Ibn Battuta — "The people of this city are all black, and their teeth are white, and their wome…"
The people of this city are all black, and their teeth are white, and their women are very beautiful.
Get This Quote & Author's Image Illustrated On:
Click any product to generate a realistic preview. Up to 3 at a time.
* Initial load can take up to 90 seconds — revising the preview in another color is nearly instant.
Kitchen
Apparel
Other
More from Ibn Battuta
"The people here have a strange custom of greeting each other by rubbing noses. It was quite an experience to get used to."
"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."
"I went on board, leaving my companions behind, and saw the Sultan of India, the most generous, courageous, and powerful of men, but without a drop of mercy in his heart."
"The people of this country are a good people, but they are ignorant of the religion."
"I was once mistaken for a king in this land and was given many gifts and honors. It was a very pleasant mistake."
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.