Ibn Battuta

His full name is Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn' Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Yusuf al-Lavati at-Tanji ibn Battuta ibn Hamid al-Ghazi ibn al-Quraish al-'Ali. The future great traveler was bornFebruary 25, 1304 in Tangier ( Morocco ) in the family of the respected Sheikh Abdullah al-Lavati. The ancestors of Ibn Battuta came from the Berber tribe of Lavata - this is evidenced by the nisba (part of the name) of al-Lavati. Very little is known about his childhood. He was educated in a madrassah . Ibn Battuta's father, Kadi Tangier, wanted to see his son as his successor.

Pilgrimages to Mecca

On June 14, 1325, Ibn Battuta left Tangier to perform the hajj to Mecca ^[1] , the center of Muslim religious worship, where the Kaaba temple with black stone is located . Adventures during the passage of the greatest Sahara desert led him to continue traveling.

He traveled to Mecca by land, advancing along the coast of North Africa. His path ran through Tunisia , where he was delayed for two months ^[2] . For greater security, Ibn Battuta tried to join the caravans, which reduced the risk of being attacked by local Bedouin tribes. In the city of Sfax, he found a bride, the first, but not the last in his travels ^[3] .

In the early spring of 1326, after a journey of more than 3,500 km, Ibn Battuta reached Alexandria ^[4] . For several weeks he explored the sights of this area, after which he moved deep into the mainland, towards Cairo , the capital of the Mamluk Sultanate, a large city in those days. After spending about a month in Cairo, ^[5] he moved towards Mecca along the least used of the three available paths. Ibn Battuta crossed Egypt and intended to sail to Jeddah , but the civil strife of the local tribes forced him to return to Cairo ^[6] . Then he visited Jerusalem , Damascus , Mecca, Basra , Baghdad , where he received an audience with Ilkhan Abu Saeed , and Tabriz . After that, he returned to Mecca and became a fakih . But his travels did not stop there.

Later he traveled to Africa, the Middle and Far East - places unknown to medieval Europeans.

To Yemen and East Africa

In 1330, Ibn Battuta sailed the Red Sea and arrived in Aden (Yemen). Yemen was torn apart by internal conflicts, and only 2 cities - Sana'a (now the capital of Yemen) and now the small port of Zabid managed to maintain their former greatness. There he hired a ship bound for Zaila ( Somalia ). After that, he moved to Cape Guardafuy , further along the coast of Somalia , stopping for a week in each place. Later, he will visit Mogadishu , an important city of Berber land ^{[7] [8] [9]} .

When he got there in 1331, Mogadishu was at the zenith of his power. Ibn Battuta described it as an “exceptionally large city”, with many wealthy merchants, known for its high-quality fabrics that were exported to many countries, including Egypt ^{[10] [11]} . In addition, he wrote that the city is ruled by the Somali Somali, a native of northern Somalia, who speaks equally good Somali and Arabic ^{[12] [13]} . The Sultan kept with him a retinue of viziers, lawyers, army commanders, eunuchs and motley servants ^[12] .

Ibn Battuta continued his journey south in a ship toward the coast of Swahili ^[14] . One of his stops on the road was on the island city of Mombasa . At that time it was a small town. Its heyday occurred a century later ^[15] . Then, following the coastline, Ibn Battuta reached the island city of Kilwa (located on the territory of modern Tanzania , which by that time had become an important center for gold trading ^[16] . He described this city as “one of the most beautiful and well-designed cities in the world” ^[17] Ibn Battuta made notes of his visit to Kilwa in 1330 , and enthusiastically spoke of the humility and piety of the local ruler, Sultan Al-Hassan ibn Suleiman. ^[18] This dates from the founding of the Husuni Kubwa Palace in and substantial dos Three of the Kilwa Great Mosque.He also wrote that the power of the Sultan extends from Malindi in the north to Inyambane in the south, and was particularly delighted with the layout of the city, in which he saw the key to its success.Then Ibn Battuta sailed to Mombasa and Kilwa, rich cities to the east coast of Africa, where talking in the language of Swahili . a strong impression on Ibn Battuta made a black color of the local population. to return to Mecca, he had to sail around the south of Arabia and go to the Persian Gulf , and then cross the Ar viysky Peninsula .

Due to a certain inaccuracy in the chronology, it is not possible to ascertain with confidence whether this trip of Ibn Battuta ended in 1332 (following the above chronological sequence) or already in 1330 (in this case, 1328 should be considered the year of his departure from Mecca).

Asia Minor

Ibn Battuta's voyage around Rum (as the Arabs called Asia Minor ) began in the winter of 1330 , when he arrived in the port of Alaya on a Genoese ship. Then he visited Antalya , Laodicea-on-Lycos , Iconium , Caesarea of ​​Cappadocia , Sebastia , Birgi . In the winter of 1331, Ibn Battuta visited the Ottoman possessions of Orhan. Prussia , as the Ottoman capital since 1326, appeared before him as a busy trading city, as it once was in Byzantine times. Ibn Battuta visited Nicaea, which fell into the hands of the Turks in 1331, in October 1331, seven months after the Ottoman conquest, finding it in a desolate and dilapidated state: of the entire population there, he found only the Ottoman garrison. The unenviable fate of the Asia Minor Greeks who fell under the control of Turkish Muslims is evidenced by the facts of the traveler buying a Greek slave, as well as receiving another young Greek slave girl as a gift from the local emir. At the end of 1332, he ended up in the Black Sea port city of Sinop .

To the Golden Horde and Constantinople

Indefatigable curiosity pushed Ibn Battuta into new wanderings. On a Greek ship, he sailed to Kafa (now Theodosius in the Crimea ), then went to Solhat (now Old Crimea ), and from there through Azov to the Caucasus . On May 6, 1334, the traveler arrived at the headquarters of the Golden Horde Khan of the Uzbek Khan , located, presumably, in the region of Pyatigorsk , where the Khan received it with unprecedented honor . Historians have big questions about the trip of Ibn Battuta to the Bulgar , which, according to him, was completed in 20 days. Some scholars (I. Khrbek, S. Yanichek) believe that Ibn Battuta was not in the Volga Bulgaria - he simply could not be in time for such a short time. The description of the trip could be borrowed from the works of other Arab authors ( Ibn Jubeyr , Abul al-Fida ) by Ibn Battuta himself or his literary secretary Ibn Juzay. One way or another, a traveler in the retinue of the khan visits Hadji Tarkhan (the predecessor of Astrakhan ). Then he volunteered to accompany one of the wives of the khan Bayalun Khatun, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Andronicus III , to Constantinople , to his father. In the Byzantine capital , an Arab traveler stayed one month and six days. After that, he returned to the Volga , in mid-November arrived in New Saray ( Saray-Berke ). On December 10, 1334, Ibn Battuta left the capital of the Golden Horde, joining the Khorezm caravan. Through Saray-Dzhuk he headed to Central Asia .

To India and China

In Central Asia, Ibn Battuta visited large shopping centers - Urgench ( Gurganj ), Samarkand , Bukhara . In Urgench he was received by the powerful Golden Horde noyon Kutlug-Timur , on the way from Bukhara to Samarkand he drove into the headquarters of the Chagatai khan Tarmashirin . Through Khorasan and Afghanistan, he reached the Delhi Sultanate . In Delhi, Ibn Battuta entered the service of Sultan Muhammad Tuglak . He lived in India for eight years, was first a qadi (judge), then a fakih, and on July 22, 1342 he left for China as the Sultan's ambassador. The journey to China began for Ibn Battuta unsuccessfully. On the way to the shore, he and his comrades were attacked by bandits ^[19] . Ibn Battuta was robbed, behind his comrades and was close to death ^[20] . Despite these troubles, Ibn Battuta caught up with his group 10 days later and together they continued on their way to Kambey , in the Indian state of Gujarat . From there they sailed in Kozhikode (where the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama will get two centuries later). The troubles of Ibn Battuta continued: while he was in the mosque on the shore, one of the ships of his expedition sank off the shore due to a suddenly rising storm ^[21] . The second ship sailed without waiting for Ibn Battuta (though only in order to be captured by the king of Sumatra a few months later). Fearing to return to Delhi empty-handed, Ibn Battuta remained for some time in southern India under the protection of Jamal ad-Din, the ruler of the small but powerful Sultanate of Navai , standing on the banks of the Sharavati River near the Arabian Sea . The rebellion in the sultanate forced Ibn Battuta to leave India. With China as its ultimate goal, Ibn Battuta first turned to the Maldives . In the Maldives, he spent 9 months, much more than he expected. His knowledge of fiqh was in demand by a nation that had recently made the transition from Buddhism to Islam . From the Maldives, Ibn Battuta sailed to Sri Lanka , where he visited Sri Pada . After Battuta’s many adventures, he allegedly reached the port of Canton , and then through Malaysia, Bengal and India returned to Morocco ( 1349 ). The fact of his visit to China is questioned, because his information about this country is not accurate.

To Al Andalucia and Granada

In 1350, after a few days in Tangier , Ibn Battuta traveled to Al Andalus , a part of the Iberian Peninsula controlled by the Moors . King Alfonso XI Just intended to attack Gibraltar , and Ibn Battuta joined a group of Muslims who left Tangier to defend this port ^[22] . During their journey, Alfonso died of the plague, and the threat of attack on Gibraltar was over. Ibn Battuta took advantage of this in order to turn his trip into a tourist trip to the sights of Valencia and Granada ^[23] .

Returning from Al-Andalus, he decided to travel through Morocco , one of the few Muslim countries that he had not yet paradoxically explored. Staying in Marrakesh , he discovered that the city resembles its own ghost after the recent epidemic and the transfer of the capital to Fez ^[24] .

Ibn Battuta again returned to Tangier for a short while to plan his next expedition. The idea of ​​visiting Mali probably arose from him already in 1324, during his first trip to Cairo, when Mansa Musa , the great ruler of Mali , drove through this city (making his own hajj), causing furor with his wealth and extravagance.

In Mali

In 1352, Ibn Battuta set off again, this time to Africa. This was his largest expedition. Heading to Mali , he crossed the Sahara . The road was difficult, the desert was teeming with robbers, and the traveler joined the camel caravan. The caravan made its first stop in Tagaz. According to Battuta, all the houses there were made of salt and camel hides. The travelers took with them a supply of water for 10 days: it took so many days to get to Tasarala. From there it was not far to Valata. Despite all the difficulties, Battuta successfully crossed the Sahara and arrived in Mali, and then reached the Niger River . The trip was very risky, but Ibn Battuta reached the richest Malian city of Timbuktu and visited the court of Mansa Suleiman ^[25] .

In January 1354, he returned to Fes , where, at the order of the Marinid Sultan, Abu Inan dictated the memories of his travels to the learned sheikh from Granada, Muhammad ibn Juzay. In December 1355, Ibn Juzai completed the literary processing of Ibn Battuta's memoirs, playing a role in history similar to that of Rusticiano with another great traveler - Marco Polo . Description of Mali in the memoirs of Ibn Battuta is the main source by which we can judge the life of this medieval state.

The last years of life

Little is known about the last years of Ibn Battuta after the end of the recording of his travels in 1355. He was appointed to the post of Kadi in Morocco and died in 1368 or 1369 ^[26] .

In total, Ibn Battuta overcame 120,700 km. Ibn Battuta described all the countries visited with possible completeness. For the first time, his work was partially translated into European ( Latin ) in 1818 under the name De Mohammede Ebn-Batuto Arabe Tingitano ejusque itineribus, then in 1829 into English under the name The Travels of Ibn Batuta, translated from the abridged Arabic MS. Copies by Lec. "

There is no mention of whether Ibn Battuta kept records of all 29 years of his travels. When he dictated his impressions, he had to rely on his memory and the manuscripts of his predecessors already published. Some episodes of Ibn Battuta's journey are a clear borrowing. ^{[27] [28].} Western Orientalists question the fact that Ibn Battuta really visited all the places that he describes, and believe that part of his descriptions is taken from what he heard, and not from what he saw personally. So, the unresolved question is whether Ibn Battuta has really visited China ^[29] . Nevertheless, despite some inaccuracy, the records of Ibn Battuta give a good idea of ​​a large part of civilization of the 14th century.

Ibn Battuta sometimes experienced a cultural shock due to the inconsistency of the customs of the peoples who recently converted to Islam with the standards on which he was brought up. For example, he was shocked by the freedom of speech that Turkic and Mongolian women allow themselves in conversations with their husbands.

For the history of Russia, the description of the Golden Horde of the times of the Khan of Uzbeks is of the greatest importance. In 1874, a book was published in St. Petersburg with an Arabic text and a French translation (Voyages d'Ibn Batoutah. Texte arabe, accompagné d'une tradition par C. Defrémery et BR Sanuineti).

During his life, Ibn Battuta covered more than 73,000 miles (117,500 km) and visited the equivalent of 44 modern countries ^[30]

In 1976, the International Astronomical Union named Ibn Battuta to a crater on the visible side of the moon .

Dubai has a shopping center named after Ibn Battuta.

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