The sons of wealthy Timbuktu merchant families studied under them to become Islamic scholars, too. They studied Islamic religion, law, literature, science, and medicine. Islamic books became expensive import items. Elementary schools, sometimes supported by rich merchants, taught boys to read and memorize the Koran. Most Muslim males, both black and white, learned to read. Muslim countries at this time normally excluded females from formal schooling. Timbuktu reached the height of its influence in the s as part of the Muslim Songhai Empire, which replaced Mali.
Many colleges, elementary schools, and libraries flourished in Timbuktu, whose population had grown to about 50, All of this became possible because of the leadership and financial contributions of wealthy black and white Muslim merchant families. Although the Mali and Songhai kings appointed a governor for Timbuktu, the qadi , or judge, was the real leader of the community. The most important scholars of the city selected the qadi from a few long-established families.
The qadi had to be a scholar of the law and above suspicion of ever accepting bribes. The qadi heard lawsuits argued by legal scholars, who acted as lawyers for each side of the case. He relied on the testimony of witnesses and other types of evidence presented in his court. He made judgments and ordered punishments, which included beating and imprisonment. He enforced his own decisions, calling on the help of his personal followers or the people of the city.
He directed a police force made up of lower-ranking scholars. He also represented the Muslim community when the king came to call. Occasionally, qadis interpreted the law and established precedents. For example, a Timbuktu qadi made an important ruling on slaves captured in war.
If they claimed that they were Muslims, they had to be given the benefit of doubt and freed. Islamic law prohibited Muslims enslaving other Muslims. After visiting with the qadi , scholars, and merchants of Timbuktu, Ibn Battuta joined a caravan going north to Morocco.
He arrived home early in This ended his travels to foreign lands. Altogether, he covered about 75, miles in 29 years, meeting with 60 rulers in Asia and Africa. He probably had several wives.
Islamic law permitted a man up to four wives at once. Like Marco Polo, Ibn Battuta dictated a report of his travels. He then served as the qadi of a Moroccan town and disappeared from history. The scribe who wrote down Ibn Battuta's account of his travels added these words: "It is plain to any man of intelligence that this [learned man] is the traveler of the age.
Ibn Battuta—the great traveller By A. From Medieval Sourcebook. Ibn Battuta and his Saharan Travels More selections. Ibn Battuta's Travels in Mali Still more selections. In the late medieval period, Ibn Battuta traveled through many countries and saw many different cultures.
In this activity, students will use their textbooks and other resources to describe the elements of different cultures in the late Middle Ages. Alumni Volunteers The Boardroom Alumni. Curriculum Materials. Add Event. Main Menu Home. The exact dates of when he was in certain places are unclear. Remember Me. Log in. Born in Tangier, Morocco.
Left home and went across North Africa. Arrived in Cairo, Egypt. Traveled through Syria and Palestine. Battuta next traveled east across the Eurasian steppe before entering India via Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush.
Arriving in the city of Delhi in , he won employment as a judge under Muhammad Tughluq, a powerful Islamic sultan. Battuta passed several years in the cushy job and even married and fathered children, but he eventually grew wary of the mercurial sultan, who was known to maim and kill his enemies—sometimes by tossing them to elephants with swords attached to their tusks.
A chance to escape finally presented itself in , when the sultan selected Battuta as his envoy to the Mongol court of China. Still thirsty for adventure, the Moroccan set out at the head of a large caravan brimming with gifts and slaves.
Hindu rebels harassed his group during their journey to the Indian coast, and Battuta was later kidnapped and robbed of everything but his pants. He managed to make it to the port of Calicut, but on the eve of an ocean voyage, his ships blew out to sea in a storm and sank, killing many in his party. Ibn Battuta, Moroccan explorer, in Egypt. Illustration by Leon Benett from book by Jules Verne, The string of disasters left Battuta stranded and disgraced.
He was loath to return to Delhi and face the sultan, however, so he elected to make a sea voyage south to the Indian Ocean archipelago of the Maldives.
He remained in the idyllic islands for the next year, gorging on coconuts, taking several wives and once again serving as an Islamic judge. Battuta might have stayed in the Maldives even longer, but following a falling out with its rulers, he resumed his journey to China.
After making a stopover in Sri Lanka, he rode merchant vessels through Southeast Asia. In , four years after first leaving India, he arrived at the bustling Chinese port of Quanzhou. Having reached the edge of the known world, he finally turned around and journeyed home to Morocco, arriving back in Tangier in Five manuscripts were found by the French when they conquered Algeria in The most complete copy recovered in Algiers was made in , but the oldest fragment was dated That fragment had the title "Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Traveling," and is believed to have been a very early copy indeed if not an original fragment.
The full text was translated first into English by Hamilton A. Gibb in Several subsequent translations are available today. Ibn Battuta recounted tales of his travels throughout his voyage and when he returned home, but it was not until his association with Ibn Jazayy that the stories were committed to formal writing.
Battuta took notes during the journey but admitted that he lost some of them along the way. He was accused of lying by some contemporaries, though the veracity of those claims is widely disputed.
Modern critics have noted several textual discrepancies which hint at substantial borrowing from older tales. Much of the criticism of Battuta's writing is aimed at the sometimes confusing chronology and plausibility of certain parts of the itinerary. Some critics suggest he may have never reached mainland China, but did get as far as Vietnam and Cambodia.
Parts of the story were borrowed from earlier writers, some attributed, others not, such as Ibn Jubary and Abu al-Baqa Khalid al-Balawi. Those borrowed parts include descriptions of Alexandria, Cairo, Medina, and Mecca. He also relied on original sources, relating historical events told to him in the courts of the world, such as the capture of Delhi and the devastations of Genghis Khan. After his collaboration with Ibn Jazayy ended, Ibn Batuta retired to a judicial post in a small Moroccan provincial town, where he died in Ibn Battuta has been called the greatest of all travel writers, having traveled farther than Marco Polo.
In his work, he provided priceless glimpses of the various people, courts and religious monuments around the world. His travelogue has been the source of countless research projects and historical investigations. Even if some of the stories were borrowed, and some of the tales a bit too marvelous to be believed, Ibn Battuta's rilha remains an enlightening and influential work of travel literature to this day.
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