Ibn Battuta — "I saw a woman who had a beard, and she was very old."
I saw a woman who had a beard, and she was very old.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The women of this land wear so many ornaments that they jingle when they walk. It is quite a noisy affair!"
"I saw a rhinoceros for the first time near the Indus River. It looked like a huge pig with a horn on its nose, and it was uglier than anything I had ever seen."
"I saw a man who had no arms, and he was able to write with his feet."
"Their women are not modest, and they do not veil themselves."
"The women of this country are very beautiful, and they are treated with more respect than the men. They are not veiled, and they have no shame."
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.