Ibn Battuta — "The women of this country are very beautiful, and they wear rings on their toes."
The women of this country are very beautiful, and they wear rings on their toes.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The people of this city have a strange custom of burying their dead in trees. It is a very unusual sight."
"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."
"I was greatly astonished at these people, and their women, who do not observe any modesty towards men."
"Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than the men. These people are Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying the books of law, and memorizing the Kor…"
"The people of Sumatra eat dogs, which I found disgusting. But when I tried it, it was not so bad."
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.