Narrative
The Travels of Ibn Battuta
رحلة ابن بطوطة
Ibn Battuta and Ibn Juzayy · 1355
Synopsis
The account of the travels of a young jurist from Tangier who, setting out in 1325 for the pilgrimage to Mecca, travels for nearly thirty years through North Africa, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Asia Minor, the steppes of the Tatars, the India of the Sultan of Delhi, whose qadi he becomes, the Maldives, Ceylon and China, before reaching Andalusia and the kingdom of Mali. He describes the rulers who receive him, the cities and the shrines, the customs of peoples and the perils of the road.
Context
The account was dictated from December 1355 to Ibn Juzayy, a man of letters met in Granada and secretary to the sultan, who entitled it Tuḥfat an-nuẓẓār, “A precious gift for those who contemplate the strange things of great cities and the marvels of travel”, according to André Miquel's translation. It is not known whether the traveller took notes; certain descriptions, of Damascus or Mecca, take over those of Ibn Jubayr without the compiler mentioning it. Charles Defrémery and Dr Sanguinetti published the Arabic text and the French translation from 1853 to 1858, which Stéphane Yerasimos reissued in 1982.
Who it is for
A long travel narrative, to be read in stages; it is worth knowing that some passages borrow from earlier travellers.
Prizes and reception
The traveller is said to have covered some one hundred and twenty thousand kilometres, according to Paule Charles-Dominique, who translated it for Gallimard.