Ibn Battuta
| Ibn Battuta | |
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| Birth name | Shams al-Din Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Yusuf al-Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta Ibn Hamid Al Ghazi |
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| Birth | 24 February 1304 Travel Originally simple pilgrim Amazigh , Muslim customary Ibn Battuta take the place of Islam and the Arabic language which greatly facilitated his travel. It also benefits from the development of trade as often joins the caravan, or embarks on merchant vessels Muslims. He met many celebrities and often becomes their adviser during his travels to extension.   There are four periods in these trips:
Crossing LibyaOn June 14, 1325, Ibn Battuta from Tangier for his pilgrimage to Mecca. It rapidly crosses the Algeria then in full civil war (Ibn Battuta there is no mention yet). He arrived in Tunis during the reign of Sultan Hafsid Abu Yahya Abu Bakr al-Mutawakkil at the feast of the end of Ramadan. He joins a caravan leaving for Saudi. While in Tripoli , he married the first time and leaves with his wife. Along the way, a dispute with his stepfather is divorced. He married another woman from the caravan, the daughter of an educated native of Fez. Rise of the Nile ValleyIn January 1326, he arrived in Alexandria. Ibn Battuta gives a detailed description of the Lighthouse of Alexandria and reported that on his return in 1349 he found on these places a heap of ruins. Ibn Battuta goes to Cairo. He then explains the local tax system based on the height of the annual Nile flood, this flood is the sign of more or less abundant harvests. He passed near the Giza pyramids. At the time they were still covered with a facing of limestone that made them shining in the sun. Ibn Battuta tells of a sovereign would enter a pyramid attacker limestone cladding with hot vinegar to open a gap. Starting from Cairo , he sailed up the Nile. In passing, we learn that a man was enriched using stones from ancient temples to build a Koranic school. Happened along the Red Sea , to Aydhab (in) , the conflict between the Egyptians and the Sultanate of Cairo Beja , prevents cross and must turn back to Cairo. In this way back from Aswan to Cairo, it seems to linger a little longer at each step. Crossing of Syria and Palestine For this part of the story, Ibn Battuta seems to make a synthesis of several stays in the area. From Egypt , he went to Gaza and from there to Hebron and Jerusalem. The fear that the Crusaders return to Jerusalem and settled, had taken the decision to raze all the paradoxical fortifications. Ibn Battuta marvels at the Dome of the Rock. Ibn Battuta then rises along the Mediterranean coast by way of Tyre , Saida , Beirut and made a detour to Damascus. Return to Tripoli on the coast. He made another detour to the Krak des Chevaliers and Homs (Emesa) and down the course of the Orontes to Hama , "charming and exquisite turn surrounded by orchards and water wheels. Still heading north it reached Aleppo. It focuses on the description of the citadel, quoting a poet: the citadel stands tough against those who want to watch with its high and its steep slopes. From there, he returned again to the coast to Antioch. It then curves south to Latakia , passes beneath the fortress Marquuab he says resembles the Krak des Chevaliers , then to Baalbek and returned to Damascus to consider them because "if heaven is on earth, c ' is in Damascus and elsewhere. " In the great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, said the tomb of Zachariah , father of John the Baptist , while Ibn Jubair (1145-1217) a century before him spoke of the "mausoleum of the head of John the son of Zechariah ", as is the tradition now. He received the license to Damascus to teach in 1326 and went to Mecca with a caravan. Towards MeccaThe caravan stopped at Bosra for a few days. In passing he spent about "the home of Thamud dug through mountains of red sandstone and carved with thresholds that believe built recently. The bones are decayed inside homes. "This is certainly the site of Petra in Jordan where most of the shelters in the cliff houses, but were not tombs, but the interpretation of Ibn Battuta goes in the direction of the Qur'an :
New French translation of the Koran by Mohammed Chiadmi (XV, 80-84) Arriving in Medina , Ibn Battuta will gather at the tomb of Muhammad. He recounts the various stages of expansion of the mosque and quarrels that led between the various clans of the family. Having toured the sites that Mohammed had attended, he returned to Mecca. Ibn Battuta made a fairly long and detailed descriptions of places and rituals of the pilgrimage. Ten days after the end of the pilgrimage, he left with a caravan in the direction of Iraq (November 17, 1326). IraqWithin the caravan that brings pilgrims, Ibn Battuta across the plateau of Nejd to Najaf after a trip quarentaine day, where he visited the tomb of including `Ali , fourth Caliph of Islam. It tells the story of miracles taking place in the tomb but he said not to be present himself. While the caravan again towards Baghdad , Ibn Battuta decided to visit Wasit then descend during the Tiger to go to al-Basrah ( Basra ). There, by attending the prayer, he was surprised to see the imam commit mistakes in language. PersiaHe arrived in Persia , he went to Isfahan in the mountains along the Zagros , then Shiraz , one of the few cities spared from the Mongol invasion. Ibn Battuta returned to Iraq where he visited Baghdad , largely in ruins after the passage of the army of Hulagu Khan. Then he goes back north to Tabriz , one of the first cities to open its doors to the Mongols, preventing the plundering of the city, and has become one of the most PROSPERT the region. After returning to Baghdad, he went up the Tigris, visit Mosul , Cizre and finally Mardin , located in what is now Turkey. At this point he turned around and returned to Mecca for his second hajj. East Africa, Yemen and OmanIbn Battuta then spent some time in Mecca. It tells the Rihla staying in the city for three years: from September 1327 until autumn 1330. In leaving Mecca after the Hajj in 1330, he headed for the port of Jeddah on the Red Sea coast and from there took several boats on the coast. Arriving in Yemen , he visited Zabid , then the city of Upland Taiz where he met Malik rassoulide Mujahid Ali Nur al-Din. Ibn Battuta also mentions the city of Sana'a , although it is unlikely that there is really gone. It is more likely that he went directly from Taiz to the port of Aden , arriving there at about the beginning of 1331. In Aden, he sailed on a ship passes Zeila , then along the course Gardafui. Not staying more than a week at each port visited, he visited, among others to Mogadishu , Mombasa , Zanzibar and Kilwa. At the time of the monsoon, he returned by boat to Saudi, visit the Oman and passes through the Strait of Hormuz before returning to Mecca for the hajj in 1330. AnatoliaIn 1333 , he visited Ayasoluk ( Ephesus ), then the capital of the emir Hizir of Aydn. He is particularly impressed by the city's main mosque, the ancient Christian church of St. John , which he considers one of the most beautiful in the world. Central AsiaIbn Battuta crossed the Crimea and visit the empire of the Golden Horde of Ozbeg. His story is a valuable source for a people and a state that did not bother to write their own history. The status of women in the Turkish tribes surprise: "I witnessed in this country, a remarkable thing, that is to say, considering that women have among the Turks, and they stick with it, indeed a rank higher than men . These are the men who give marks of respect to women: "When . ""I had heard of the city Bolghr. I wanted to go there to check through my eyes what we are told, know the extreme brevity of the night in this city, and the shortness of the day in the opposite season . "Bolghr, once the capital of the Volga Bulgars , destroyed by the Mongols, is one hundred and fifteen miles south of Kazan , seven kilometers from the left bank of the Volga. For a Muslim, respect for the five daily prayers is a sacred duty of this country but what about the end of the world where time goes wrong? "When we had the prayer of sunset, we broke the fast . " It then passes through Central Asia into India. Party Sarai , capital of the Golden Horde, it passes successively through Saratchik north of the mouth of the Ural Mountains , crosses the Khwarezm , Gurgandj reached, the current Kunya-Urgench is situated on the delta of the Amu Darya , a river that goes back to Bukhara , the "cursed Tenkz , Tatar, the ancestor of the kings of Iraq, was devastated. Currently mosques, schools and markets are ruined, with the exception of a few. Its inhabitants are despised. After a long digression about the infighting among the Mongol dynasties in the region, Ibn Battuta continues: "When I said goodbye to the Sultan Thermachrn , I headed for the city of Samarkand , one of the largest, most beautiful and of the most beautiful cities in the world. It is built on the banks of a river called River Fullers and covered machinery hydraulic , that water gardens . "The city is a shadow of its former glory:" There was also on the riverside palaces and monuments that considerable announced the elevation of the spirit of the people of Samarkand. Most are ruined, and much of the town was also devastated. She has neither walls nor gates . He went to Termez who suffered the same fate as Samarkand from the armies of Genghis Khan. "We passed the river Djehon to enter Khorasan , and after our departure from Termez and the passage of the river, we walked a day and a half in a desert and sand where there is no habitation, to the town of Balkh . "He then went to Herat , "the biggest cities still flourishing in Khorassan. he leaves for Sarakhs via Torbat-e Jam and Tus , birthplace of the famous Imam Al-Ghazali from where he continued, pious Muslim, to the tomb of Ali ar-Rida in Mashhad. At Nichapur , Battuta is in love with this city "called Small Damascus , because of the amount of fruit, its gardens and its waters, and because of her beauty. Through the four channels, and markets are vast and beautiful. His mosque, admirable, is located in the middle market, and affects four colleges, watered by abundant water and inhabited by many students who learn the law and how to read the Koran. " From there he joined Pervan then Ghaznah , capital of warlike Sultan Mahmud , son of Subuktign. It then crosses the desert of Cholistan , "which extends the space of fifteen days' march (...), by the grace of God, our caravan arrived safely at Bendj Ab , that is to say the river of Sindh (...) at the end of Dhu al-Hijjah , and we saw that night shine the new moon of Muharram in the year 734 . " The Indian epic the long journey of Ibn Battuta begins. IndiaThe description of India is the central part of the Voyages of Ibn Battuta, both in its volume - it covers almost a third of the entire work - as reports. In the central part of his account of India, our traveler becomes a historian and chronicler of the Delhi Sultanate during the rule of Muhammad bin-Tughluq. Maldives, Ceylon and BengalThe Sultan of Delhi, Firuz Shah Tughluq sends an embassy to the Emperor of China Toghun Temr , which joins embassy in Ibn Battuta. But due to the vagaries of the sea it was a disaster, most of the gifts offered by Tughluk (hundred Arabian horses, paintings, gold, slaves ...) as well as ambassadors disappeared underwater. Ibn Battuta is one of the few survivors, he fears the wrath of the Sultan of Delhi and decides to leave the Maldives. In these islands there is qadi (judge), then he married several daughters of viziers. This goes out to the vizier Abd Allah he seeks political alliances to gain power. He is "invited" to leave the islands. He leaves behind several women and a boy. His next destination was Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He wants to visit the second mountain of the island, the peak of Adan (2243 m). This peak has a track carved on a rock: for Christians it is the foot of St. Thomas, for the Muslims of Adam. Thus, this trip was for a kind of pilgrimage Battuta. Back on the Indian subcontinent, he is robbed by pirates Hindus of all gifts offered to him by the Sultan of Ceylon idolater, Airy Chacarouaty (pearls, gems, slaves ...). Arrived in Bengal, he finds himself caught in a rebellion led by the sultans of this region against the Delhi Sultanate. Battuta decided to leave as soon as possible so as not to arouse suspicion with the court of Delhi. So he heads to China to try to explain to his emperor the tragic incident at the Embassy . Sumatra and ChinaIn 1346 , Ibn Battuta Samudra addresses, capital of the Sultanate of Pasai in the North Island of Indonesia from Sumatra.  The same year, Ibn Battuta sailed to China of the Yuan Dynasty. During the trip, he landed and stayed for a few days at the legendary kingdom of Calocary , which would be in the Philippines or in the ancient kingdom of Champa , who had the distinction of being headed by women . Arrived in China, Ibn Battuta was surprised, as Marco Polo before him, the progress of Chinese civilization. The coal is new: "All people in China and employ Khitha as coal land with the consistency and color of the clay of our country. They are brought by means of elephants, it is cut into pieces the size of those ordinary coal here, and it ignited. This land is burning in the manner of coal, and even gives a higher heat . "The bank notes causing his surprise: "They . The china is not unknown to him: he notes that it is cheaper than pottery in his country and described its production process: "We do not manufacture in China for china, except in the cities of Zeitoun and Sin-calan. It is made through a land taken from the mountains that are in these districts . At Khansa , the lacquer causing his desire: "there are dishes or plates, called dest; they are made of reeds, whose fragments are joined together in an admirable manner, they are coated with a layer of color or bright red varnish. These plates are ten in number, one placed in the palm of the other, and they so fine that he who sees takes for a single plate. They are fitted with a lid, which contains all. It also makes great dishes with the same reeds. Among their properties, they are admirable: they can become very high without breaking, that it is used for hot foods, without being altered in their color, and without her lost . " The Yuan has established a police state (including Marco Polo before Ibn Battuta noted cruelty): "I was assured that the Emperor had ordered to make our portrait painters, they went to the castle while we were there, they began to consider us and paint us, without us in Fussion previews. It is, moreover, established a habit among the Chinese to do the portrait of anyone going on in their country. The thing goes so far at home in this connection that, if a stranger arrives commit some act that forces him to flee to China, they send his portrait in different provinces, so we did some research, and wherever we find one that looks like this picture, we took . "More surprisingly, our traveler is finicky and effective administration in its control of trade with the outside world:" They order then . " Return home Ibn Battuta leaves China, there are still two months to Samudra (October-November 1346) and leaves for India, he quickly leaves for Zhafar , south of Arabia in the second half of April 1347. It passes through Iranian territory and the province of Lar to arrive at Shiraz. January 1348 , appears to Baghdad where he returned to Damascus. The Black Death was declared. The columnist says: "In the early days of the month of Rabi 'first year of the Hegira 749 , we succeeded in the new Aleppo that the plague had broken out in Gaza , and the number of dead in a single day, it had exceeded the figure of a mile. Now I returned to Homs , and found that the epidemic was there and the day I arrived there about three hundred people died. I left for Damascus (...) the number of dead had reached two thousand four hundred in one day. " Ibn Battuta arrives in Cairo during the reign (1347-1351) of malik baharite Nasir Hasan and left immediately for Mecca to perform one last pilgrimage. From there, he returned to Cairo in early 1349 and returned to his country has learned, as he says, "our master, the Commander of the Faithful , the defender of religion, one who puts his trust in the Lord of the Worlds , I mean Abu 'Inan (the most high God bless him!), had, with divine help, meeting scattered things or repair the misfortunes of the dynasty Merinita and issued by his blessing countries Maghreb the danger in which they were found , "praise and very little true courtesan: the meeting of the Maghreb is the work of the father of Abu 'Inan that it just remove him from power. AndalusiaAfter some time spent in Tangier , Ibn Battuta off again on a trip to al-Andalus - Muslim Spain. Alfonso XI of Castile threatening to invade Gibraltar , Ibn Battuta joined a group of Muslims from Tangier with the intention to fight to defend this port. Luckily for them, the Black Death had killed the king shortly before their arrival (May 1350 ) and Ibn Battuta then can travel safely. He visits the kingdom of Valencia and finished his journey to Granada. Leaving Spain he decided to visit his Morocco chart. He stops in Marrakech , then almost a ghost town following the outbreak of plague and continues to Fez , the capital of the kingdom of Merinids , and also the seat of the Quaraouiyine , one of the most important center of knowledge the time to finish his journey in his hometown of Tangiers. The Golden Empire of MaliTwo years before his first visit to Cairo, Mansa of the Mali Empire , Kouta Moussa , was passed through the town towards Mecca to perform the hajj and had impressed the public by the opulence of his prerogative. The West Africa was rich in gold and wealth was a breakthrough for the Muslim world. Even though there is no explicit reference, Ibn Battuta had to hear about it and this undoubtedly motivated his decision to travel in sub-Saharan Africa to western margins of the Muslim world and the Sahara. In 1352 , he left again on Morocco to reach the border town of Sijilmasa he left his tower with the winter caravans few months later. He reached the city Saharan Teghazza , then an important center of trade in salt , enriched by the gold of Mali, but that does not make much impression on our traveler. Eight hundred miles through the most hostile of the Sahara, and here to Walata. From there it continues south-west along what he believes to be the Nile but that is the Niger , to finally reach Gao , the capital of the Mali Empire. Mansa Souleymane , who reigns over the Empire since 1341, receives meager but Ibn Battuta remains eight months before heading back to Timbuktu , then a town of no importance, no relation to what it became in subsequent decades. He left back across the desert and join his native Morocco, where he ended his life, finally settled and peaceful in all probability the service of the sultan. TributesThe city of Dubai has spent a shopping mall theme, the Ibn Battuta Mall , one of the largest in the Middle East , referring to his travels on the one hand, and secondly, more generally, the great figures of medieval Islam in the domain e cultural, scientific, philosophical and artistic influence on the world and especially on Europe and the future renaissance. The airport of Tangier is called Airport Tangier - Ibn Battuta A crater is dedicated to him on the Moon in the Sea of Fertility. BibliographyTranslations
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