Ibn Battuta — "The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. I…"
The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. It was quite an experience to get used to.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The people of this city are not honest, and they are not righteous."
"I was once invited to a feast where they served a dish made of camel hump. It was surprisingly delicious, though I had my reservations at first."
"The people of this country are very skilled in archery, and they can shoot an arrow with great accuracy."
"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!"
"This is a people who do not know the true religion, and they are misguided."
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.