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.
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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"I saw a market in this city where they sold human flesh. It was a most disturbing sight, and I quickly left."
"I saw in this city a strange custom: the women do not veil themselves, and they are not ashamed of this."
"The women of this country are very modest, and they cover their entire bodies."
"The people of this city are very fond of music and dancing."
"The people of this country are very skilled in archery, and they can shoot an arrow with great accuracy."
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.
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