Phronesis
No. 062Person1325–1354People ·History ·Geography

The traveller who went five times farther than Marco Polo

In 1325 a 21-year-old from Tangier set out on pilgrimage to Mecca. He came home 29 years later, having travelled an estimated 117,000 km.

2 min read
An illustration from Jules Verne's book "Découverte de la terre" ("Discovery of the Earth") drawn by Léon Benett. Ibn Battuta (1304-68/69) was a Maghrebi Berber
Image: Léon BenettPublic domainWikimedia Commons

In 1325, Ibn Battuta, a young legal scholar from Tangier in Morocco, left home for the pilgrimage to Mecca, a journey of about 16 months. He didn’t come home for 29 years.

Where he went

His travels took him through:

  • North Africa, Egypt, Syria and Arabia
  • the Swahili coast of East Africa
  • Anatolia, the steppes of the Golden Horde and Central Asia (Bukhara, Samarkand)
  • India, where he served the Sultan of Delhi as a judge for years
  • the Maldives, where he was again a judge, and married
  • Sri Lanka, Sumatra, and probably China
  • and finally al-Andalus in Spain and across the Sahara to Mali

The estimated total is about 117,000 km. By comparison, estimates for Zheng He are around 50,000 km and for Marco Polo around 24,000 km.

How it worked

The Islamic world of the 14th century was vast and connected. A trained jurist who spoke Arabic could find work, hospitality and patrons from Morocco to India. Ibn Battuta’s legal training was his passport.

Did he really go everywhere?

Back in Morocco he dictated his memories to the scholar Ibn Juzayy, producing the Rihla (“The Journey”). Some passages, especially about China and the city of Bulgar on the Volga, are vague or borrowed from earlier writers, and historians doubt he went to all of these places. Even with those parts set aside, it remains one of the great travel accounts of the medieval world.

“I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveller in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join.”
Ibn Battuta, the Rihla

Bring it up

“Ibn Battuta travelled about five times as far as Marco Polo, and he worked as a judge in the Maldives along the way.”

Follow the thread

  1. In contrastPoint Nemo, where spacecraft go to die The most connected traveller of his age, and the least connected place on Earth.
  2. RelatedOxford University is older than the Aztec Empire Another reminder of how large and connected the medieval world already was.
  3. RelatedWho lives in Xi’an’s Muslim Quarter The same medieval Muslim world of traders and scholars stretched from Morocco to China.

You might also find interesting

From Paludan's source: "Early 8th century murals in Prince Yide's tomb give an idea of the magnificence of Chang'an's city walls with their towering gate and co
No. 022PlaceCities

Xi’an was once one of the largest cities on Earth

Around 750, the city now called Xi’an was Chang’an: a “million-man city” at the eastern end of the Silk Road, home to Persians, Sogdians, Arabs and Christian monks.

2 min202 BC – 907 AD
Pyramid of Khufu - May 2023
No. 027FactHistory

Cleopatra lived closer to the Moon landing than to the pyramids

The Great Pyramid was already about 2,500 years old when Cleopatra was born. Ancient history is much longer than it feels.

2 minc. 2560 BC → 30 BC → 1969
No. 073FactCountries

Kiribati moved the International Date Line

Until 1995 Kiribati was split by the date line, so different parts of the country were on different days. So it moved the line.

2 min▶ Animation1995
Image illustrating “Before 1492, Italy had no tomatoes and Thailand had no chillies”
No. 029ConceptCuisine & Food

Before 1492, Italy had no tomatoes and Thailand had no chillies

Many “ancient” national dishes depend on ingredients that crossed the Atlantic after Columbus. Some of them are surprisingly recent.

2 minafter 1492
No. 032EventArtificial Intelligence

AI got its name from a summer workshop proposal

In 1955 four researchers asked for funding for “a 2-month, 10-man study of artificial intelligence”, confident they could make a significant advance in one summer.

2 min1955–1956
No. 033EventArtificial Intelligence

From a bedroom GPU to ChatGPT

In 2012 a neural network trained on two gaming graphics cards in a student’s bedroom crushed an image-recognition contest. Ten years later, chatbots built on the same lineage reached the public.

2 min2012 · 2017 · 2022