366 Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad ibn Muhammad
finance his future travels, he became an itinerant QADI,or
Muslim legal scholar. Leaving Mecca, he traveled to mod-
ern Yemen, and then to Africa, modern Somalia, Mom-
bassa, and Tanzania.
From east Africa, Ibn Battuta sailed to Oman in Arabia
and then went back to Mecca for a third pilgrimage in
- He then traveled up the eastern coast of the Mediter-
ranean, then crossed ANATOLIA. From the city of Sinope on
the BLACKSEA, he sailed to the Genoese port of Caffa in
the Crimean Peninsula and headed inland to the steppes of
southern RUSSIA, entering the domains of the MONGOLS.At
the request of one of the Mongol khan’s wives, he escorted
her back to her native CONSTANTINOPLE, where he met the
Byzantine emperor Andronikos III (r. 1328–41). Ibn Bat-
tuta stayed there for five weeks and then returned to the
Mongol capital at New Sarai on the Volga River.
CENTRAL ASIA, INDIA, SUMATRA, AND CHINABy this time, Ibn Battuta incredibly had become a wealthy
man, claiming he was welcomed by princely courts and
showered with presents. Now with an entourage, he trav-
eled across the steppes to Khwarizm, south of the Aral Sea.
From there he went by camel to BUKHARAand SAMARKAND.
Leaving Samarkand, he went south across the Amu Darya
River to Meshed through eastern Iran and then into
Afghanistan. He passed over the Hindu Kush Mountains
and reached the Indus River in September of 1335.
Ibn Battuta sent word to the court of the sultan in
Delhi of his planned visit. The Mogul emperor was a
patron of scholars and welcomed him warmly, maintain-
ing him there for seven years in the capacity of judge, or
qadi.However, he offended the sultan, was put under
house arrest for five months, but then was named to an
embassy to the court of the last Mongol ruler of China.
Unfortunately, his ship was wrecked by a violent storm
off the south coast of India. Afraid of returning to Delhi,
he sailed for the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, where a
queen befriended him and gave him an official post. He
became involved in local politics, however, and was
forced to leave in August 1344 for Sri Lanka. Having
more adventures, he eventually visited Sumatra and
China in 1346. Ibn Battuta was impressed by Chinese civ-
ilization but deplored its “paganism.” He left China in the
fall of 1346 and returned to the West, where he saw on
his way the results of the Black Death. He made another
pilgrimage to Mecca in November of 1348 and reached
FEZin Morocco on November 8, 1349.
HOME AGAIN, AL-ANDALUS, AND AFRICABy then 45 years old and away for 24 years, he returned
to Tangier, where his mother had died only a few months
previously. Ibn Battuta then joined an army to defend the
fortress of Gibraltar from Christians. After its successful
defense and still driven by wanderlust, he traveled
through Muslim AL-ANDALUSand visited the cities of
Malaga and GRANADA. Still eager to travel, in 1352 Ibn
Battuta set out with a caravan to MALI,TIMBUKTU, Niger,
and southern Algeria. He arrived back in Fez in January
of 1354 and settled down at last. The sultan there pro-
vided him with assistance to record a dictated narrative of
his travels. Al-Rihla (The journey), an elaborate and
detailed report, was finished in December of 1355. Ibn
Battuta spent the rest of his life as a judge near Fez,
where he died in 1369 at the age 64. Scholars have
accepted that he actually did much of what he claimed,
except the visit to Constantinople and the period in
China. He was at the same time much influenced by the
earlier accounts and style of another Muslim traveler, Ibn
Jubayr (1145–1217).
Further reading:Ibn Battuta, Travels of Ibn Battuta,
A.D. 1325–1354,trans. H. A. R. Gibb, 4 vols. (Cambridge:
Hakluyt Society, 1958–1971); Ibn Battuta, Ibn Battúta:
Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325–1354(London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1929); Rose E. Dunn, The Travels of Ibn
Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986).Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad ibn Muhammad (iman of Bagh-
dad)(780–855)scholar, teacher
Ibn Hanbal was born in 780, the son of a soldier in the
ABBASID army. His intellectual life was primarily con-
cerned with lexicography, jurisprudence, and the tradi-
tions of ISLAM, especially as found in the HADITH.He
traveled about the Muslim world in pursuit of his studies
but lived primarily at AL-BASRAin IRAQ, though he made
five pilgrimages to MECCA. Eventually he moved to
BAGHDAD, where he gained reputation as a teacher. There
and throughout his life, he never accepted payment for
his teaching. Opposing rationalistic speculation, he said
that only the QURANand the HADITHwere of value for the
study of LAWand THEOLOGY. He was persecuted for his
defense of the orthodox position on the eternity of the
Quran, even restrained from teaching until a new CALIPH,
al-Mutawakkil (r. 847–861), officially supported his posi-
tion. His sons collected his work on the hadith,the Mus-
nad,but most of the rest of his writing has been lost. He
had two children by his two wives, six by a concubine,
and died in 855.
Further reading:Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of
Hanbalism: Piety into Power(London: Routledge Curzon,
2002); Walter M. Patton, Ahmed ibn Hanbal and the
Mihna: A Biography of the Imâm Including an Account of
the Mohammedan Inquisition Called the Mihna, 218–234
A.H.(Leiden: Brill, 1897); W. Montgomery Watt, The For-
mative Period of Islamic Thought(Oxford: Oneworld Pub-
lications, 1998).Ibn Khaldun, Wali al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn
Muhammad (1332–1406) historian, philosopher, statesman
Ibn Khaldun was born on May 27, 1332, in TUNIS. His
Yemenite family had settled in SEVILLEafter the Muslim