Ibn Battuta — "The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. I…"
The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. It was quite an experience to get used to.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"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."
"I was given a parrot as a gift, and it could speak Arabic."
"The people of this land believe that if you eat the heart of a lion, you will become brave. I did not try it myself."
"The people of this city are not honest, and they are not righteous."
"I set out alone finding no companion to cheer the way with friendly intercourse. and no party of travelers with whom to associate."
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.