Ibn Battuta — "I saw in this city many things that are contrary to our religion."
I saw in this city many things that are contrary to our religion.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I was once offered a marriage proposal in this land, but I declined, for the women were too stout, and their customs too different from my own."
"The women of this country are very attractive, and they do not cover their faces."
"The water in this land is very pure and refreshing. I drank so much that I felt like a fish."
"The women of the Maldives go about naked from the waist up, and they are the most beautiful women I have ever seen."
"The children in this land run around naked, even in the marketplace. It is a strange sight to behold."
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.