Ibn Battuta — "I saw a fish in this land that had legs and could walk on land. It was a most ex…"
I saw a fish in this land that had legs and could walk on land. It was a most extraordinary creature.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"The dogs in this land are very fierce. They bark at strangers and try to bite them. I had to carry a stick to fend them off."
"The Chinese are a people who are very skillful, but they are not religious."
"I went on board, leaving my companions behind, and saw the Sultan of India, the most generous, courageous, and powerful of men, but without a drop of mercy in his heart."
"The women of this country are very attractive, and they do not cover their faces."
"The Sultan of this land is a generous man, but he has a strange habit of giving gifts of old clothes and worn-out shoes."
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.
Details
Describing an unusual animal, possibly a mudskipper or an exaggeration.
Date: c. 1330s
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Found in 1 providers: grok
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