Ibn Battuta
Abū Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abd Allāh Al-Lawātī (/ˌɪbən bætˈtuːtɑː/; 24 February 1304 – 1368/1369),[a] commonly known as Ibn Battuta, was a Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar.[7] Over a period of thirty years from 1325 to 1354, Ibn Battuta visited most of North Africa, the Middle East, East Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, the Iberian Peninsula, and West Africa. Near the end of his life, he dictated an account of his journeys, titled A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling, but commonly known as The Rihla.
For other uses, see Ibn Battuta (disambiguation).
Ibn Battuta
24 February 1304
- The Islamic Marco Polo
- Ibn battuta al-Tanji
Traveller, Geographer, explorer, scholar
Shams al-Dīn
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf
ʾAbū ʿAbd Allāh
ibn Baṭṭūṭah
Ibn Battuta travelled more than any other explorer in pre-modern history, totalling around 117,000 km (73,000 mi), surpassing Zheng He with about 50,000 km (31,000 mi) and Marco Polo with 24,000 km (15,000 mi).[8][9][10] There have been doubts over the historicity of some of Ibn Battuta's travels, particularly as they reach farther East.
Name[edit]
Ibn Battuta is a patronymic literally meaning "son of the duckling".[11] His most common full name is given as Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta.[12] In his travelogue, the Rihla, he gives his full name as Shams al-Din Abu’Abdallah Muhammad ibn’Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf Lawati al-Tanji ibn Battuta.[13][14][15]
Historicity[edit]
German Islamic studies scholar Ralph Elger views Battuta's travel account as an important literary work but doubts the historicity of much of its content, which he suspects to be a work of fiction compiled and inspired from other contemporary travel reports.[194] Various other scholars have raised similar doubts.[195]
In 1987, Ross E. Dunn similarly expressed doubts that any evidence would be found to support the narrative of the Rihla, but in 2010, Tim Mackintosh-Smith completed a multi-volume field study in dozens of the locales mentioned in the Rihla, in which he reports on previously unknown manuscripts of Islamic law kept in the archives of Al-Azhar University in Cairo that were copied by Ibn Battuta in Damascus in 1326, corroborating the date in the Rihla of his sojourn in Syria.[196]
