Ibn Battuta — "The people of this country are very fond of wrestling, and they hold contests ev…"
The people of this country are very fond of wrestling, and they hold contests every day.
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More from Ibn Battuta
"I saw a woman who had a beard, and she was very old."
"I saw a fish that had a human face, and it was able to speak."
"The Chinese are a people who do not have a strong belief in God."
"I saw a river in this land that flowed with milk and honey. It was a miraculous sight, though I suspect it was a trick of the light."
"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!"
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.