[13][14][15] All that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels, which records that he was of Berber descent,[9] born into a family of Islamic legal scholars (known as qadis in the Muslim traditions of Morocco) in Tangier on 24 February 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty.

[19] On 2 Rajab 725 AH (14 June 1325 AD), Ibn Battuta set off from his home town at the age of 21 to perform a hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca, a journey that would ordinarily take sixteen months.

[20] I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose part I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries.

Of the three usual routes to Mecca, Ibn Battuta chose the least-traveled, which involved a journey up the Nile valley, then east to the Red Sea port of ʿAydhab.

[30] The diversion held an added advantage; because of the holy places that lay along the way, including Hebron, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem, the Mamluk authorities kept the route safe for pilgrims.

[31][c] After spending the Muslim month of Ramadan, during August,[36] in Damascus, he joined a caravan travelling the 1,300 km (810 mi) south to Medina, site of the Mosque of the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

From there he followed the coast in a series of boats (known as a jalbah, these were small craft made of wooden planks sewn together, lacking an established phrase) making slow progress against the prevailing south-easterly winds.

[56] Ibn Battuta continued by ship south to the Swahili coast, a region then known in Arabic as the Bilad al-Zanj ("Land of the Zanj")[59] with an overnight stop at the island town of Mombasa.

He further wrote that the authority of the Sultan extended from Malindi in the north to Inhambane in the south and was particularly impressed by the planning of the city, believing it to be the reason for Kilwa's success along the coast.

[81] When they reached Astrakhan, Öz Beg Khan had just given permission for one of his pregnant wives, Princess Bayalun, a daughter of Byzantine emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, to return to her home city of Constantinople to give birth.

[86][87] He wrote, After this I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold.Ibn Battuta and his party reached the Indus River on 12 September 1333.

From the Rajput kingdom of Sarsatti, Battuta visited Hansi in India, describing it as "among the most beautiful cities, the best constructed and the most populated; it is surrounded with a strong wall, and its founder is said to be one of the great non-Muslim kings, called Tara".

[96] The Sultan was erratic even by the standards of the time and for six years Ibn Battuta veered between living the high life of a trusted subordinate and falling under suspicion of treason for a variety of offences.

The opportunity for Battuta to leave Delhi finally arose in 1341 when an embassy arrived from the Yuan dynasty of China asking for permission to rebuild a Himalayan Buddhist temple popular with Chinese pilgrims.

Afraid to return to Delhi and be seen as a failure, he stayed for a time in southern India under the protection of Jamal-ud-Din, ruler of the small but powerful Nawayath Sultanate on the banks of the Sharavathi river next to the Arabian Sea.

Here he spent some time in the court of the short-lived Madurai Sultanate under Ghiyas-ud-Din Muhammad Damghani,[106] from where he returned to the Maldives and boarded a Chinese junk, still intending to reach China and take up his ambassadorial post.

At the meeting in 1345 CE, Ibn Battuta noted that Shah Jalal was tall and lean, fair in complexion and lived by the mosque in a cave, where his only item of value was a goat he kept for milk, butter, and yogurt.

[citation needed] In 1345, Ibn Battuta travelled to Samudra Pasai Sultanate (called "al-Jawa") in present-day Aceh, Northern Sumatra, after 40 days voyage from Sunur Kawan.

[107][108] He notes in his travel log that the ruler of Samudra Pasai was a pious Muslim named Sultan Al-Malik Al-Zahir Jamal-ad-Din, who performed his religious duties with utmost zeal and often waged campaigns against animists in the region.

Scholars however have pointed out numerous errors given in Ibn Battuta's account of China, for example confusing the Yellow River with the Grand Canal and other waterways, as well as believing that porcelain was made from coal.

[122] During his stay at Hangzhou he was particularly impressed by the large number of well-crafted and well-painted Chinese wooden ships, with coloured sails and silk awnings, assembling in the canals.

King Alfonso XI of Castile and León had threatened to attack Gibraltar, so in 1350, Ibn Battuta joined a group of Muslims leaving Tangier with the intention of defending the port.

Taghaza was a commercial centre and awash with Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not form a favourable impression of the place, recording that it was plagued by flies and the water was brackish.

[146] After a ten-day stay in Taghaza, the caravan set out for the oasis of Tasarahla (probably Bir al-Ksaib),[147][h] where it stopped for three days in preparation for the last and most difficult leg of the journey across the vast desert.

From Tasarahla, a Masufa scout was sent ahead to the oasis town of Oualata, where he arranged for water to be transported a distance of four days travel where it would meet the thirsty caravan.

[150] He wrote in his Rihla that black Africans were characterised by "ill manners" and "contempt for white men", and that he "was long astonished at their feeble intellect and their respect for mean things.

The full title of the manuscript may be translated as A Masterpiece to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling (تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار, Tuḥfat an-Nuẓẓār fī Gharāʾib al-Amṣār wa ʿAjāʾib al-Asfār).

When describing Damascus, Mecca, Medina, and some other places in the Middle East, he clearly copied passages from the account by the Andalusian Ibn Jubayr which had been written more than 150 years earlier.

[174] Ibn Battuta often experienced culture shock in regions he visited where the local customs of recently converted peoples did not fit in with his orthodox Muslim background.

[197][198] A giant semblance of Battuta, alongside two others from the history of Arab exploration, the geographer and historian Al Bakri and the navigator and cartographer Ibn Majid, is displayed at the Mobility pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai in a section of the exhibition designed by Weta Workshop.