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 princess in marriage in this land, but I declined, for I was already married and had a long journey ahead of me."
"I saw a market in this city where they sold human flesh. It was a most disturbing sight, and I quickly left."
"The people of this city are very strange. They eat rice with their hands, and they do not use spoons or forks like us."
"I was once given a ride on a boat made of reeds. It was very flimsy, and I was afraid it would sink."
"I was given a parrot as a gift, and it could speak Arabic."
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.