60 Fun Facts About Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta was born in 1304 in which city?

The city's airport and stadium are named after him today.

Roughly how far did Ibn Battuta travel over his career?

That beats Zheng He at about 50,000 km and Marco Polo at about 24,000 km.

What is the account of Ibn Battuta's journeys commonly called?

Its full title translates as A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling.

The name "Ibn Battuta" is a patronymic that literally means what?

His full name as given in the Rihla runs to eleven links of ancestry ending in Lawati al-Tanji.

Ibn Battuta came from a family of what kind of professionals?

He would later serve as a qadi, or judge, in Delhi, the Maldives and finally Morocco.

Ibn Battuta's family belonged to which Berber tribal clan?

He was of Arabised Berber descent and studied at a Sunni Maliki school.

How old was Ibn Battuta when he set out from home in June 1325?

He was leaving to perform the hajj, a journey that would ordinarily take sixteen months; he was away 24 years.

What was the purpose of the journey Ibn Battuta began in 1325?

He wrote that he set out alone, "swayed by an overmastering impulse" to visit the illustrious sanctuaries.

In which Tunisian town did Ibn Battuta take his first bride, leaving her soon after?

It was the first of many marriages; he usually married when he stopped anywhere for long and divorced when he moved on.

In Alexandria in 1326, a holy man told Ibn Battuta to visit his brothers in India, Sind and where else?

Sheikh Burhanuddin is said to have foretold his destiny as a world traveller.

Alexandria and Cairo, when Ibn Battuta arrived in 1326, were part of which empire?

The Mamluks kept the pilgrim road through Hebron, Jerusalem and Bethlehem safe from robbers.

Ibn Battuta's first attempt to reach the Red Sea was turned back by a rebellion near which port?

He returned to Cairo and went to Mecca via Damascus instead, as a holy man had prophesied.

In which city did Ibn Battuta spend Ramadan in 1326 before joining the pilgrim caravan south to Medina?

Manuscripts he copied in Damascus that year, found at Al-Azhar in Cairo, are among the few outside corroborations of his story.

After his first hajj, Ibn Battuta headed northeast into which Mongol state?

In Najaf he visited the mausoleum of Ali before a six-month detour into Iran.

Which Persian city did Ibn Battuta find flourishing because it had been spared Mongol destruction?

Baghdad, by contrast, was still partly ruined from Hulagu Khan's assault of 1258.

Ibn Battuta describes Mogadishu at its zenith in 1332, noting its export of what high-quality product?

He wrote that the Somali sultan Abu Bakr spoke his native tongue but was also fluent in Arabic.

Ibn Battuta praised Kilwa, in present-day Tanzania, a transit hub for the trade in what?

He called it one of the finest and most beautifully built towns, its houses roofed with reeds.

After his third hajj Ibn Battuta set off for Anatolia hoping to reach the court of which sultan?

Tughluq was renowned as the wealthiest man in the Muslim world and hired scholars lavishly.

In Anatolia, Ibn Battuta lodged with semi-religious associations of young artisans known as what?

He was so impressed with their hospitality that he lodged with them in more than 25 towns.

When Ibn Battuta reached Iznik it had just been conquered by which Ottoman ruler?

He called Orhan the greatest of the kings of the Turkmens and said he never stayed a whole month in any one town.

Ibn Battuta acquired his first slave, a Greek, as a gift from the ruler of which Anatolian beylik?

He later bought a Greek girl in Ephesus for 40 dinars and another in Balikesir.

Which Volga city was the northernmost point Ibn Battuta claimed to reach?

Modern scholars think the trip up the Volga is very unlikely to have happened.

Ibn Battuta reached Constantinople escorting Princess Bayalun home to give birth. Whose wife was she?

She was a daughter of Emperor Andronikos III, whom Ibn Battuta met on arrival.

Which great church did Ibn Battuta visit in Constantinople?

It was his first journey beyond the boundaries of the Islamic world.

Which Central Asian city did Ibn Battuta call "one of the grandest and finest cities"?

He still noted its walls lay ruined from the Mongol invasion of 1220.

Ibn Battuta explained the name of the Kush mountains he crossed into India as meaning what?

He said most slaves brought over from India died of the cold in the passes.

What post did Muhammad bin Tughluq give Ibn Battuta in Delhi?

He found it hard to enforce Islamic law beyond the sultan's court and spent six years veering between favour and suspicion.

Which Hindu ritual did Ibn Battuta witness and describe in detail while in the Delhi Sultanate?

He also mentions the Indian rhinoceros living on the banks of the Indus.

Ibn Battuta finally left Delhi in 1341 in charge of an embassy to which country?

The Yuan court had asked permission to rebuild a Himalayan Buddhist temple used by Chinese pilgrims.

At which Indian port did a storm sink one of Ibn Battuta's embassy ships while he was ashore at a mosque?

Vasco da Gama would land at the same port two centuries later.

In which island nation did Ibn Battuta serve nine months as chief judge and take four wives?

The rulers gave him pearls, gold and slaves to make him stay, while making it impossible for him to leave by ship.

Which local custom did Ibn Battuta try to ban as chief judge of an Indian Ocean island nation?

He also ordered whippings for men who skipped Friday prayer, and antagonised the rulers enough to resign.

After his island judgeship Ibn Battuta went to Sri Lanka, where he visited which sacred mountain?

His ship almost sank on leaving, and the vessel that rescued him was then attacked by pirates.

In Bengal in 1345, Ibn Battuta trekked a month through the mountains to meet which Sufi saint?

He found the saint tall and lean, living in a cave by a mosque with only a goat for milk.

Which northern Sumatran sultanate did Ibn Battuta call the easternmost edge of Muslim rule?

He noted the island was rich in camphor, areca nut, cloves and tin, and its sultan sent him on to China in his own junk.

In which country is Urduja, the warrior princess Ibn Battuta met in Tawalisi, celebrated as a national heroine?

Filipinos place Kaylukari in Pangasinan, though some scholars think both the place and princess are fictional.

Ibn Battuta arrived in China in 1345 at which port, known to Muslims as Zaitun?

Zaitun means olive, and he remarked that he could not find any olives anywhere.

Which Chinese city on a lake ringed by hills did Ibn Battuta call one of the largest he had seen?

He was struck by the painted wooden ships with coloured sails and silk awnings assembling in the canals.

Which mistaken belief about Chinese porcelain appears in Ibn Battuta's account?

He also confused the Yellow River with the Grand Canal, which is one reason some scholars doubt he went to China at all.

Ibn Battuta believed the Great Wall of China had been built by Dhul-Qarnayn to contain whom?

He asked around but could find nobody who had seen the wall or knew anyone who had.

What catastrophe did Ibn Battuta run into in Syria and Egypt in 1348 on his way home?

He heard that Damascus was losing 2,400 people a day, and reached Tangier to find his mother had died months earlier.

In 1350 Ibn Battuta sailed to defend which port from Alfonso XI, only to find plague had killed the king?

He turned the trip into a sightseeing tour of al-Andalus that ended in Granada.

At which Saharan salt-mining settlement did Ibn Battuta find every building made from slabs of salt?

He disliked the place: it was plagued by flies and the water was brackish.

Travelling through West Africa, Ibn Battuta mistook which river for the Nile?

He followed it to the capital of the Mali Empire, where he met Mansa Suleyman.

Which ruler of Mali did Ibn Battuta meet in 1352-53?

He disapproved of how much skin the sultan's daughters showed but recorded the earliest mention of the bala xylophone.

Which large animal did Ibn Battuta first encounter on the journey from Mali's capital to Timbuktu?

Local boatmen feared the beasts and hunted them with lances tied to strong cords.

Ibn Battuta went from Timbuktu down the Niger to which trading city in a canoe carved from a single tree?

Timbuktu itself was then small and relatively unimportant; its greatness came in the next two centuries.

To whom did Ibn Battuta dictate the Rihla after returning to Morocco in 1354?

The Marinid ruler Abu Inan Faris suggested it; Ibn Juzayy quietly copied passages from earlier travellers into the text.

Ibn Battuta's Rihla copied its descriptions of Mecca and Medina from which earlier Andalusian traveller?

His account had been written more than 150 years earlier and was presented as Ibn Battuta's own observation.

The first English translation of the Rihla, by Samuel Lee, was published in London in which year?

Europe only learned of the book after the German explorer Ulrich Jasper Seetzen bought an abridged manuscript around 1800.

The largest themed shopping mall in Dubai is named after Ibn Battuta and recreates what?

He also appears as a playable leader in Civilization VII.

Which Marinid ruler of Morocco suggested that Ibn Battuta dictate an account of his journeys?

The account was dictated in Arabic to Ibn Juzayy and remains the only source for Ibn Battuta's adventures.

Which Byzantine emperor did Ibn Battuta meet on arriving in Constantinople?

He stayed about a month in the city and discussed his travels in Jerusalem with an Eastern Orthodox priest.

Ibn Battuta's account of Mali contains the earliest known mention of which instrument?

He described it as made from reeds and gourds struck with sticks to make a pleasant sound; today it is known as the bala.

Arriving in Damascus in 1348, Ibn Battuta learned that which relative had died 15 years earlier?

Death dominated the year that followed: the Black Death was sweeping Syria, and on reaching Tangier he found his mother had died months before.

In which Moroccan town did Ibn Battuta buy camels and wait four months before crossing the Sahara?

The caravan he joined took two months to cross about 1,600 km of desert to Oualata on the edge of the Mali Empire.

On his way home to Tangier in 1349, Ibn Battuta made one last detour to which Mediterranean island?

He returned to Tangier by way of Fez nearly a quarter of a century after he had left home.

Who prepared the fourth and final volume of the Hakluyt Society's English Rihla, published in 1994?

Hamilton Gibb had proposed the full translation in 1922 and completed three volumes before his death in 1971.

In Najaf, Ibn Battuta visited the mausoleum of which caliph?

He reached Najaf with a pilgrim caravan after a two-week night-time crossing of the Najd plateau, then detoured for six months into Iran.

In which decade did Ibn Battuta die?

Little is known of his life after the Rihla was completed in 1355 beyond his appointment as a judge in Morocco.