Justin Marozzi is
a historian and travel
writer, and the author
of Islamic Empires:
Fifteen Cities that Define
a Civilization (Allen
Lane, 2019)AL
AM
Y
In the great imperial city of Fez, Ibn Battuta
dictated the story of his life to a young writer.
The result was his voluminous memoir
Bangladesh. Ibn Battuta thought it
squalid, “a hell crammed with good
things”, the latter presumably including
the “extremely beautiful” slave girl he
purchased. Sailing south again through
the Strait of Malacca, he reached the
Chinese port of Quanzhou later that
year, though only after pirates and
shipwrecks had once again robbed him
of all his possessions. The orthodox
Muslim did not take to China. Though
impressed by the size of cities such
as Hangzhou, at that time probably
the most populous cit y on Earth, he
confessed to being “greatly troubled” by
the country’s “paganism”. The truth is
that he was invariably happier travelling
among his fellow Muslims, and by 1348
he was en route home via Sumatra.
During the 6,000-mile journey back
to Morocco, in Damascus he learnt of
the death of his father some 15 yearswhat he called the “feeble intellect” of
his fellow Africans.
Returning to Morocco from Mali,
in 1354 Ibn Battuta settled in Fez, the
great imperial cit y of Morocco. It was
there, under the orders of the great
Marinid Sultan Abu Inan – who was
understandably impressed by the
scholarly traveller – that he dictated the
story of his life to a young writer, Ibn
Juzayy. The result was his voluminous
memoir, The Precious Gift for Lookers
into the Marvels of Cities and Wonders
of Travel, known in Arabic as the Rihla
(‘Journey’). The ultimate Arab trave-
logue is as fresh today as it was when first
dictated in the mid-14th centur y, at once
erudite, anecdotal, humorous, humane
and consistently entertaining.earlier and of a 10-year-old son he had
never met. Yet no sooner had he
returned to Morocco than he resolved to
cross the Sahara to visit the empire of
Mali, and set out in late 1351. Once
there, he was disappointed by the food,
including millet porridge and a yam-like
root that made him seriously ill. But he
was as determined as ever to receive the
lavish presents from the ruler that he felt
were his due.
“I have journeyed to the countries of
the world and met their kings,” he told
Mansa (emperor) Sulayman of Mali
quite brazenly. “I have been four months
in your country without your giving me
a reception gift or anything else. What
shall I say of you in the presence of other
sultans?” The unabashed request had
the desired effect: a house, an allowance
and a quantity of gold. Not that this in
any way curbed his acerbic comments onLights glimmer from the
temple on top of Adam’s Peak ,
Sri Lanka. Ibn Battuta climbed
the peak to see a ‘footprint’
believed by Muslims to have
been left by the first man