“I left Tangier, my birthplace, on June 13, 1325, to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. I waved farewell to all my friends, women and men alike, and left my home as a bird leaves its nest.”
Thus begins Ibn Battuta, perhaps the greatest traveler of all time, his adventurous tale. The journey would last 29 years and take him to the remotest parts of Asia. By the time he finally had enough, he had visited 44 of the countries we find on today’s world map.
Tangier lies at the northern tip of Africa, directly across from Gibraltar. For centuries, the city had been a hub for regional travel and trade. Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, and Spaniards had all ruled here in turn. Caravans stopped here; ships were loaded and unloaded in the port, and sailing vessels from half the globe lay at anchor. Lush tales flew through the air like sharp shots. It was amid the fortune-tellers and storytellers that the seed was sown. Ibn Battuta, 22 years old, mounted a donkey and set off toward the sunrise.
Mecca lay 4,500 kilometers away.
Ibn knew the journey would be long and dangerous, and there was no shortage of warnings. But an “inner force” compelled him to go; he had to set out, no matter the cost. For the first three weeks, he rode alone, but soon discovered it was safer to join organized caravans. In Algiers, he fell ill, and when the caravan resumed its journey, he barely managed to stay on the camel’s back. “If God has decreed that I shall die, then I shall die on the road, with my face turned toward Mecca…”
Eventually, the caravan became a school of Islam, “a procession in honor of God.” As it approached Egypt, it numbered several thousand travelers—pilgrims and merchants alike. Upon arriving in Cairo, he noted that the city had “12,000 water carriers and 30,000 other porters.” On the Nile, 36,000 boats drifted in the warm, calm breeze.
In the Nile Delta, Ibn met the dream interpreter Abu Abdullah al-Murshidi. One night, while sleeping on the roof of Abu’s simple hut, he had a dream. Snoring and adrift, he saw the future unfold: “I dreamed I sat on the wing of a great bird flying me toward Mecca—and then to Yemen. At last, it made a wide arc and flew eastward, landing in a green land and setting me down.”
The next morning, he was amazed to find Abu already knew about the dream. After interpreting it, the sheikh declared that Ibn would journey to “the ends of the earth” and become the greatest traveler of all time. As a contribution to the travel fund, he received “a considerable amount of cakes and silver coins,” and the journey continued. First to Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Hebron, then to Lebanon and Syria.
Several months later, Ibn Battuta staggered into the holiest of all cities: “We fell to our knees in the House of God the Most High and lifted our eyes to the Kaaba, we walked the seven rounds and kissed the Black Stone, we drank water from the sacred Zamzam well, and finally checked into a hostel near the Gate of Abraham.” His depictions of local life are full of color and vitality, and one evening he witnesses a thief having his hand cut off. A hard strike with the sword, and the hand with its long fingers crashes into the desert dust.
For the next 28 years, Battuta continued to travel. The map of his endless journeys recalls a hangover drawing by Pablo Picasso—a tangle of squiggles and detours, impulses and outbursts, straight lines broken by sharp turns—Africa, Crimea and the Russian steppes, the Silk Road to Bukhara and Samarkand, then Anatolia, Afghanistan, and Persia. Like Marco Polo (1254–1324), he benefited from the Pax Mongolica—the Mongol Peace. Much of Asia was under Mongol rule. Old borders had vanished; the roads were open.
Like Polo, Ibn Battuta chose horse and camel—there were no better means of transport. Eventually, probably in 1333, he arrived in India. The ruling sultan was so impressed by the Moroccan traveler that he appointed him as India’s ambassador to China. Battuta accepted with gratitude. Next stop: the sea.
The caravan to the Indian Ocean consisted of a thousand royal riders, concubines and dancing women, drummers and servants, and a steaming kitchen that made the farmers by the roadside clutch their stomachs. Perhaps that’s why the caravan was attacked by robbers. The newly appointed ambassador was stripped of both clothes and sword and suddenly stood naked and alone in a dried-up riverbed. At the last moment, he was rescued by Muslim soldiers and transported by boat to the port city of Calicut. There, he hired three Chinese sailing ships, each with twelve sails, and everything was set for the long voyage to China.
On the day of departure—a Friday—Ibn Battuta knelt and prayed to Allah—in vain. On the horizon, the clear blue turned suddenly black. A terrible hurricane swept in from the sea and reduced the fully loaded ships to splinters. Within hours, the entire entourage—captains, sailors, and slaves, along with a hundred horses—had drowned in the raging waves. Battuta was left standing on the rocky shore with his soaking prayer rug and a few pitiful coins in his pocket. What now?
Fearful of the sultan’s reaction, Battuta chose to remain silent about the shipwreck. Instead, he decided to continue on his own. Months later, he waded ashore in the Maldives—a tropical island chain with swaying palms and sugar-white beaches. The reception was glorious. When Queen Khadija heard that the visitor was India’s ambassador to China, she showered him with grand gifts—gold, pearls, and countless beautiful slave women. “Stay as long as you like,” said the queen. And Battuta stayed. He quickly discovered that love was quite unrestrained on the islands: “I had four wives—not counting the concubines. Each night I changed partners.”
By day, he worked as a judge. Having spent most of his life among well-dressed Muslims, he was disturbed to see so many half-naked people—especially women: “Most wear only a loincloth. As a judge, I tried to persuade the women to cover up, but to no avail.” His anxiety over others’ lax morals is a recurring theme, and time and again we read of his efforts to correct the sinners.
If we believe Battuta, he eventually tore himself away from the women, the palms, and the blood-red sunsets. One spring day in 1338, he landed on Chinese soil, likely in the port city of Quanzhou. “For the traveler, China is the safest of all lands,” he reported. The country proved to be extraordinarily rich. According to Battuta, even beggars and poor monks wore silk. His description of China’s wealth shares much with Marco Polo’s. Yet, he disliked much of Chinese culture, and the food—mainly pork and dog meat—did not appeal to him at all.
Unlike the great Venetian, who stayed in China for seventeen years, Battuta settled for three. He returned home by sea, stopping along the way in Sumatra, Calicut, Hormuz, and Baghdad. Again, he visited Mecca to circle the Black Kaaba and pray to his Lord and Master.
In 1354, after more years of adventure and perilous travels, Battuta docked in his childhood city. Not long before, his mother had passed away. Still, he declared Morocco the best of all lands, as it had “plenty of water and crops,” and its people always ate their fill. But what does a true traveler do as soon as he unpacks? Of course—he packs again. And Battuta left, this time to explore the world south of the Sahara. Camels brought him to Mali, where he was received by King Mansa Suleyman. The king proved an ungenerous host, and somewhat disappointed, Battuta returned the same way to report back to the Sultan of Fez.
The sultan was a curious man. He asked Battuta to write a Rihla, a travel account covering the entire period he had been away from home. A young poet, Ibn Juzayy, was assigned to assist him, and two years later the work was complete. In the years that followed, Battuta served as a judge near Fez. Eventually, death came knocking—probably in 1368 or 1369.
Today, tourists visiting Tangier are drawn to a building said to be Ibn Battuta’s final resting place. Guides claim the patch of land once belonged to the Battuta family. Tourists are led into a whitewashed house to view a silk-draped coffin about one and a half meters long. The remains beneath the lid are said to be those of the Great Traveler—but no one can prove it. Regardless, the sleepy guards at the gate earn a few coins each day.
The manuscript containing Battuta’s writings, in Arabic, is safely stored in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. For a long time, there was little interest in it, even in the Islamic world, and only in the 19th century was it translated into French, German, and English. Thus, Marco Polo “stole the show” for several hundred years. But anyone comparing Battuta’s account to Polo’s will find that the Moroccan has much more to tell. His journeys are more numerous, the events far more dramatic, and his language livelier. How credible his descriptions are is another matter. Like Marco Polo, he may have been tempted to exaggerate, and Ibn Juzayy’s poetic pen likely ran wild at times.
Historians may point to the chapters on China as the book’s weakest. As soon as Battuta sets foot in the Middle Kingdom, he becomes less specific—leading some to doubt he ever traveled that far. In that respect, he shares Marco Polo’s fate.
Unlike Polo, who was a merchant, Battuta was driven by deep religious conviction. As a Sunni Muslim, he was deeply concerned with the state of the faith in other lands. Wherever he went, he sought out learned Muslims to absorb new knowledge. Where Marco Polo talks of exchange rates and life in the bazaars, Battuta is more focused on describing religious life. He is critical of Shia Muslims, Christians, and Jews—and has no tolerance at all for polytheists.
“You become tolerant with age, and you become extremely tolerant by traveling,” wrote Mark Twain.
But Ibn Battuta held firmly to his principles until his dying breath.
