Ibn Battuta — "I was given a parrot as a gift, and it could speak Arabic."
I was given a parrot as a gift, and it could speak Arabic.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I was once caught in a sandstorm in this land. The sand was so thick I could not see my hand in front of my face."
"The Chinese are infidels, but they are a good people."
"They are a people who do not know the religion, and they are ignorant."
"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 people of this city are not honest, and they are not righteous."
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.