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Ibn Battuta

Moroccan Traveler, One of the Farthest-Traveled Travelers in Pre-Modern History

Those Who Set the World Down in Writing · Scholars & Explorers

Travels Through the Islamic WorldThe Rihla of Ibn BattutaA Record of Trans-Continental Travel

Who they are

Ibn Battuta (1304–c. 1368/1369) was an Islamic scholar and traveler born in Tangier, Morocco, who at 21 set out for the pilgrimage to Mecca, and thereafter could not be stopped, spending nearly thirty years traveling almost the whole of the known Islamic world and beyond — from North Africa, the Middle East, and the coast of East Africa, across Central Asia and the South Asian subcontinent, as far as Southeast Asia and China, a total journey estimated at more than a hundred and ten thousand kilometers, one of the farthest-traveled travelers with a clear written record in pre-modern history (his journey exceeding even that recorded in the travels of Marco Polo about half a century before). In his later years, funded by the Moroccan sultan, he dictated the Rihla of Ibn Battuta, recording in detail the customs, political conditions, and religious life of the countries along the way, one of the most important primary documents for the study of the fourteenth-century Islamic world and the Indian Ocean trade network.

Primary sourcesThe Rihla of Ibn Battuta, dictated by Ibn Battuta and set down by Ibn Juzayy

Key stories

From Pilgrimage to Circling the World

At 21 Ibn Battuta had meant only to fulfill the religious duty of the pilgrimage to Mecca, but on reaching Mecca conceived the idea of traveling on to farther regions, and thereafter over nearly thirty years his footsteps reached North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the East African coast, Persia, Central Asia, India, the Maldives, Southeast Asia, and even China — the length of his travels and the breadth of regions covered exceedingly rare in the whole pre-modern world.

Appointment as Judge by the Indian Sultan

While traveling in the Delhi Sultanate of India, Ibn Battuta, for his deep knowledge of Islamic law, was esteemed by the local sultan and appointed a judge of Delhi, and was later commissioned to lead a diplomatic mission as envoy to Yuan China, undergoing shipwreck, robbery, and many twists on the way — a turbulent experience recorded in detail in the travelogue he dictated in his later years.

Version differences

Modern scholars have some doubt about the accuracy of the account of some distant regions (such as China) in the Rihla, holding that it may mingle relayed accounts of others or literary exaggeration, but the travelogue’s scholarly value as a first-hand source of the geographical knowledge of the fourteenth-century Islamic world is still widely acknowledged.

Relationships

Ally

🕌Akbar the Great　The two, more than two hundred years apart, were both noted for promoting cultural exchange between the Islamic world and the South Asian subcontinent

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

The "greatest traveler of the pre-modern age"Ibn Battuta’s total journey is estimated at more than a hundred and ten thousand kilometers, and modern travel literature and geography often name him alongside his contemporary Marco Polo as one of the farthest-traveled travelers of the pre-modern world.

Appears in

The Middle Ages of Faith, Conquest, and KnowledgeThe Global Travels of Ibn Battuta

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