Ibn-i-Batutah

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Ibn Batutah (1304 – 1369) or Ibn Battuta (इब्न-बतूता) was a Moroccan explorer.

Full name

Ibn Baṭūṭah (Hindi: इब्न बतूता, Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد بن عبد الله اللواتي الطنجي بن بطوطة‎, ʾAbū ʿAbd al-Lāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Lāh l-Lawātī ṭ-Ṭanǧī ibn Baṭūṭah), or simply Ibn Battuta (ابن بطوطة) (February 25, 1304 – 1368 or 1369), was a Moroccan explorer of Berber descent.[1]

His journeys

He is known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in the Rihla (lit. "Journey"). Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many non-Muslim lands. His journeys included trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa and Eastern Europe in the West, and to the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, India and China. Ibn Battuta is generally considered one of the greatest travellers of all times.[2]


Early life

All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels. Ibn Battuta was born into a family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco, on February 25, 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty.[3] He claimed descent from the tribe known as the Lawata.[4] As a young man he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madh'hab, (Islamic jurisprudence school), the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. [5]

In June 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would take sixteen months. He would not see Morocco again for twenty-four years.

In India

In 1333-1334 Ibn Batutah Arrived India.

In 1342 Ibn Batutah leaves Delhi on his mission to China.

Arriving in Constantinople towards the end of 1332, he met the Greek emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos. He visited the great church of Hagia Sophia and spoke with a Christian Orthodox priest about his travels in the city of Jerusalem. After a month in the city, Ibn Battuta returned to Astrakhan, then arrived in the capital city Sarai al-Jadid and reported his travelling account to Sultan Öz Beg Khan (r. 1313–1341). Thereafter he continued past the Caspian and Aral Seas to Bukhara and Samarkand. There he visited the court of another Mongolian king, Tarmashirin (r. 1331-1334) of the Chagatai Khanate.[6]

From there, he journeyed south to Afghanistan, ruled by the Mongols, then crossed into India via the mountain passes of the Hindu-Kush. In the Rihla, he mentions these mountains and the history of the range.[7] From there, he made his way to Delhi and became acquainted with the sultan, Muhammad bin Tughluq.

Muhammad bin Tughluq was renowned as the wealthiest man in the Muslim world at that time. He patronized various scholars, Sufis, qadis, viziers and other functionaries in order to consolidate his rule. As with Mamluk Egypt, the Tughlaq Dynasty was a rare vestigial example of Muslim rule in Asia after the Mongol invasion. On the strength of his years of study in Mecca, Ibn Battuta was appointed a qadi, or judge, by the sultan. He found it difficult to enforce Islamic laws beyond the sultan's court in Delhi, due to lack of Islamic appeal in India.[8]

From the Rajput Kingdom of Sarsatti, he visited Hansi in India, describing it as "among the most beautiful cities, the best constructed and the most populated; it is surrounded with a strong wall, and its founder is said to be one of the great infidel kings, called Tara".[9]

Upon his arrival in Sindh, Ibn Battuta mentions the Indian rhinoceros that lived on the banks of the Indus.

The Sultan was erratic even by the standards of the time and for six years Ibn Battuta veered between living the high life of a trusted subordinate and falling under suspicion of treason for a variety of offences. His plan to leave on the pretext of taking another hajj was stymied by the Sultan, who asked him instead to become his ambassador to Yuan Dynasty China. Given the opportunity to get away from the Sultan and visit new lands, he readily accepted.

Journey to China: En route to the coast at the start of his journey to China, Ibn Battuta and his party were attacked by a group of bandits.[10] Separated from his companions, he was robbed and nearly lost his life.[11] Despite this setback, within ten days he had caught up with his group and continued on to Khambhat in the Indian state of Gujarat. From there, they sailed to Kozhikode (Calicut), where Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama would land two centuries later. While Ibn Battuta visited a mosque on shore, a storm arose and one of the ships of his expedition sank.[12] The other ship then sailed without him only to be seized by a local Sumatran king a few months later.

Afraid to return to Delhi and be seen as a failure, he stayed for a time in southern India under the protection of Jamal-ud-Din, ruler of the small but powerful Nawayath sultanate on the banks of the Sharavathi river next to the Arabian Sea. This area is today known as Hosapattana and lies in the Honavar administrative district of Uttara Kannada. Following the overthrow of the sultanate, Ibn Battuta had no choice but to leave India. Although determined to continue his journey to China, he first took a detour to visit the Maldive Islands.

He spent nine months on the islands, much longer than he had intended. As a Chief Qadi, his skills were highly desirable in the formerly Buddhist nation that had recently converted to Islam. Half-kidnapped into staying, he became chief judge and married into the royal family of Omar I. He became embroiled in local politics and left when his strict judgments in the laissez-faire island kingdom began to chafe with its rulers. In the Rihla he mentions his dismay at the local women going about with no clothing above the waist, and the locals taking no notice when he complained.[13] From the Maldives, he carried on to Sri Lanka and visited Sri Pada and Tenavaram temple.

Ibn Battuta's ship almost sank on embarking from Sri Lanka, only for the vessel that came to his rescue to suffer an attack by pirates. Stranded on shore, he worked his way back to Madurai kingdom in India. Here in Madurai, he spent some time in the court of the short-lived Madurai Sultanate under Ghiyas-ud-Din Muhammad Damghani from where he returned to the Maldives and boarded a Chinese junk, still intending to reach China and take up his ambassadorial post.

He reached the port of Chittagong in modern-day Bangladesh intending to travel to Sylhet to meet Shah Jalal, who became so renowned that Ibn Battuta, then in Chittagong, made a one-month journey through the mountains of Kamaru near Sylhet to meet him.[14] On his way to Sylhet, Ibn Batuta was greeted by several of Shah Jalal's disciples who had come to assist him on his journey many days before he had arrived. At the meeting in 1345 CE, Ibn Batuta noted that Shah Jalal was tall and lean, fair in complexion and lived by the mosque in a cave, where his only item of value was a goat he kept for milk, butter, and yogurt. He observed that the companions of the Shah Jalal were foreign and known for their strength and bravery. He also mentions that many people would visit the Shah to seek guidance. Ibn Battuta went further north into Assam, then turned around and continued with his original plan.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Dunn, Ross E. (2005), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24385-4. First published in 1986, ISBN 0-520-05771-6. p.20
  2. ↑ Nehru, Jawaharlal (1989). Glimpses of World History. Oxford University Press. p. 752. ISBN 0-19-561323-6.
  3. ↑ Dunn, Ross E. (2005), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24385-4. First published in 1986, ISBN 0-520-05771-6.
  4. ↑ Defrémery, C.; Sanguinetti, B.R. trans. and eds. (1853), Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah (Volume 1) (in French and Arabic), Paris: Société Asiatic.
  5. ↑ Dunn, Ross E. (2005), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24385-4. First published in 1986, ISBN 0-520-05771-6. p.20
  6. ↑ http://www.hajjguide.org/The_Longest_Hajj_Part2/html/The_Longest_Hajj_Part2_6.htm
  7. ↑ Dunn, Ross E. (2005), The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-24385-4. First published in 1986, ISBN 0-520-05771-6., pp. 171–178
  8. ↑ Jerry Bently, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),121.
  9. ↑ André Wink, Al-Hind, the Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries, Volume 2 of Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. The Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest 11th-13th Centuries, (BRILL, 2002), p.229.
  10. ↑ Dunn 2005, p. 215; Gibb & Beckingham 1994, p. 777 Vol. 4
  11. ↑ Gibb & Beckingham 1994, pp. 773–782 Vol. 4; Dunn 2005, pp. 213–217
  12. ↑ Gibb & Beckingham 1994, pp. 814–815 Vol. 4
  13. ↑ Jerry Bently, Old World Encounters: Cross-Cultural Contacts and Exchanges in Pre-Modern Times (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993),126.
  14. ↑ Dunn 2005, p. 19

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