29 years of adventures in regions corresponding to the current 44 countries!

The North Africa (1325), Egypt (1326), Palestine and Syria (1326), Medina and Mecca (1326), Iraq and Persia (1326-1327), South Arabia , Yemen and East Africa (1328-1330), Asia Minor and Constantinople (1330-1331), southern Russia and Central Asia (1332-1333), Muslim India (1334-1341), Ceylon and the Maldives (1342-1344), Sumatra and China (1345-1346).
After a return to Tangier (1346-1349), he returned in Andalusia (Granada) and travelled to the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahara (1349-1350), West Africa (1351-1353). He returned to Fez in 1353. Merinid Sultan Abu 'Inan ordered him to dictate his memoirs to Ibn Juzayy, secretary of the prince. The travelogue entitled “Present for those who like to reflect on the sights of the cities and the wonders of travel” is known as “Rihla”.

The world is an open book in which everyone wrote his own page. The intrepid Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, long before Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, has written a very one rich in emotions, in one of the most extraordinary journeys of all time! This is the story of Ibn Battuta who passed through the world and time.

Ibn Battuta, the great traveller of humanity, is the most famous Tangiers of all time. He was the travellers, pilgrim, explorer, globetrotter, Ambassador, Jury-consult, courtier ... In short, a curious literate open to the world.
Initially, nothing predestined Ibn Battuta to become the famous friends we know. Child of the world, this incredible globe-trotter travelled 120,000 km during 29 years. A lonely journey, the hajj of Ibn Battuta was transformed into an immense journey. One of these trips was the first to identify the Islamic countries and contribute to the cultural mix of the time.

He was born in Tangier in Morocco in 1304 and died in 1377. He is Ben Mohamed Ben Mohamed Ben Abdullah Ibrahim Ben Ibrahim Ben Mohamed Ben Youssef Abu Abdullah Ibn Battuta Luwati At-Tanji. He became famous for his travels from 1325 to 1353. .
This traveller was both a man greedy for knowledge and a lawyer trained in the Maliki school of Islamic law and therefore is considered not only as a citizen of Morocco, but as a member of a wider world, called Dar Al Islam, including several Muslim lands, where there were also communities belonging to other faiths and other cultures. .
Departing from Tangier, he visited “Dar el Islam” on 3 continents, Asia, Africa and Europe (Constantinople and Granada), travelling in close to 120 000 km. exactly 704 years ago.
When he decided to leave Mecca to perform his pilgrimage, he was still only 21 years and was once a law student but who hopes to complete his training during his trip.

Ibn Battuta had not the complex of an economic or cultural oppressed, that is why he behaved as the American today who, without feeling the need to learn the languages of other peoples, he was sure he can be understood where he knock down, where he seems to him to be an appropriate roof. .
The origin of Berber Ibn Battuta is evident by his belonging to the tribe Luwati. This means that he grew up in bilingualism, learning the Arabic language of the Koran. This shift from Berber to Arabic itself is a long adventure. .
He is a drawn from various cultural backgrounds that predispose them to a performance of phonetics, a remarkable social adaptability. Pluralism which predisposes certain environments diversity must also be supported through education. .
The time of Ibn Battuta in Morocco was a time of building of great madrassas, those schools that patrons, princes or others edify in the imperial cities, to accommodate students of rural origin. Those madrasas that Ibn Battuta attended are still admired by tourists from around the world. .
In talks given in these madrasas, religious authorities in the expanded universe of Islam are often cited. This to say HARAT or Isfahan or BOUKHARI were not unknown before Ibn Battuta's journey, as these sites of Islamic culture are part of the universal heritage of Islam. .
The voluminous documentation, compiled by Ibn Battuta, the Far East, is all the more valuable that its authenticity has been demonstrated, in many respects, the story of Marco Polo, who died a year before the commencement of the journey undertaken by the Maghrebian explorer. .
But one of the main features of this relationship lies in our view, in these outbursts of solidarity which the author reported that illustrate the depth of the sense of spiritual unity bringing together the most heterogeneous nations in the Muslim world.  

At the time of Ibn Battuta, the Mediterranean is called "Sea of Rome and the Atlantic Ocean," Wednesday darkness ", as the River Niger, it is still" Black Nile ".
Tangier therefore, near the Strait of Gibraltar that was the end of the world, he went on pilgrimage to Mecca 4 times between 1326 and 1349, spent 8 years as a judge of Delhi and 18 months Islands Maldives and stayed 2 years in Black Africa.
There are four periods in these trips:

• 1325-1327: first pilgrimage to Mecca (the hajj) with the Maghreb, exploration of the Nile Valley, Syria, Iraq and the cities of Iran;
• 1328-1330: second pilgrimage to Mecca via the south coast of the Arabian Peninsula to Kilwa Kisiwani and on the east African Swahili culture;
• 1330-1346: third pilgrimage to Mecca, Exploration of Turkey, Black Sea, Central Asia, India, Ceylon, Sumatra, Malaysia and China to Beijing;
• 1349-1354: crossing the Sahara to Mali.

Ibn Battuta left his family to go to Mecca on 14 June 1325, he left Tangier for his pilgrimage through quickly Algeria then in full civil war (Ibn Battuta does not mention yet). But as he does not travel by boat, he took the first road, all alone on a donkey. It was of course as dangerous as today. And that is why it will soon join a caravan of traders and pilgrims en route to Mecca.

From Tangier, he passes through the city of Fez, then Tlemcen, Algiers, Bejaia and Constantine, where he receives a burnoose as a gift from the governor of the city; a new burnoose to replace his old and already torn. It was the first gift of a long series received throughout his travels and his career.

It then passes through Tunis under the reign of Sultan Hafsid Abû Yahya Abu Bakr Al-Mutawakkil at the time of the feast of the end of Ramadan. He joins a caravan leaving for Saudi Arabia; he arrived in Tripoli, where he married the daughter of another pilgrim, and travelling companion. The celebration of the marriage lasts all day.

But it was the first marriage of a long series that Ibn Battuta seems to have made during these 30 years of wandering. During the journey, a misunderstanding with his stepfather led to the divorce. He remarried with another woman in the caravan, the daughter of a scholar from Fez. Ibn Battuta does not provide any details about his wives who appear in her story and quickly disappear without any explanation.
In January 1326, he arrived in Alexandria. Ibn Battuta gives a detailed description of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and said that his return in 1349 he found only on these places a pile of ruins. Ibn Battuta went to Cairo. He explains the local tax system based on the height of the annual Nile flood, this flood is the sign of crops more or less abundant.

He spent nearly Pyramids of Giza. At the time they were still covered with a facing of limestone which made shiny in the sun. Ibn Battuta tells a sovereign wanted to enter a pyramid by attacking the limestone cladding with hot vinegar opening thus a gap.

Based in Cairo, he sailed up the Nile. In passing, we learn that a man was enriched using the stones of ancient temples to build a Koranic school. Arrived at the edge of the Red Sea, it can not proceed and must turn to Cairo. In this way back from Aswan to Cairo it seems a little more focus on each step.

From Egypt, he moved to Gaza and from there to Hebron and Jerusalem. The fear of the crusaders to return to Jerusalem and there, had paradoxical decision to raze all the fortifications. Ibn Battuta marvels at the Dome of the Rock.
Ibn Battuta then returned back along the Mediterranean coast through Tire, Sayda, Beirut, and Damascus by a hook. Return to Tripoli on the coast. It is a new hook by the Krak des Chevaliers and Homs (Emes), it descends the course of the Orontes to Hama, exquisite and charming city surrounded by orchards where the turning water wheels. .

Still heading towards the north it reached Aleppo. It focuses on the description of the citadel, quoting a poet: the citadel stands tough against those who want to watch with its high and its steep slopes. "From there, he returned again to the coast to Antioch. It comes down south until Lattakia, then at the foot of the fortress Marquuab he says is similar to Krak des Chevaliers, then to Baalbek and then back to Damascus to linger as if heaven is on earth, it is in Damascus and elsewhere. "

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, he said see the tomb of Zechariah, the father of Jean-Baptist, then Ibn Joubair (1145-1217) a century before him spoke of the "mausoleum of the head of John, son of Zechariah; as is the tradition today. He receives in Damascus license to teach in 1326 and went to Mecca with a caravan.

The caravan stopped at Bosra for a few days. In passing it passes close to ”the home of Thamud” dug in the mountains of red sandstone carved with thresholds and built like that recently. The bones are decayed within homes. "
It is certainly the site of Petra in Jordan, where most shelters dug in the cliff were not houses but the graves, but the interpretation of Ibn Battuta is in line with the Koran.

Arrived at Medina, Ibn Battuta will gather at the tomb of Muhammad (Peace be upon him). It tells the various stages of expansion of the mosque and feuds that led between the various clans of the family. After making a tour of sites that the prophet had attended, he returned to Mecca.

He arrived in Mecca at the end of a year trip through Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Ibn Battuta made a long and fairly accurate description of places and rituals of the pilgrimage. Ten days after the end of the pilgrimage, he left with a caravan in the direction of Iraq (November 17, 1326).

And instead of returning home in the Maghreb, he decided to travel again. Ibn Battuta going to Najaf to see the tomb of `Ali, he tells the story of miracles taking place on the tomb, but he said not to have seen himself.

While the caravan back to Baghdad, Ibn Battuta decided to go to al-Basra (Basra). Here attending the prayer he was surprised to see the imam commit sins of language. After a passage he goes to Abadan Isfahan.

So, a series of trips; the first, as for many Muslims, was to Mecca by North Africa, Egypt, Upper Nile and Syria; Ibn Battuta arrived there in 1326. Two months after leaving Saudi Arabia, Ibn Battuta travelled to Iraq and Iran in southern, central and northern Iraq back in Baghdad, court in Mosul, Baghdad and back in Arabia.

There he will take advantage of a stay of three years (1327-1330) to accomplish each of these three years, the pilgrimage to Mecca. He then for the Red Sea, Yemen, the African coast, Mogadishu and countertops in Eastern Africa, is by Oman and the Persian Gulf and perform a new pilgrimage to Mecca in 1332.

Fourth trip: this time, it is Egypt, Syria, and Minor Asia, the territories of the Mongol Golden Horde in southern Russia, a visit to Constantinople, the restoration of the Golden Horde, Transoxiana and Afghanistan, where Ibn Battuta won the Indus Valley in 1333 and stayed in Delhi until 1342.

If we all remember the adventures of Ibn Battuta in India is precisely because he spent eight years. The longest of his stays in one place. There, he acted as judge for the Sultan of Delhi. He visited the Maldives Islands, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), and go to Indonesia on the island of Sumatra.

Hence, Ibn Battuta wins the Maldives, where he remained a year and a half it will be his fifth trip. A jump to Ceylon, returning to the Maldives, and Bengal, Assam, Sumatra, China: Zhuanshufu.

In Sumatra and Malabar (1347), until the Persian Gulf, and then Baghdad, Syria, Egypt and new pilgrimage in Arabia. Back in Egypt, Alexandria, Ibn Battuta sailed for Tunis (1349), where he won the Sardinia on a boat Catalan, he returned by Algeria, Fez, the Kingdom of Granada and, again, the Morocco, country of birth. One last journey in 1352 was to the Sahara, the countries of Niger.

It will be up during those three trips to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage again. And he decides, finally after 24 years of absence to return home. Perhaps the black plague raging in the Muslim cities in 1349 led him to return.

Arrived at his home in Tangier, his father had been dead for 15 years already, and his mother had just died a few months ago. It just takes some time to resettle at home, and leaves on a trip 2 years later. This time, it will not go very far.

After some time spent in Tangier, Ibn Battuta leaves on a trip to al-Andalus-the Muslim Spain. Alfonso XI of Castile threatening to invade Gibraltar, Ibn Battuta joined a group of Muslims from Tangier with the intention to fight for this port. Luckily for them, the Black Death had killed the king shortly before their arrival (May 1350) and Ibn Battuta can travel safely. He visits the Kingdom of Valencia and ends his journey in Grenada.

Leaving Spain he decided to visit one of the few countries in the Arab world that, paradoxically, he had never visited his native Morocco. He stops in Marrakech, then almost a ghost town following the outbreak of plague and on to Fez, the capital of the kingdom of Merinides, and also the seat of the Quaraouiyine, one of the most important center of knowledge the time to finish his journey in his good city of Tangier.

Two years before his first visit to Cairo, the mansa of the Mali Empire, Kouta Moussa, was passed by the city in the direction of Mecca to perform the hajj and had greatly impressed by the opulence of his prerogative.

West Africa was rich in gold and this wealth was a breakthrough for the Muslim world. Even if it does not explicitly mention, Ibn Battuta had to hear and this has undoubtedly motivated his decision to travel in sub-Saharan western margins of the Muslim world and the Sahara.

In 1352, he left again to reach the Moroccan border town Sijilmasa that in turn left with the caravan of winter a few months later. He reached the city Saharan Taghaza, then an important center of trade in salt, enriched by the gold of Mali but not great impression on our friends.
Eight hundred kilometres through the most hostile of the Sahara and it is to Walata. From there it continues in a south-westerly direction, along that he believed to be the Nile but is Niger, to finally reach Gao, the capital of the Mali Empire.

Mansa Suleiman, who reigned over the Empire since 1341, receives Ibn Battuta stingily but still eight months to take the road to Timbuktu, then a small unimportant town, far that it becomes in decades. He leaves to re-cross the desert and join his native Morocco, where he ended a life, finally settled and peaceful, in all probability for the sultan.

The flier was left to historians ''one of the richest sources of study ''particularly on the West Africa of the 14th century.

Five years later and in a story he made his trips to Merinides Sultan Abu Inan, Sultan assigns his secretary Ibn Juzayy to write his notes and travel stories. The manuscript was written in 3 months and completed on 9 December 1355, which is not very long considering travel that Ibn Battouta has made. But it will Rihla, a historical and geographical work on the Muslim world of the 14th century.

In fact, during his long travels, Ibn Battuta had lost the notes he had taken and he was reluctant to write the relation of his travels, the Sultan Abu Inan invited to tell the story in Abu Abd Allah Mohammed Ibn Juzayy.

In the original manuscript, we read the following from the pen of the Andalusian Ibn Juzayy, secretary of Sultan Abu Inan, "Ibn Juzayy says that "Abu Abdullah (IBN Battouta name) told me in Granada that he was born in Tangiers, on Monday, Rajib 17 of the 703 years "on 24 February 1304.

The book to read is entitled "Tohfat en-fi Noddhâr Gharaib Amsar wa el-el-Asfar Adjaib” presented to those who like to reflect on the sights of the cities and the wonders of travel. However, he was best known as the "Rihla. The book was completed in February 1356.

The first translation was in French in the mid-nineteenth century and was published in Paris in 8 volumes from 1853 to 1858. The manuscript is kept in the National Literary of France (Paris) and the Youth in Syros editions now offer an adaptation, written and in pictures by James Rumford.

Three French editions so far: Anthropos (exhausted) the Discovery (Maspero old) and recently the host (new translation). Translated into English by Sir Hamilton Gibb in 1962.

The manuscript is deposited in Paris at the National Library under the codices 907 (Arabic 291, folio 110). This manuscript was used for French translations; it is deemed the most authentic. There are also manuscripts in Spain, Constantine and the Quarawiyines Fez.

The most extraordinary (perhaps) in the history of Ibn Battuta remains his disappearance. Since writing his book in 1354, historians have completely lost his trace. Some found his death in 1368 others a year later and still others in 1378, i.e. ten years after.

In the journey, Ibn Battuta sank his professional and personal life, marrying here, having also served as a judge heard. Besides the trip has not been taken on that personality, that reads identical to itself throughout the book, without quality or flaw and, above all, who walk in the middle of so many different companies, Islam impassive and sure of itself.

Would he be gone without telling anyone? The city of Tangier has nonetheless raised a mausoleum to his memory even though his body seems there have never been buried!
Is this not the traveller’s own?

”He returned home enriched, rather than gold or precious stones, but what makes the wealth of passenger: memory. At a time when books were quite rare, he made his journeys and captivated stories he listened to. Them routings Scarlet who opened a window on the world”

The Journey of Ibn Battuta also has a religious dimension, both the frequent traveller wanted to slake his thirst for knowledge, in accordance with the teachings of Islam that command “seek to know it was in China”.

Ibn Battuta was during his long journey intrepid traveller,” Muslim who was not afraid and a Muslim who was not afraid”, note that in the story of his Rihla, he described the various regions visited as much discernment as respect, “without disdain or contempt for other cultures”.

In fact, through its Rihla, the Moroccan traveller gave full meaning to the verse of the Holy Koran: ''We made you into peoples and tribes so that you know.''

That is a memory that we challenge, witness of an era less compartmentalized and more open to the merits of individual companies constructive. The genius of the place, i.e. the cultural wealth of the country of origin, Morocco, is considered by all researchers and artists interested in Ibn Battuta.

While his contemporary, Marco Polo (1254-1324), was famous in Europe, the name of Ibn Battuta is him, remained more closely linked to the Maghrebian memory and boundless passion for knowledge. A passion that make him travel more than 120,000 km with the means of transport at the time.

Piety and erudition which have helped to make Ibn Battuta was that the humanist and the man who did not hesitate to take the plates to meet the other.

The figure of Ibn Battuta is often compared to the more famous Marco Polo, Venetian trader who explored the China and Mongolia in the 13th century (1261-1269: first trip to China and 1271: Second trip to Mongolia). However, the differences between the two characters are significant.

In fact, in a comparison between Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo, one can observe that, unlike the Italian traveller, who began his famous journey to the pursuit of profit, having been born in Venice merchant father, the traveller is mainly Moroccan party in the constant quest for a spiritual renewal.

Thus Rihla of Ibn Battuta, if it remains faithful to the laws of gender, expands in proportion to its size to it. Ultimately, it leads more directly than in Ibn Joubair on the panorama, on the fresco that is hardly necessary to underline the interest to the historian.

It will be easy to fall between the two masters of the genre such as Ibn Battuta and Ibn Joubair, similarities that are in form and spirit of the Rihla, dealing, as they say about Ibn Joubair, space and time according to a vision.

However, considerable difficulties arise. Quantitative first: the face of limited scope covered by the journey of Ibn Joubair that of Ibn Battuta extends finally, not to mention trips abroad, throughout the Muslim world of that time.

In addition, on such spatial and temporal distance, and the fact that it is a story dictated post and memory, it could be to divide the question about day after day, the unit time fades here in ensembles larger working memory in the order of the week, month, year.

In the history of Arabic geography, which continues to be observed, the Ibn Battuta Rihla plays a crucial role. If no geography, we speak more accurately paint a space, the comparison with Ibn Battuta Ibn Khaldun is extraordinarily illuminating and symptomatic choices that can operate a Muslim believes in this 14 century.

The two men come at a time when the Arab-Muslim world has been traumatized by the impact Turkish-Mongolian, which the former empire died in Baghdad, as an institution and as a concept inspiring the painting in the world and the story of history.

Ibn Battuta and Ibn Khaldun have common membership in the Maliki school, around which, in the Muslim West, Islam now distil its forces and definition of resistance.

But the comparison stops there: in Ibn Khaldoun, desperate contemplation of history, life and death of civilizations is based on a study in depth and almost immobile, the few trips made by the learned as to include of bursts, returns to the hope in the political praxis designed as a source of resurrection and possible refutation of the story, and the failure of these attempts finally coming back to feed the pessimism of the scientist.

In Ibn Battuta, however, the in-depth gives way to movement, which spread, one might say, on the horizontality of the world, and who succeeds, by his dynamism and cheerful tenacity, to forget the disappearance of the old empire in the expanse of a world where, so far we walk, we come across almost find Muslims: it is as if, going from one state to a other Muslim state, they wanted us to understand that for the price of his unit is gone, Islam had gained a new geography: the very people he had won, in fact, in its new borders after the year miles.

Ibn Battuta is the only known medieval traveller to have visited the country of each governing Muslim of his time. He was the only one to have experienced all of Dar El Islam of his time! Maritime stage show that the Muslims of the 14th century dominated maritime activity in the Red Sea in the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.

On 14 June 1325, Ibn Battuta of Tangier to travel the greatest distance (116,800 km) that has never been covered before Magellan (2 centuries later): 29 years of adventures in regions corresponding to the current 44 countries!

The North Africa (1325), Egypt (1326), Palestine and Syria (1326), Medina and Mecca (1326), Iraq and Persia (1326-1327), South Arabia , Yemen and East Africa (1328-1330), Asia Minor and Constantinople (1330-1331), southern Russia and Central Asia (1332-1333), Muslim India (1334-1341), Ceylon and the Maldives (1342-1344), Sumatra and China (1345-1346).

After a return to Tangier (1346-1349), he returned in Andalusia (Granada) and travelled to the Kingdom of Morocco and the Sahara (1349-1350), West Africa (1351-1353). He returned to Fez in 1353.