Product Description

Known as the greatest traveler of premodern times, Abu Abdallah ibn Battuta was born in Morocco in 1304 and educated in Islamic law. At the age of twenty-one, he left home to make the holy pilgrimage to Mecca. This was only the first of a series of extraordinary journeys that spanned nearly three decades and took him not only eastward to India and China but also north to the Volga River valley and south to Tanzania. The narrative of these travels has been known to specialists in Islamic and medieval history for years. Ross E. Dunn's 1986 retelling of these tales, however, was the first work of scholarship to make the legendary traveler's story accessible to a general audience. Now updated with revisions, a new preface, and an updated bibliography, Dunn's classic interprets Ibn Battuta's adventures and places them within the rich, trans-hemispheric cultural setting of medieval Islam.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #246686 in Books
• Published on: 2004-12-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 379 pages

Review
"It is not surprising that this book was required reading."--Pragati: the Indian National Interest Review

About the Author
Ross E. Dunn is Professor of History, San Diego State University, and the editor of The New World History: A Teacher's Companion (2000).

Customer Reviews

Even more interesting than Marco Polo's Travels
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, even more than reading Marco Polo. Battuta logged over 70,000 miles, some of it through dangerous regions, and as far as from Morocco to China and back. Travel that far was an astonishing feat for that period. It offers very interesting insights into the Muslim world of the 14th century. The author also attempts to paint a realistic picture of Battuta as a man of his times. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of Battuta's pilgrimage to Mecca and his experiences in India. One thing I think some Western readers might also gain from this book is a greater appreciation and understanding of the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular.

Excellent book to relate to for the Intrepid Traveller, even in 2009!
An excellent book by Ross E Dunn with vivid, clearly researched and referenced account of Ibn Battuta's travels adventures and escapades through some of the dangerous regions from his home (Morocco) to China and back. It also provides a good framework of what is known of the political religious and cultural background of the Islamic world during the fourteenth century. The journey of life-a-time for most Muslims is the Hajj (pilgrimage) as the fifth pillar of Islam - once in our life-time as was the reason/pre-text for Ibn Battuta's journey in 1325 & which ended in 1354 with a total of 73,000 miles (29 years later)!

I can easily relate to this journey as I had also travelled on a journey-of-a-life time in 1985 with a team of eight other individuals, all of us were Muslim(s) and who went on a gruelling overland trek totalling 15,860 miles to research our "Roots". Travelling through countries such as Belgium, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Kashmir and included the 7,930 miles return journey to Britain (UK). By modern day standards our journey of almost 16,000 miles was completed within three months and in the fourteenth century it may have taken Ibn Battuta 3-5 years to complete!

However, travelling long distances across world's regions is risky as you can get caught up in wars, conflicts, banditry and other perils of bad weather and mishaps - still applies to modern day travelling (as it happened in 1985 & I came back in one piece to tell the tale and so did Ibn Battuta!). Places like Anatolia/Persia (now Turkey/Iran), India (now India/Pakistan) and Kashmir with familiar names of cities like Erzurum, Sivas, Erzincan, Tabriz, Multan and Delhi are still in existence today & when Ibn Battuta visited them.

essential history and geography of the muslim world
This is a very detailed and well written account of the travels, very well researched and referenced. It gives a sketch of what is known of the political religious and cultural background of all the lands Ibn Battuta travelled through from the times of the travels and makes a very cogent attempt to sort out the sequence. It has good maps. It gives a vivid picture of the people and the times. My only disappointment is the limited number of quotations from the Rihla. If you are backpacking anywhere between Nigeria and Mongolia this book will earn you lots of free meals and good contacts. Anyone got a modern tranlation of the Rihla (cheap) please?