The Journeys of Ibn Battuta: The Longest Hajj

The Longest Hajj: The Journeys of Ibn Battuta
From Pilgrim to Traveler—Tangier to Makkah

At a time when the greatest speed humans could reach was astride a
galloping horse, to travel120,000 kilometers, or 75,000 miles, in 30
years was a remarkable feat. At a steady pace, itwould have worked
out to a bit under 11 kilometers (7 mi) a day for almost 11,000 days. The man who traveled that distance was, according to his chronicler,
"the traveler of the age."He was not the Venetian Marco Polo, but
Ibn Battuta of Tangier, who set out eastward in1325, the year after
Polo died. Ibn Battuta's wanderings stretched from Fez to Beijing, and although he resolved not to travel the same path more than once, he
made four Hajjpilgrimages to Makkah, in addition to crossing what, on
a modern map, would be more than40 countries. He met some 60 heads
of state—an d served as advisor to two dozen of them. His travel memoir, known as the Rihla, written after his journeys were
complete, names morethan 2000 people whom he met or whose tombs
he visited. His descriptions of life in Turkey,Central Asia, East and West
Africa, the Maldives, the Malay Peninsula and parts of India area leading
source of contemporary knowledge about those areas, and in some cases
they are theonly source. His word-portraits of sovereigns, ministers and
other powerful men are oftenuniquely astute, and are all the more intimate
for being colored by his personal experiences and opinions. Ibn Battuta was born in the port town of Tangier, then an important
debarkation point fortravelers to Gibraltar, beyond which lay al-Andalus,
Arab Spain, by then reduced from itsformer extent to include only the
brilliant but beleaguered kingdom of Granada. At age 21, Ibn Battuta set forth at a propitious time in history. The concept
of the 'umma, thebrotherhood of all believers that transcends tribe and race,
had spiritually unified the Muslimworld, which stretched from the Atlantic
eastward to the Pacific. Islam was the world's mostsophisticated civilization
during the entire millennium following the fall of Rome. Its finest period was the 800 years between Islam's greatfirst expansion in the seventh
and eighthcenturies and the advent of European transoceanic mercantilism
in the 15th century. Duringthat time, Islam had breathed new life into the
sciences, commerce, the arts, literature, law and governance. Thus the early 14th century, an era remarkable in Europe for gore and
misery, was amagnificent time in Dar al-Islam, the Muslim world. A dozen or
more varied forms of Islamicculture existed, all sharing the core values taught
in the Qur'an, all influencing each otherthrough the constant traffic of scholars,
doctors, artists, craftsmen, traders and proselytizingmystics. It was an era of
superb buildings, both secular and sacred, a time of intellect and scholarship, of the stability of a single faith and law regulating everyday
behavior, ofpowerful economic inventions such as joint ventures, checks and
letters of credit. Ibn Battutabecame the first and perhaps the only man to see
this world nearly in its entirety In Tangier, Shams al-Din Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn 'Abdallah ibn
Muhammad ibnIbrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Yusuf al-Lawati
al-Tanji Ibn Battuta was born into awell-established family of qadis (judges)
on February 25, 1304, the year 723 of the Muslim calendar. Beyond the names of his father and grandfathers that are part of
his own name, weknow little about his family or his biography, for the Rihla
is virtually our sole source ofknowledge of him, and it rarely mentions family
matters, which would have been consideredprivate. But we can surmise that,
like most children of his time, Ibn Battuta would havestarted school at the
age of six, and his literate life would have begun with the Qur'an. His class
—held in a mosque or at a teacher's home—would in all likeli hood have
been funded bya waqf,a religious philanthropic trust or foundation, into
which the pious could channel their additional modest
sum, in installments due when the boy achieved certain well-defined
milestones.The curriculumof a 14th-century classroom would, in some ways,
look remarkably up to datetoday. Learning,in the first instance, meant the
Qur'an, but forurban children especially it did not stop there.
Elementary arithmetic was obligatory, for everyone needed to be able to
carryon everydaytransactions. Secondary education transmitted the bulk
of what are now termedvocational skills,including the more complex
calculations needed for such practical purposes as the division of an
estate among heirs, the surveying of land, or the distribution of profits
from a commercialventure. Tertiary or higher education, however, was
as much aboutcharacter development asthe subjects taught. Foremost
were the refinements of Arabicgrammar, since Arabic was notonly the
language of the Qur'an but also the language of alleducated, let alone
scholarly, discourse,and the Muslim lingua franca from Timbuktu to Canton. Other subjects taught would have includedhistory, ethics, law,
geography and at least some of the military arts. There were differences fromtoday's practices, too. Young Ibn
Battuta's most important goal,as for most young students of histime,
was to learn the Qur'an by heart: He refers many timesin the Rihla
to reciting the entireQur'an aloud inone day while traveling—and a few times, when he felt he needed moral stiffening,twice. Knowledge of the Qur'an
took precedence over all other intellectual pursuits, and students
whose means permitted traveled from one end of Dar al-Islam to
the other to learn its subtletiesand its interpretation from the wisest
men ofthe day. Every provincial scholar who desireddistinction at
home aspired to study in Makkah, Madinah, Baghdad, Damascus,
and Cairo—a kindof scholarly Grand Tour. Wandering scholars were given modest free meals and a place to stay in
the madrasas that dotted the Muslim world, or if no better
accommodation were available theyslept on mosque floors. No institutional degrees existed; instead the student received a certificate
from his teachers. The highest accolade was adah, meaning "one who
is adept" at manners, taste,wit, grace, gentility, and above all,
"knowledge carried lightly." Ibn Battuta's knowledge of the
subtleties of Arabic identified him anywhere as an educated gentleman,
but Tangier was not oneof the great centers of learning. The knowledge
of fiqh, orreligious law, that he acquired theremight perhaps be described
as B-level work at a B-list school. So, armed with his earnest but
hardly world-tested knowledge, Ibn Battuta set outeastward from
Tangier to make his first Hajj,or pilgrimage, to Makkah. In the words he dictated to his scribe three decades later, one can stilldetect both
youthful excitement and youthful misgiving: "I set out alone,
having neither fellow-traveler in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose party I might join, butswayed by an overmastering
impulse within me, and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit
these illustrious sanctuaries [of Makkah and Madinah]. So I braced
my resolution to quit all mydear ones...and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds
of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they
and I were afflicted-withsorrow at this separation." Thirty years were to pass before Ibn Battuta hung up his sandals for
good. He set out apilgrim, probably planning to return to Tangier, but along
the way he grew intoone of therarest kinds of travelers: one who
voyaged for the sake of voyaging. In the coming
years, he would change his itinerary almost on impulse, at the merest
hint of the chance to seesome new part of Dar al-Islam, to visit a scholar, a revered teacher, or a sultan.