Ibn Battuta — "The people here have a strange custom of chewing betel nuts. Their mouths are al…"
The people here have a strange custom of chewing betel nuts. Their mouths are always red, and they spit everywhere. It is not very appealing.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The Chinese use paper money, which is the strangest thing I have ever seen. A man can carry around his entire wealth in his sleeve!"
"On the bank of the Nile opposite Old Cairo is the place known as The Garden, which is a pleasure park and promenade, containing many beautiful gardens, for the people of Cairo are given to pleasure an…"
"I saw a river in this land that flowed with milk and honey. It was a miraculous sight, though I suspect it was a trick of the light."
"The people of this country are very fond of chess, and they play it all day long."
"The people of this city are all black, and their teeth are white, and their women are very beautiful."
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.