Collecting
Muhammad Rafay Ashfaq
Professor Denise-Marie Teece
28th November 2017
The Written Collections of Ibn Batuta : An Eye Into 14th Century Arabia
The world of today is very well-connected. Any point on this round planet is no more than a day’s journey by air. This idea of short travel times would have been entirely magical to people a little over a hundred years ago, when most of the world was traveling on foot. Journeys would take days, months, and even years. One can imagine how living in that age must be like compared to this age of information. Just imagine a life without Google Images, YouTube, Flikr, and Wikipedia. The knowledge of different parts of the world was based purely on self-experience, and stories told by writers: the latter being the most valid. Written works were therefore very important and, to this day, provide accounts of the state of the world at the time. Even though travel was common and the medieval world was a world in motion, very few travelers left accounts of their experiences (Waines, 2010, p. 1). The situation was no different in Arabia at the time. The Arab world was massive, stretching all the way from Morocco to the Eastern edge of Persia and was not very well known especially to the west at the time until the written collections of the famous Moroccan traveler Abu ‘Abdallah ibn Batuta were published. The work of Ibn Batuta undoubtedly made the Arab world more public to both the Arab population and the rest of the world, and till today provide unparalleled insight into the 14th century Arab world. Ibn Batuta journeyed as far as China. This essay aims to discuss this remarkable written collection with respect to Arabia.
Ibn Batuta (full name: Shams al-Din Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Batuta al-Lawati al-Tanji) was born in 1304 in the Moroccan port city of Tangier (Mackintosh-Smith, 2010, p. 1). His story began in 1325 when he left his home to perform the Hajj and to further his study of Islamic Law, but it turned out that he was not to return home for another 29 years (Mackintosh-Smith, 2010, p. 1). After performing the Hajj, Ibn Batuta wandered over a huge swathe of the known world in search for employment; his travels took him as far as the Swahili coast, southern Russia, south-east China, Spain and sub-Saharan West Africa (Mackintosh-Smith, 2004). Throughout his life wrote accounts of his travels and accumulated a large collection. After his return to Morocco, he compiled them in a book titled The Precious Gift for Lookers into the marvels of Cities and The Wonders of Travel, more commonly known as the Rihlah (Mackintosh-Smith, 2010, p. 1). It was translated to English in the 18th century (Abdullah, Rahman, & Halim, p. 173).
Travel, despite its multitude in medieval Arab times did not have a literary or intellectual purpose. This statement is corroborated by the fact that very little travel accounts from that time are present. Only the literate population who set out to travel for the sole purpose of gaining knowledge would do so (Waines, 2010, p. 2). Ibn Batuta was one of these very few travelers who attempted to describe the Arab world in such an intricate manner. His work, the Rihlah is a very comprehensive book that is comprised of 30 manuscripts (Waines, 2010, p. 6). The book describes the sacred and the profane in an equal amount and wonderfully illustrates life in the Arab world at the time (Heern, 2013, p. 265). The Rihlah is not simply a collection of notes and travel accounts but part literature, part autobiography, and part descriptive compendium (Dunn, 2012, p. 13). It revolves around sex, food, hospitality, and of course: traveling. He describes his life-share of the 14th century as one of relative political calm, following the deluge of the Mongol invasions in the previous century that led to the destruction of Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate in 1258 (Waines, 2010, p. 24). Mongol successor states, ruled by Genghis Khan’s Muslim descendants had created an environment conducive to merchandise trade, population, and idea influxes (Waines, 2010, p. 24). This era was marked by a largely expanding community of the Abrahamic religions inside Arabia (Waines, 2010, p. 24). The Arab world was becoming more globalized and tolerated outsiders unlike any community before. Despite the influx of other religions into the region, Ibn Batuta narrates that the Muslims held most political control and saw Islam as the main power in the region. Historians have questioned this outlook. David Waines and Abderrehmane El Moudden argue that Ibn Batuta looked at the Arab world from a somewhat adulterated mindset. El Moudden states that Ibn Batuta looked at the Arab world from the viewpoint of a Moroccan Muslim male citizen, which is to see everything in relation to Islam and his mother culture: indeed, Ibn Batuta’s narrations reveal this quite clearly. While reading the Rihlah, the reader becomes more closely linked to the idea of the larger Muslim community. El Moudden concluded that the ‘Rihlah’s test and as actual travel contributed to making both similarities and difference manifest, and left a sense of ambivalence that complicated what might be assumed to be a natural identification with the umma’ (El Moudden, 1990, p. 76). Ibn Batuta’s work, therefore, amplifies the close-knit idea of an umma that might not have been that closely-knit in reality, but it was written down because he saw it that way. For this reason, the rihlah shows the Arab world as largely unified on the ideals of Islamic brotherhood, stemming from cultural and religious similarity and this contributed heavily to its popularity with the masses of the time.
Under this light Ibn Batuta writes in two inter-related themes: cities and journeys (Waines, 2010, p. 27). He describes the slightest of details of his travels: the weather, human behavior towards him, coping with nature and small events that assist one’s imagination in understanding the drama of medieval times even after being translated from Arabic to English (Waines, 2010, p. 27). In the process, Ibn Batuta reveals his personality to the reader. A reflection on the moment of his departure to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca extracted from his Rihlah gives a general idea of his nature.
“I left my birthplace, Tangier in June 1325. I departed alone, without the companionship of a fellow traveler, or in the assembly of a caravan…I resolved to leave my loved ones behind, female and male, and abandon my home as birds their nests. My parents were still alive and parting from them was a hardship I had to bear with; indeed, we were all afflicted by the sorrow of separation” (Dunn, 2012, p. 30)
As the extract shows, Ibn Batuta was a family man that was compassionate towards people and felt the absence of company. However, as a literate, urbane gentleman, his rihlah mostly talked about the matters of other literate, urbane gentlemen (Dunn, 2012, p. 13). This is not to say that he despised the poor, but a bias is evident in that he does not mention the “little man” (Dunn, 2012, p. 16). As Ibn Batuta walks us through the streets of Arabia in his travelogues, he narrates the life of a typical educated man, his daily endeavors, the nature of his weave in the society and the larger Islamic community. He repeats this for all the places he visits which combines to form a remarkable collection of the lives of people around the Islamic world.
Ibn Batuta’s popularity also led him to the courts of rulers, distinguished men of learning (ulama al-khaybar), and pious saints (awliya al-abrar) amongst many others mentioned in the Rihlah (Waines, 2010, p. 107). Through his collections one can gain insight into their personalities, and more importantly their political and religious viewpoints not known to everyone. An example was Abu Inan Faris the ruler of Morocco from 1348 and 1358 (Waines, 2010, p. 108). Ibn Batuta describes him as a “guided imam” and a “Shadow of God” and goes on to praise the family’s rightful and just rule, thereby furthering their political agenda (Waines, 2010, p. 108). It is very easy to dismiss these words of praise for what they most certainly are: utter flattery of the rulers (Waines, 2010, p. 108). On the other hand, it can be argued that Ibn Batuta’s description of the ruler’s religious school of thought was unbiased and unadulterated. Detailed accounts of the ruler’s method of prayer and conversations with them on topics of religious significance have been thoroughly delineated in the rihlah (Waines, 2010, p. 110). Such accounts of one-to-one conversations judging by their popularity, digested well inside the general population and relied on for reference.
Apart from this, the rihlah also describes intimate details of Ibn Batuta’s personal life. The accounts indicate that he had legal relations with many women, 10 of which were his wives (Waines, 2010, p. 157). Such accounts appear periodically within the book as he reminisces his times with a particular woman and wonders about the state of one of his five children he left behind (Waines, 2010, p. 159). Other details of his personal life include his reflections on how he was treated by his hosts and the experiences he had with them (Waines, 2010, p. 155).
It is also worth mentioning the cloud of uncertainty around Ibn Batuta’s accounts. Ibn Batuta’s journeys have, like those of all other travelers, been critically discussed by modern scholars. The degree of reliability is a major problem. Firstly, there is the question of the narrative’s complex chronology and itineraries (Waines, 2010, p. 8). Did Ibn Batuta really visit all these places he claims to have visited? His narrative of Syria and Palestine is one of many examples. He claims to have travelled from Syria to Damascus in 1326, taking the normal three weeks to cover the distance while somehow claiming to travel as far North as Aleppo in the same duration; this would have been impossible at the time (Waines, 2010, p. 8). Another issue raised is that of plagiarism in certain parts of his travels. Were the descriptions of places he visited first hand accounts or taken from other travel accounts like those of Ibn Jubayr, a traveler from the same time period ? An more far-fetched question is whether this is an actual travel account or just a rich imaginative essay? These questions have perplexed modern historians but no conclusion was ever reached.
Speculations aside, Ibn Batuta’s determination to travel and learn about the world deserves the highest praise. The collections of Ibn Batuta wonderfully illustrated the internationalist scope of the Islamic Civilization and made the Arab world more public to both the Arab population and the rest of the world. Through his work, readers have and continue to gain a sharper and panoramic view of the forces that comprised the physics of the Arab world at the time. It remains and will continue to be a part of Arab heritage and an irreplaceable eye into 14th century Arabia for generations to come.
Bibliography
Abdullah, S. N. S., Rahman, M. Z. A., & Halim, A. Explicitation Strategy in the Translation of ‘Rihlah Ibn Battutah’Into English. Foreign Languages (MICFL 2015), 173.
Dunn, R. E. (2012). The adventures of Ibn Battuta : a Muslim traveler of the 14th century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
El Moudden, A. (1990). The ambivalence of rihla: community integration and self-definition in Moroccan travel accounts, 1300-1800. Muslim travelers, migration, and the religious imagination, 69-84.
Heern, Z. M. (2013). The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of a Medieval Adventurer: Taylor & Francis.
Mackintosh-Smith, T. (2004). Travels with a tangerine : from Morocco to Turkey in the footsteps of Islam's greatest traveler. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Mackintosh-Smith, T. (2010). Landfalls : on the edge of Islam with Ibn Battutah. London: John Murray.
Waines, D. (2010). The odyssey of Ibn Battuta : uncommon tales of a medieval adventurer. London 3B New York: I. B. Tauris.
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