not.

What are some other good travel tales from classical or medieval times?

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fbn79
Polo family was uneducated?!

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alsadi
ابن بطوطة

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toyg
I have no idea what you wrote, but as somebody who grew through decades of
bakeji and '?', I love how modern systems are finally mature enough to deal
smoothly with non-ASCII languages.

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saidmasoud
It's "Ibn Battuta" in Arabic.

