Ibn Battuta — "The houses in this land are made of mud and straw, and they are very small. I ha…"
The houses in this land are made of mud and straw, and they are very small. I had to bend over to enter them.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. It was quite an experience to get used to."
"The climate in this land is very hot. I sweated so much that my clothes were always damp."
"The women of this country are very beautiful, and they wear rings on their toes."
"The water in this land is very pure and refreshing. I drank so much that I felt like a fish."
"The people of this city are very superstitious. They believe in evil spirits and carry charms to ward them off."
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.