Ibn Battuta — "I saw in this city a strange custom: the women do not veil themselves, and they …"
I saw in this city a strange custom: the women do not veil themselves, and they are not ashamed of this.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The animals in this land are very wild. I saw a leopard once, and it was so close I could almost touch it."
"I saw in this country many things that are contrary to Islam."
"I saw a fish that had a human face, and it was able to speak."
"I was once mistaken for a king in this land and was given many gifts and honors. It was a very pleasant mistake."
"The women of this country are more beautiful than the men, and they are not veiled."
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.