The Travels of Ibn Battutah [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

If you want to read ibn Battutah in his own words, this is the best source currently available. But know what you are getting. 300 pages of small print, no pictures, no maps, no chronology, just the voice of ibn Battutah, echoing down through the ages. 25 pages of footnotes at the back help with the clarification of time, place, and bits of history. But for context, you need to read this book in conjunction with The Adventures of ibn Battuta by Ross Dunn.

This is a great way to hear ibn Battutah's story in his own words. The translation is clear and accessible, without seeming "modernized." Ibn Battutah's personality definitely comes through.

Having grown up in Arabia, and being fluent in Arabic, I never read any Arab/Muslim history in English, I usually read them in Arabic- in order to be able to recommend books for my students (and to officers of the US military working in the Middle East), I have started reading translations of old works in English. This translation is exactly why I shy away from recommending English books on the Middle East to my students. I am at a loss for words on this translation. There are no saints in Islam, nor are there 'convents'- I am not sure if the translator translated Shaikh or Wali as 'Saint' but in Islam, especially Sunni Islam, no one other than God is considered holy. No wonder the western world is so confused about Islam and Arabs- it has been a free for all, everyone adds 'their interpretations' as facts.
There are many mistakes in translation, "endowment money is given to poor girls so they can marry"- no, in the Muslim world, the man must come up with the dowry, not the woman or her family.
In addition, the author adds his own input that is completely not true- no where do Muslims add ones 'sect' to the end of their name, just because Ibn Batutta is of the Maliki sect, that does not mean one would add that to his name. etc, etc
Sadly, this is a beautiful book in Arabic, and although the English is elaborate, the mistakes have been at the root of many of the misunderstandings between the west and the Muslim world.

Ibn Battutah was a 14th century Berber traveler who took a quickie (6 week) course in figh (Islamic jurisprudence) in order to have a portable skill as a qadi (Islamic judge) to finance his voyages around the known world of his day. Along the way he sleeps around, buys and sells slave girls, dabbles in asceticism, goes to war and in general seems to have a rollicking good time. Seemingly by reputation or letters of introduction from his patron the Sultan he meets the elite leaderships and is invariably endowed with gifts, honour and in some cases whole villages who's income he is to use to cover his expenses - and still he overspends, winds up in debt and is bailed out by his patrons.

Starting from Tangiers Battutah travels by caravan eventually reaching Alexandria, then Cario and then to the gateway of Syria which begins at a border crossing just west of the city of Gaza. Traveling along the coast of what is today Israel he finds cities abandoned in desolation. Haifa has a Christian shrine but he records no people. Acco is a small port and then on to Tyre. This is in marked contrast to another traveler Benjamin of Tudela who records communities of Samaritans and Jews around 160 years earlier. The difference has been caused by clashes between the Saracens and the Crusaders. He proceeds to Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Hebron where he finds bustling communities.

For some reason (ostensibly a seer) he has to double back to Damascus before proceding on to Mecca and Medina where he stays several years. Then on to Turkey where he encounters Dervishes, the Crimea and the Ural Steppes, again encountering generous Muslims, women on par with men and frozen rivers of ice and snow. (Not entirely strange I'd guess - I've seen travel posters showing skiing in the Atlas mountains to the south of Tangiers.)

The focus then shifts to India where he observes the assassination of one ruler by a booby trapped wall, and joins a war party where his side is gloriously victorious, only to have the tables turned and having to sneak away. He is robbed by brigands and spends a pleasant few years in the Maldives where the women "marry" easily and he is again able to ply his trade as a qadi, though he's a bit of a fish out of water meting out judgments far harsher than the locals are used to.

The section that follows on China I find disappointing short - whether that is the fault of editing or the original material I don't really know. The final section deals with his travels in Africa, "the lands of the blacks".

Overall the voyages take over 26 years. In Syria (again) he hears of the death of his father. By the time he returns home he finds that his mother has died of the plague a year earlier. The juxtaposition of the black death and Battutah's journey puts the tale in perspective. He has traveled the world at the best of times and the years that follow the world and travel in it will be greatly diminished.

The Rhila (Travels) is often considered to be one of the great books. Like the Odyssey this is a world tale that should be treasured and revisited. I greatly enjoyed Tim Mackintosh-Smith's (TMS) rendition. He explains what's left out of the translation from the Arabic (mostly long winded tributes to Ibn Battuta's royal sponsor) and his footnotes at the end were an invaluable guide. However around pp120 I found the book a little boring and I realized that I needed more context. So I picked up his earlier book Travels with a Tangerine (which only goes as far as the Crimea) and continued by reading the two books in tandem which I found helpful. He also mentions several other medieval travelers in the earlier book, and several references appear in the footnotes of this one.

Recommended.