Ibn Battuta — "The people of this country are very clean, but they are not religious."
The people of this country are very clean, but they are not religious.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The women of the Maldives go about naked from the waist up, and they are the most beautiful women I have ever seen."
"The women of this country are very modest, and they cover their entire bodies."
"Traveling gives you home in a thousand strange places, then leaves you a stranger in your own land."
"The people of this country are very superstitious, and they believe in magic."
"The women of this land wear veils that cover their entire faces, so I could not see their beauty."
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.