Ibn Battuta — "The women here are not veiled, and they are not ashamed to show their beauty."
The women here are not veiled, and they are not ashamed to show their beauty.
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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."
"Traveling offers you a hundred roads to adventure, and gives your heart wings!"
"I saw a woman who had a beard, and she was very old."
"I was once offered a camel as a gift, but I declined, for I had no place to keep it."
"The women here are not veiled, and they are not shy. They speak openly with 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.