Ibn Battuta — "The women here are very beautiful, and they do not cover their faces. This is a …"
The women here are very beautiful, and they do not cover their faces. This is a custom that is not found in other Muslim lands.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I was once offered a camel as a gift, but I declined, for I had no place to keep it."
"In Anatolia, I met a dervish who could make himself invisible. Or at least, that's what he claimed. I never saw him do it."
"In India, I met a yogi who stood on one leg for twelve years. When I asked why, he said it was to get closer to God. I think he was just mad."
"I saw a magician in this city who could make a tree grow out of a basket. It was a truly astonishing trick, though I suspect some deception was involved."
"In Constantinople, I saw a church so large it could hold ten thousand people. The Christians there worship idols, but their buildings are magnificent."
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.