ibn battuta journey map

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Ibn Battuta travels took him through much of the Islamic world, Africa, and into many parts of the east, including Central and Southeast Asia, India, and China.

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Ibn Battuta was born in Tangier in 1304, half a century after Marco Polo.

At first, he was just a pilgrim who travelled in accordance with Islamic rituals. He also accompanied caravans in trading journeys.

In 1325, Ibn Battuta went on his first pilgrimage to Mecca. This allowed him to explore North Africa, the Valley of the Nile, Syria, Iraq and part of Iran. He was very impressed by the city of Damascus, saying: “If Paradise exists on this earth, then it is Damascus and nowhere else”.

For his second journey to Mecca, Ibn Battuta travelled towards Yemen, and then to the eastern coast of Africa as far as Kilwa. He returned to Mecca via the Strait of Hormuz and Oman.

For his third journey, Ibn Battuta explored Turkey, where he was surprised to see that women were well treated among the Kurdish tribes. He crossed the Black Sea and travelled across Central Asia, and reported that “Samarkand is one of the most magnificent cities in the world”.   

After several years spent in Delhi, Ibn Battuta continued his voyage via the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Bay of Bengal, Malaysia and Sumatra, before travelling as far north as Beijing. In China, he was particularly surprised by the use of bank notes. They were as yet unknown in Europe and the Middle East.  

During his return journey through India and the Middle East, Ibn Battuta saw with his own eyes the terrible impact of the plague known as the Black Death.

On his return to Tangier, he did not stay long and set off again to visit Muslim Spain, before setting out on another journey across the Sahara in order to visit the Mali Empire and the River Niger before finally returning to Morocco.

Ibn Battuta dictated the story of his travels, known as the Rihla, to the secretary to the Sultan of Fez. It took three months to write the manuscript, and it was completed in 1355. His travel stories are often more precise than those of Marco Polo, but they also contain passages describing supernatural beings which were purely imaginary.

Mapping Globalization

The travels of Ibn Battuta between 1325-1354

Map shows the travel routes of a Muslim scholar and explorer, 1325-1354 CE. This is a copyrighted work. Its use on QED is under the “Fair Use” rule..

The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Islamic World (p. 166)

R. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Berkeley

© 1986 R. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Berkeley (pp. 28, 42, 82, 107, 138, 175, 184, 256, 267, 277)

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Muslim Traveling Judge

The abode of islam.

I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose party I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit all my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation. — from The Travels of Ibn Battutah

It is easy to marry in these islands because of the smallness of the dowries and the pleasures of society which the women offer... When the ships put in, the crew marry; when they intend to leave they divorce their wives. This is a kind of temporary marriage. The women of these islands never leave their country.

China was beautiful, but it did not please me. On the contrary, I was greatly troubled thinking about the way paganism dominated this country. Whenever I went out of my lodging, I saw many blameworthy things. That disturbed me so much that I stayed indoors most of the time and only went out when necessary. During my stay in China, whenever I saw any Muslims I always felt as though I were meeting my own family and close kinsmen.

His writing and his last years

The legacy of ibn battuta’s travels, for further discussion, want to join the conversation.

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Voyages of Ibn Battuta

• 1 Understand
• 2.1 Across North Africa
• 2.2 Cairo to Mecca
• 2.3 Mesopotamia and Persia
• 2.4 East Africa
• 2.5 Anatolia
• 2.6 The Mongol lands
• 2.8 The Maldives and Sri Lanka
• 2.9 Toward China
• 2.11 Homeward bound
• 2.12 Iberia and West Africa
• 3 The Rihla

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battutah , commonly known as Ibn Battuta (1304–1368/1369) was a Berber explorer and scholar, and among the most well-travelled people of his time, reaching further than Marco Polo had a few decades earlier. His journeys were a showcase of the Islamic Golden Age .

Understand [ edit ]

Ibn Battuta came from a family of legal scholars, and he was trained in that field. At age 21, he set out from Tangier for his hajj , the pilgrimage to Mecca , and continued travelling until his forties, mostly in the Islamic world, India and imperial China .

He documented his journeys in the Rihla – always with the definite article, because rihla is a generic Arabic word for a travelogue. However, many scholars are uncertain if he visited all of the places mentioned in the Rihla or whether he based some of his descriptions on hearsay, and whether he visited them in the order provided in the book.

The University of California Berkeley has a good online account of Ibn Battuta's travels. Our text below is based on that.

Destinations [ edit ]

The Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca was Ibn Battuta's first long journey, starting in 1325. He travelled overland, at first alone but later joining various pilgrim caravans.

Across North Africa [ edit ]

Cairo to Mecca [ edit ]

There were several routes from Cairo to Mecca, and he chose what was then usually the safest — south along the Nile in territory controlled by the Mamluk rulers of Egypt, then across the Red Sea to Jeddah . However, as he approached the Red Sea port involved, he found out that its ruler was in revolt against the Mamluks and there was fighting nearby, so he turned back to Cairo.

From there he took another route to Mecca, first going to Damascus via Gaza , Hebron and Jerusalem .

Mesopotamia and Persia [ edit ]

After his year in Mecca, he visited what are now Iraq and Iran , which were then parts of the Mongol-ruled Ilkhanate .

East Africa [ edit ]

He returned to Mecca, then travelled by sea along the coast of East Africa , visiting Aden , Mogadishu , Malindi , Mombasa and Zanzibar .

After returning to Yemen, he went east on foot to Oman (which proved to be a difficult journey), by boat up the Persian Gulf , then overland back to Mecca.

After some time recovering in Mecca, he was ready to continue his journey east. In nearby Jeddah , he spent several months while looking for a ship that would take him to India, but to no avail.

Anatolia [ edit ]

He figured he might be able to join a Turkish trade caravan heading east, so he set off north toward Anatolia , travelling via Egypt and Damascus. He left Syria on a Genoese galley which took 10 days to cross the Mediterranean to arrive at Alanya, on the southern coast of Anatolia.

Ibn Battuta praised "the land of the Turks" for its beauty, delicious cuisine, and its people's hospitality, but was surprised by the Turks' less than perfect compliance with Islamic norms.

Ibn Battuta extensively travelled the land, and was hosted by an Islamic fraternity in most towns. He eventually made his way to Konya, the capital of the Mevlevi Sufi order.

At the time of Ibn Battuta's visit, there was no central authority in Anatolia, as the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum collapsed following the Mongol invasion, and numerous petty kingdoms known as beylik s had emerged in the power vacuum left behind. Ibn Battuta visited several of the local rulers, including Orhan, the chief of the nascent statelet that was to become the Ottoman Empire .

In November 1331, he started his trek north, which proved to be full of trouble. His progress was cut off by a raging river, then a guide got them lost (apparently on purpose as the guide later demanded a ransom ), and as the winter approached he almost froze to death, but he eventually managed to get to Sinop on the Black Sea coast.

The Mongol lands [ edit ]

From there he went into Mongol territory, first that of the Golden Horde . His boat struggled through the severe storms common in the Black Sea , and finally reached Caffa, present-day Feodosiya in Crimea, several days later.

He visited many Black Sea ports, inhabited by a multinational merchant population and receiving the rich produce of the steppe as well as that brought over via the Silk Road. He departed from Azov to catch up with the travelling court of Uzbeg Khan of the Golden Horde, whom he learned was a few days ahead.

At the time, the area was inhabited by Turkic and Mongolian nomads. He described their cuisine based on horse meat (still a delicacy in some of the modern nations in the wider region such as Kazakhstan ) and how they let their horses and other livestock free range on the open steppe. He also mentioned the nomad drinks of kumis, fermented mare's milk still popular in Turkic Central Asia and in Mongolia , and boza, a thick malt drink now common in Turkey and the Balkans .

Ibn Battuta met the khan's court, which he likened to an entire city on the move, near Beshtau, in what is now Stavropol Krai north of the Caucasus Mountains. From there, he went north to Bolghar, although some modern historians dispute this. If it's true that he had been there, that was the northernmost point he ever set foot in — indeed he noted that the summer nights that far north were unusually short to him.

While in Bolghar, Ibn Battuta thought about venturing further north into the "land of darkness", likely somewhere deep inside Siberia , which could only be reached by a dog sled and was said to be inhabited by a mysterious group of people. But such a trip never materialized.

From Bolghar, he returned to the khan's court, and they moved to Astrakhan together.

At Astrakhan, he heard the khan's wife, a Byzantine princess by birth, was about to leave for her father's realm to give birth to her baby there. So in July 1332 Ibn Battuta joined her party for a 75-day trip back along the Black Sea to Constantinople, where he stayed for more than a month.

As he went back to Astrakhan, it was already winter, brutal in the Eurasian steppe. He approached Sarai on the frozen Volga River.

From Sarai, his route trended south, into the Chagatai Khanate .

India [ edit ]

Leaving Mongol lands, he continued to the Indian subcontinent .

Eventually, the Sultan decided to use him as an envoy to China and put him in command of an expedition that included 15 Chinese envoys returning home. They went off toward the coast with a rich and well-guarded caravan, but had some serious trouble with rebels and bandits; at one point Ibn Battuta became separated from the caravan and was robbed of everything but his trousers. However, they did make it to the fortress of Daulatabad where they rested up for a few days before continuing to Cambay , then along the coast to Gandhar where they boarded four ships.

A severe storm came up, the junks put to sea (without Ibn Battuta) to ride it out, and two of them were sunk. The third ship set off for China, without Ibn Battuta; he pursued briefly, but gave up. That ship made it as far as Sumatra , but then was seized by a local king.

Left penniless, and afraid of what the Sultan might do if he returned to Delhi a failure, he found employment with one of the southern Muslin sultans for a while, then did some more travelling.

The Maldives and Sri Lanka [ edit ]

Leaving Sri Lanka, he had more bad luck. One ship was sunk by a storm, but he was rescued and boarded another ship; that one was taken by pirates and again he was robbed of everything except his trousers. However, the pirates put the passengers ashore unharmed and they made their way back to Calicut.

Toward China [ edit ]

From Calicut he decided to continue toward China; he returned to Malé and got on an eastbound ship.

The Sultan owned ships which traded with China, and sent Ibn Battuta off on one.

China [ edit ]

He landed in China at Quanzhou, then travelled by land to other cities.

Homeward bound [ edit ]

Returning to Quanzhou, he found a junk owned by the Sultan of Samudra in port, and boarded it to begin his three-year journey home. After a stop in Samudra he sailed to India, landing at Quilon then returning to Calicut where he boarded a westbound ship.

When Ibn Battuta had visited 11 years before, the Ilkhanate had been peaceful under a strong sultan. However, that sultan had died and the region was now chaotic as various generals and nobles vied for power. Ibn Battuta left Persia quickly, going west via Baghdad and Damascus.

He went back to Palestine , Cairo, Jeddah and Mecca, then returned to Egypt to take a ship west.

Iberia and West Africa [ edit ]

By now, Ibn Battuta had visited most of the Muslim world ( dar al Islam ), as well as areas beyond it. His last major journey was to Islamic kingdoms he had not yet seen.

The Rihla [ edit ]

After the West African journey, he settled in Tangier, worked as a judge, and wrote a book:

The work became well-known in the Muslim world, but was not much known in the West until the early 1800s.

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Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351

"[The sultan] has a lofty pavilion ... where he sits most of the time... There came forth from the gate of the palace about 300 slaves, some carrying in their hands bows and others having in their hands short lances and shields... Then two saddled and bridled horses are brought, with two rams which, they say, are effective against the evil eye... The interpreter stands at the gate of the council-place wearing fine garments of silk... and on his head a turban with fringes which they have a novel way of winding..." [Dunn, p. 302]

The Allure of Mali

When Ibn Battuta first visited Cairo in 1326, he undoubtedly heard about the visit of Mansa Musa (King of Mali from 1307 to 1332). Mansa Musa had passed through the city two years earlier making his pilgrimage to Mecca with thousands of slaves and soldiers, wives and officials. One hundred camels each carried one hundred pounds of gold. Mansa Musa performed many acts of charity and "flooded Cairo with his kindness." So much gold spent in the markets of Cairo actually upset the gold market well into the next century. Mali's gold was important all over the world. In the later Medieval period, West Africa may have been producing almost two-thirds of the world's supply of gold! Mali also supplied other trade items - ivory, ostrich feathers, kola nuts, hides, and slaves. No wonder there was talk about the Kingdom of Mali and its riches! And no wonder Ibn Battuta, still restless after his trip to Al-Andalus, set his mind on visiting the sub-Saharan kingdom.

This is a small section of a famous map known as the Catalan Atlas, produced in 1375. The Atlas is attributed to Abraham Cresques, a Jewish book illuminator and map-maker. The original version is housed at the  Bibliothèque Nationale de France , but this image is a clip from a website that hosts very high-definition images of the map panels.

Since this map was made in 1375, it did not exist yet when Ibn Battuta went to Mali. However, the inclusion of Mansa Musa on the map (shown sitting on a throne, with gold accessories) suggests that the legends of his wealth and power continued well after Ibn Battuta's time.

A trip to Mali, like all other trips, would be made easier because of already established trade routes controlled by Muslims. The rulers and many businessmen of Mali had converted to Islam a generation before and Muslim traders had come to live in Mali's business centers. Ibn Battuta could not resist another trip before he settled down. Or perhaps he thought about settling in Mali where the converts and Muslim settlers and even the king (sultan) were hungry for Islamic education and law. Mansa Musa had built mosques and minarets and established Friday prayer-days in Mali. He had brought judges to his country and became a student of religion, himself. Perhaps Ibn Battuta was looking for a job in the circle of rulers in Mali. This trip would take him 1,500 miles across a fearsome desert.

An image from the Draa River Valley, on the northern edge of the Sahara Desert.

Source:  Theoliane - Own work , Public Domain

Azalai salt caravan, December 1985.

Source:  Holger Reineccius at the German language Wikipedia , CC BY-SA 3.0 .

Crossing the Sahara

Ibn Battuta set out from Fez in the autumn of 1351 and crossed the Atlas Mountains. After traveling for eight or nine days he arrived at a town called Sijilmasa on the Oasis of Tafilalt. This was the last outpost before crossing the vast Sahara Desert. Here he spent four months waiting for the winter season when the great caravans could cross the desert. It was here where he bought camels of his own while staying with Muslims who offered him hospitality.

And so he set out across the Sahara Desert for Walata in a camel caravan in February, 1352. They traveled in the early morning and late afternoon and rested under awnings to avoid the scorching midday heat. Twenty-five days later the caravan reached the settlement of Taghaza, the main salt-mining center of the Western Sahara. Here workers loaded great slabs of salt which was in great demand in Mali. Taghaza was a desolate place. "This is a village with nothing good about it," complained Ibn Battuta. "It is the most fly-ridden of places." Then he described the huge amounts of gold that changed hands there.

The caravan stayed in Taghaza for ten days where he stayed in a house built entirely of salt except for the camel skin roof! The water was salty, too, and food had to be brought from the outside.

Then began the most dangerous part of the journey - almost 500 miles of sand where only one water place exists. Fortunately there had been some rainfall that year, so there was some scattered vegetation and occasionally even pools of water for the camels. The travelers drank water from goat skin bags. Yet there were more dangers:

"In those days we used to go on ahead of the caravan and whenever we found a place suitable for grazing we pastured the beasts there. This we continued to do till a man ... became lost in the desert. After that we neither went on ahead nor lagged behind."

Ibn Battuta worried about running out of water, about his guides losing their way, and about falling prey to the "demons which haunted those wastes." In the end of April, they arrived in Walata, on the edge of the desert -- a sweltering little town with mud brick houses next to barren hills and with a few palm trees. Ibn Battuta regretted coming at all to this town because he had been treated so much better in other parts of the Islamic world. He resented the governor who offered the visitors a bowl of millet with a little honey and yogurt as a welcoming meal.

"I said to them: 'Was it to this that the black man invited us?' They said: 'Yes, for them this is a great banquet.' Then I knew for certain that no good was to be expected from them and I wished to depart."

He stayed in Walata for several weeks, but as happened in other places on his journey, he took offense at the local customs. After all, he must have thought, he was a special visitor that should be pampered. And even more offensive were the local customs that Ibn Battuta thought were not appropriate for good Muslims.

For example, he expected the sexes to be separated in an Islamic society. On one occasion he entered in a qadi's (judge's) house only to find a young and beautiful woman there to greet him. She was the judge's friend! (Ibn Battuta considered her presence there highly inappropriate). On another occasion Ibn Battuta called on a scholar and found the man's wife chatting with a strange man in the courtyard. Ibn Battuta expressed his disapproval and the man answered,

"The association of women with men is agreeable to us and a part of good manners, to which no suspicion attaches. They are not like the women of your country."

Needless to say, Ibn Battuta considered the local customs inferior to his own. This was not the first time Ibn Battuta took issue with the behavior of local women.

South into the Sahel and Savannah

The travelers went southward away from the desert and into the sahel (the arid country between the sandy desert in the north and grassy savannah to the south) along the Niger River to the king's palaces. Along the way he offered glass beads and pieces of salt in return for millet, rice, chickens, and other local foods. After two or more weeks on the road, he arrived at the seat of government, a town with several palaces for Mansa Sulayman, younger brother of Mansa Musa who had died. (Sulayman ruled from 1341 to 1360). The main palace was built by a Muslim architect from al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) and was covered with plaster painted with colorful patterns, a "most elegant" building. Surrounding the palaces and mosques were the residences of the citizens: mud-walled houses roofed with domes of timber and reed.

Ibn Battuta followed the Niger River to several of Mali's biggest cities.  He rode in a boat such as this. 

The sahel forest in Mali during the rainy season.

Source: NOAA, US Gov, Public Domain

What did Ibn Battuta eat in West Africa?

Ibn Battuta complained about being given millet porridge with a little honey and yogurt by a host. He mentions eating camel meat along the way, and trading glass beads and salt for millet, rice, milk, chickens, fish, melons and pumpkins, and other local foods. He got sick from eating yams (or a similar root). From the king, he received a welcoming gift of three loaves of bread and a piece of beef fried in shea butter, and a gourd containing yogurt. (He was insulted by this meager gift, too.)

Ibn Battuta described the fruit of the baobab tree: "like a cucumber, when it ripens it bursts uncovering something like flour; they cook and eat it and it is sold in the markets." (Actually, the women pound it into a flour - it doesn't just turn into flour spontaneously). He also told of a ground crop like beans that was fried which tastes like peas, or made into a flour and fried in 'shea butter'. [Hamdun & King, Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, p. 40.]

On his way back home from Mali, he tells of some Berbers who live off of dates and locusts (an insect like a grasshopper). [Hamdun & King, p. 74]

For a modern American take on West African cuisines, check out  this article from the  Washington Post . 

Some of Ibn Battuta's food-related commentary is more overt cultural commentary. Consider this disturbing anecdote, which he said was told to him:

Sultan Mansa Sulayman was visited by a party of ...[non-Muslim] negro cannibals, including one of their [princes]. They have a custom of wearing in their ears large pendants, each pendant having an opening of half a span. They wrap themselves in silk mantles, and in their country there is a gold mine. The sultan received them with honour, and gave them as his hospitality-gift a servant, a [black woman]. They killed and ate her, and having smeared their faces and hands with her blood came to the sultan to thank him. I was informed that this is their regular custom whenever they visit his court. Someone told me about them that they say that the choicest parts of women's flesh are the palm of the hand and the breast. [ Fordham University Medieval Sourcebook ]

Ibn Battuta did not claim to witness the shocking events he described here, and his story begs the question: Would he have been willing to believe and repeat this account if the sultan's visitors had been Muslims?

Ibn Battuta must have wanted to see the ruler quickly, but ten days after his arrival, he reported that became seriously ill after eating some undercooked yams . One of his traveling companions died from the same food! Ibn Battuta remained ill for two months. After he finally recovered, he went to observe a public ceremony - an audience with the sultan Mansa Sulayman.

"[The sultan] has a lofty pavilion ... where he sits most of the time... There came forth from the gate of the palace about 300 slaves, some carrying in their hands bows and others having in their hands short lances and shields... Then two saddled and bridled horses are brought, with two rams which, they say, are effective against the evil eye... The interpreter stands at the gate of the council-place wearing fine garments of silk... and on his head a turban with fringes which they have a novel way of winding... The troops, governors, young men, slaves, ... and others sit outside the council-place in a broad street where there are trees... Anyone who wishes to address the sultan addresses the interpreter and the interpreter addresses a man standing [near the sultan] and that man standing addresses the sultan." [Dunn, p. 302]

He described those who came to the palace:

"Each commander has his followers before him with their spears, bows, drums and bugles made of elephant tusks. Their instruments of music are made of reeds and calabashes, and they beat them with sticks and produce a wonderful sound. Each commander has a quiver which he places between his shoulders. He holds his bow in his hand and is mounted on a mare. Some of his men are on foot and some on mounts." [Hamdun & King, pp. 47 - 48]

At another session (part of a festival) he describes:

"The men-at-arms come with wonderful weaponry: quivers of silver and gold, swords covered with gold... Four of the amirs stand behind him to drive off flies, with ornaments of silver in their hands... .... The Interpreter brings in his four wives and his concubines, who are about a hundred in number. On them are fine clothes and on their heads they have bands of silver and gold with silver and gold apples as pendants. ... A chair is there for the Interpreter and he beats on an instrument which is made of reeds with tiny calabashes below it [a "balophon"] praising the sultan, recalling in his song his expeditions and deeds. The wives and the concubines sing with him... about thirty of his pages... each has a drum tied to him and he beats it. Then ...[come acrobats and jugglers of swords]..." [Hamdun & King, pp. 52 - 53]

Ibn Battuta ended his eight-month stay in Mali with mixed feelings. On the one hand he respected the parents' strict teaching of the Qur'an to their children: "They place fetters [ropes or chains] on their children if there appears ... a failure to memorize the Qur'an, and they are not undone until they memorize it." He also admired the safety of the empire. "Neither traveler there nor dweller has anything to fear from thief or usurper."

On the other hand he criticized many local practices:

"Female slaves and servants who went stark naked into the court for all to see; subjects who groveled before the sultan, beating the ground with their elbows and throwing dust and ashes over their heads; royal poets who romped about in feathers and bird masks."

He also complained about the small gift of bread, meat and yogurt given to him by the king.

"When I saw it I laughed, and was long astonished at their feeble intellect and their respect for mean things."

Later he complained directly to the king:

"I have journeyed to the countries of the world and met their kings. 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?" [Dunn, p. 300, 303]

That evidently made a difference, though it is hard to know what the locals thought of their demanding guest.

"Then the sultan ordered a house for me in which I stayed and he fixed an allowance for me... He was gracious to me at my departure, to the extent of giving me one hundred mithqals of gold." [Hamdun and King, p. 46]

On his return trip, Ibn Battuta continued to explore parts of Mali. He went to Timbuktu, a town that was just beginning to flower as a center of Islamic scholarship and trade. Mansa Musa himself had a mosque built there. But Ibn Battuta was evidently not very impressed with Timbuktu - a city that would become great in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

To learn more of the fascinating story of Timbuktu, watch this BBC documentary, The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu ,  posted here by the film-maker.

The lost libraries of timbuktu

His return journey was even more difficult. He had bought a riding camel and another to carry his supplies. But in the desert heat one camel died. Other travelers offered to help carry his supplies, but further on Ibn Battuta fell sick again. He recovered in a small town called Takadda. Here Ibn Battuta received a message from the Sultan of Morocco commanding him to return to Fez immediately. They left Takadda on September 11, 1353 in the company of a large caravan carrying 600 black female slaves to Morocco. The slaves would be sold as domestics (house maids), concubines, or servants of the royal court.

The caravan went northward for 18 days through the wilderness and passed through the land of the veiled Berber nomads whom Ibn Battuta called "good for nothing. We encountered one of their chief men who held up the caravan until he was paid an impost of cloth and other things." They continued on and stopped at Sijilmasa where he stayed about two weeks. Then he went over the High Atlas Mountains in the dead of winter. "I have seen difficult roads and much snow [in other parts of the world], but I never saw a road more difficult than that."

At last he arrived in the capital Fez, a city that was the center of the intellectual universe west of Cairo. It was 1354. He was home - this time for good.

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Comparison of Ibn Battutah Modern Map and Medieval Map

There are marked differences between the modern map of Ibn Battuta’s travels and the medieval map of his travels. The most obvious difference is that the modern map is intended to be geographically accurate and is made with satellite imaging. Ibn al-Wardi’s map was not intended to be geographically accurate but was meant to represent a cosmological understanding of the world. Because of this, the medieval map and travel route depicted on it is completely distorted. The distances between locations appears shorter than it is. It also represents bodies water in more abstract ways, not accurately depicting the coastlines and river distances. It makes the Nile River look incredibly wide when it is compared with the Arabian sea. Because bodies of water are distorted, medieval people’s understanding of the size and scope of them may not have been clear. There is also the issue of what the map is centered on. For the modern map, any place in the world can be chosen as the “center.” It is all arbitrary because it is a globe. When you click on the map, it automatically centers around the middle of the Arabian desert because that is the most central point in relation to all the points located on the map. The medieval map is completely different. Because it is a cosmological map, it has Medina and Mecca directly in the center. This indicates their importance and the centrality of Islam to life and their understanding of the universe. Medina and Mecca are towards the bottom of the modern map. Overall, it is interesting to compare the two maps because the intentions behind their creation and representation are completely different, which causes them to look different. It is important to note that the points I chose for Ibn Battutah are all located in the Middle East, which is shown at least semi-accurately on the map. If I had chosen points in sub-Saharan Africa, India, or China, the points would not have made any sense at all because these locations are distorted on the medieval map.

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• Benjamin of Tudela
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• February 2022
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