Travels of Ibn Batuta

In 1325, a young Moroccan scholar left home on what was supposed to be a pilgrimage to Mecca. Thirty years later, he finally returned, having traversed an astonishing swath of the known world. Ibn Battuta visited nearly every major Islamic civilization and many lands beyond them: the sultanates of Delhi and Mali, the trading ports of Swahili East Africa, the steppes of Central Asia, and the courts of Yuan dynasty China. His travel journal stands as one of the great adventure narratives in world literature, a vivid, often guileless account of what a devout Muslim scholar encountered in his wanderings. He records sultanates and deserts, wonders and misunderstandings, his own triumphs and humiliations. The result is an invaluable window into the 14th century Islamic world and beyond, written by someone who saw it all with fresh, occasionally prejudiced, always curious eyes. This is raw travel writing from an age when journeying meant risking everything.