Ibn Battuta — "I saw in this city many things that are forbidden in Islam."
I saw in this city many things that are forbidden in Islam.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"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!"
"The Sultan of this country has a thousand wives, and he treats them all equally."
"The people of this city are mean and stingy, and they are not generous."
"The people of Sumatra eat dogs, which I found disgusting. But when I tried it, it was not so bad."
"The women of this country do not cover their heads even when they are in the house of the king. They are beautiful, and their bodies are well-proportioned."
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.