Ibn Battuta — "I once rode an elephant in this land. It was a bumpy ride, and I was afraid I wo…"
I once rode an elephant in this land. It was a bumpy ride, and I was afraid I would fall off.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"Their women do not veil themselves, and they are not ashamed."
"I saw in this city a strange custom: the women do not veil themselves, and they are not ashamed of this."
"The Sultan of Delhi gave me a robe of honor, but it was so heavy with gold that I could barely walk. I sold it the next day."
"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."
"The houses in this land are made of mud and straw, and they are very small. I had to bend over to enter them."
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.
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