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 Chinese are a people who do not have a strong belief in God."
"The women of this country are very beautiful, and they do not veil themselves. They are treated with honor and respect."
"The inhabitants of this country are all polytheists, and they worship idols. They have a temple where they perform their rites."
"The women of this land are very beautiful, but they paint their faces with a white paste that makes them look like ghosts."
"In Constantinople, I saw a church so large it could hold ten thousand people. The Christians there worship idols, but their buildings are magnificent."
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.