Ibn Battuta — "The Chinese are a people who do not have a strong belief in God."
The Chinese are a people who do not have a strong belief in God.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I saw a rhinoceros for the first time near the Indus River. It looked like a huge pig with a horn on its nose, and it was uglier than anything I had ever seen."
"The people of this city have a strange custom of burying their dead in trees. It is a very unusual sight."
"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!"
"I saw a tree that bore fruit that tasted like honey, and it was very delicious."
"They eat human flesh, and they consider it a delicacy."
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.