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ALAMY/AWL IMAGES/ ANDREW MCCONNELL–ROBERT HARDING
Women browse a spice
stall in the souks of
Cairo’s Khan al-Khalili
bazaar district,
originally built in the
14th centuryTraditional feluccas
(lateen-rigged sailboats)
throng the Nile at Aswan.
When Ibn Battuta journeyed
along Egypt’s great river,
he may have travelled in
a similar type of boatThe impressive remains of Karak,
a cr us ader castle in w hat ’s now
Jordan. Ibn Battuta visited Karak
in 1326, calling it “one of the most
marvellous, inaccessible and
celebrated of fortresses”The view across the medieval quarter
known as Islamic Cairo is dominated by
a forest of minaret s – much as it would
have been when Ibn Battuta was
mesmerised by the “mother of cities”