Ibn Battuta — "The animals in this land are very wild. I saw a leopard once, and it was so clos…"
The animals in this land are very wild. I saw a leopard once, and it was so close I could almost touch it.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"Traveling offers you a hundred roads to adventure, and gives your heart wings!"
"I once rode an elephant in this land. It was a bumpy ride, and I was afraid I would fall off."
"I saw a man in this city who had a third eye on his forehead. He was a very wise man, and people came from far and wide to seek his counsel."
"In the Sahara, I saw a man who claimed to be 350 years old. He looked like a dried-up lizard, but the locals believed him."
"Among their odious customs is that women do not veil themselves, and they are not ashamed of this. Many of the women I saw were more beautiful than the men."
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.