Ibn Battuta — "The Chinese are skilled in crafts, but they are not a people of religion."
The Chinese are skilled in crafts, but they are not a people of religion.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The Sultan of Delhi gave me a robe of honor, but it was so heavy with gold that I could barely walk. I sold it the next day."
"The water in this land is very pure and refreshing. I drank so much that I felt like a fish."
"The people of this country are a good people, but they are ignorant of the religion."
"The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. It was quite an experience to get used to."
"The people of this city have a strange custom of burying their dead in trees. It is a very unusual sight."
About Ibn Battuta (1304-1369)
Moroccan Muslim scholar and explorer whose Rihla (travels) covered ~75,000 miles across the Islamic world from Mali to China — the most-traveled person of the medieval world. Closely associated with Marco Polo (his Venetian counterpart, traveling 50 years earlier in the opposite direction). For an intellectual contrast, see medieval European Christian insularity, the sheltered monastic-feudal worldview of 14th-century Latin Christendom — Ibn Battuta's 30-year journey demonstrates that the 14th-century Dar al-Islam was a single intellectual ecosystem from West Africa to Beijing, while medieval Europe was still tribal and parochial. The cleanest 'connectedness vs insularity' contrast in pre-modern history — Battuta could find a familiar Maliki judge in any city from Mali to Sumatra.