Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354

When it became clear to the Turks who were in the khatun's company that she professed her father's religion and wished to stay with him, they asked her for leave to return to their country. She made them rich presents and sent them an amir called Saruja with five hundred horsemen to escort them to their country. She sent for me, and gave me three hundred of their gold dinars, called barbara, which are not good money, and a thousand Venetian silver pieces, together with some robes and pieces of cloth and two horses, which were a gift from her father, and commended me to Saruja. I bade her farewell and left, having spent a month and six days in their town.

[I] arrived at the royal city of Fez on Friday, at the end of the month of Sha'ban of the year 750 [November 13, 1349].

I presented myself before our most noble master the most generous imam, the Commander of the Faithful, al-Mutawakkil Abu' Inan--may God enlarge his greatness and humble his enemies. His dignity made me forget the dignity of the sultan of Iraq, his beauty the beauty of the king of India, his fine qualities the noble character of the king of Yemen, his courage the courage of the king of the Turks, his clemency the clemency of the king of the Greeks, his devotion the devotion of the king of Turkistan, and his knowledge the knowledge of the king of Jawa [Java]. I laid down the staff of travel in his glorious land, having assured myself after unbiassed [sic] consideration that it is the best of countries, for in it fruits are plentiful, and running water and nourishing food are never exhausted. Few indeed are the lands which unite all these advantages, and well spoken are the poet's words:

"Of all the lands the West by this token's the best:

Here the full moon is spied and the sun speeds to rest."

Ibn Battuta lauds the diet of the Maghreb over that of other lands

The dirhams [silver coins] of the West are small, but their utility is great. When you compare its prices with the prices of Egypt and Syria, you will see the truth of my contention, and realize the superiority of the Maghrib. For I assure you that mutton in Egypt is sold at eighteen ounces for a dirham nuqra, which equals in value six dirhams of the Maghrib, whereas in the Maghrib meat is sold, when prices are high, at eighteen ounces for two dirhams that is a third of a nuqra. As for melted butter, it is usually not to be found in Egypt at all.

The kinds of things that the Egyptians eat along with their bread would not even be looked at in the Maghrib. They consist for the most part of lentils and chickpeas, which they cook in enormous cauldrons, and on which they put oil of sesame; "basilla," a kind of peas which they cook and eat with olive oil; gherkins, which they cook and mix with curdled milk; purslane [a salad herb], which they prepare in the same way; the buds of almond trees, which they cook and serve in curdled milk; and colocasia, which they cook. All these things are easily come by in the Maghrib, but God has enabled its inhabitants to dispense with them, by reason of the abundance of fleshmeats, melted butter, fresh butter, honey, and other products. As for green vegetables, they are the rarest of things in Egypt, and most of their fruit has to be brought from Syria. Grapes, when they are cheap, are sold amongst them at a dirham nuqra for three of their pounds, their pound being twelve ounces.

As for Syria, fruits are indeed plentiful there, but in the Maghrib they are cheaper. Grapes are sold there at the rate of one of their pounds for a dirham nuqra (their pound is three Maghribi pounds), and when their price is low, two pounds for a dirham nuqra. Pomegranates and quinces are sold at eight fals [copper pieces] apiece, which equals a dirham of our money. As for vegetables the quantity sold for a dirham nuqra is less than that sold for a small dirham in our country. Meat is sold there at the rate of one Syrian pound for two and a half dirhams nuqra. If you consider all this, it will be clear to you that the lands of the Maghrib are the cheapest in cost of living, the most abundant in good things, and blest with the greatest share of material comforts and advantages.

Moreover, God has augmented the honour and excellence of the Maghrib by the imamate of our master, the Commander of the Faithful, who has spread the shelter of security throughout its territories and made the sun of equity to rise within its borders, who has caused the clouds of beneficence to shed their rain upon its dwellers in country and town, who has purified it from evildoers, and established it in the ways alike of worldly prosperity and of religious observance. Ibn Battuta returns to his native Tangiers After I had been privileged to observe this noble majesty and to share in the all-embracing bounty of his beneficence, I set out to visit the tomb of my mother. I arrived at my home town of Tangier and visited her, and went on to the town of Sabta [Ceuta], where I stayed for some months. While I was there I suffered from an illness for three months, but afterwards God restored me to health.

I then proposed to take part in the jihad and the defence of the frontier, so I crossed the sea from Ceuta in a barque belonging to the people of Asila [Arzila], and reached the land of Andalusia (may God Almighty guard her!) where the reward of the dweller is abundant and a recompense is laid up for the settler and visitor.

Sailing from Morocco, Ibn Battuta lands in Gibralter and travels to Ronda pp. 313-316.

I went out of Gibraltar to the town of Ronda, one of the strongest and most beautifully situated fortresses of the Muslims. The qadi there was my cousin, the doctor Abu'l-Qasim Muhammad b. Yahya Ibn Battuta. I stayed at Ronda for five days, then went on to the town of Marbala [Marbella].

The road between these two places is difficult and exceedingly rough. Marbala is a pretty little town in a fertile district. I found there a company of horsemen setting out for Malaqa [Malaga], and intended to go in their company, but God by His grace preserved me, for they went on ahead of me and were captured on the way, as we shall relate. I set out after them, and when I had traversed the district of Marbala, and entered the district of Suhayl I passed a dead horse lying in the ditch, and a little farther on a pannier of fish thrown on the ground. This aroused my suspicions. In front of me there was a watchtower, and I said to myself, "If an enemy were to appear here, the man on the tower would give the alarm." So I went on to a house thereabouts, and at it I found a horse killed.

While I was there I heard a shout behind me (for I had gone ahead of my party) and turning back to them, found the commander of the fort of Suhayl with them. He told me that four galleys belonging to the enemy [the Christian Spanish] had appeared there, and a number of the men on board had landed when the watchman was not in the tower. The horsemen who had just left Marbala, twelve in number, had encountered this raiding force. The Christians had killed one of them, one had escaped, and ten were taken prisoner. A fisherman was killed along with them, and it was he whose basket I had found lying on the road. The officer advised me to spend the night with him in his quarters, so that he could escort me thence to Milaqa. I passed the night in the castle of the regiment of mounted frontiersmen called the Suhayl regiment. All this time the [Christian] galleys of which we have spoken were lying close by.

The city of Malaga

On the morrow he rode with me and we reached Malaqa [Malaga], which is one of the largest and most beautiful towns of Andalusia. It unites the conveniences of both sea and land, and is abundantly supplied with foodstuffs and fruits. I saw grapes being sold in its bazaars at the rate of eight pounds for a small dirham, and its ruby-coloured Murcian pomegranates have no equal in the world. As for figs and almonds, they are exported from Malaqa and its outlying districts to the lands both of the East and the West. At Malaqa there is manufactured excellent gilded pottery, which is exported thence to the most distant lands. Its mosque covers a large area and has a reputation for sanctity; the court of the mosque is of unequalled beauty, and contains exceptionally tall orange trees.

Thence [from Malaga] I went to on the city of Gharnata [Granada], the metropolis of Andalusia and the bride of its cities. Its environs have not their equal in any country in the world. They extend for the space of forty miles, and are traversed by the celebrated river of Shannil [Xenil] and many other streams. Around it on every side are orchards, gardens, flowery meads, noble buildings, and vineyards. One of the most beautiful places there is "Ayn ad-dama" [the Fountain of Tears], which is a hill covered with gardens and orchards and has no parallel in any other country.

The king of Gharnata at the time of my visit was Sultan Abu'l-Hajjaj Yusuf. I did not meet him on account of an illness from which he was suffering, but the noble, pious, and virtuous woman, his mother, sent me some gold dinars, of which I made good use. I met at Gharnata a number of its distinguished scholars and the principal Shaykh, who is also the superior of the Sufi orders. I spent some days with him in his hermitage outside Gharnata. He showed me the greatest honour and went with me to visit the hospice, famed for its sanctity, known as the Outpost of al-Uqab [the Eagle]. Al-Uqab is a hill overlooking the environs of Gharnita, about eight miles from the city and close by the ruined city of al-Bira.

There is also at Gharnita a company of Persian darwishes [dervishes], who have made their homes there because of its resemblance to their native lands. One is from Samarqand [Samarkand], another from Tabriz, a third from Quniya [Konia], one from Khurasan, two from India, and so on.

On leaving Gharnita I travelled back through al-Hamma, Ballash, and Malaqa, to the castle of Dhakwan, which is a fine fortress with abundant water, trees, and fruits. From there I went to Ronda and on to Gibraltar, where I embarked on the ship by which I had crossed before, and which belonged to the people of Asili [Arzila].

It is one of the most beautiful of cities, spaciously built and extending over a wide area, with abundant supplies. It contains magnificent mosques, such as its principal mosque, known as the Mosque of the Kutubiyin [the Booksellers]. There is a marvellously tall minaret there; I climbed it and obtained a view of the whole town from it. The town is now largely in ruins, so that I could compare it only to Baghdad, though the bazaars in Baghdad are finer. At Marrakush [Marrakesh] too there is a splendid college, distinguished by its fine site and solid construction; it was built by our master the Commander of the Faithful, Abu'l-Hasan [the late sultan of Morocco].

At Sijilmasa [at the edge of the desert] I bought camels and a four months' supply of forage for them. Thereupon I set out on the 1st Muharram of the year 53 [AH 753, February 13, 1352] with a caravan including, amongst others, a number of the merchants of Sijilmasa.

After twenty-five days [from Sijilmasa] we reached Taghaza, an unattractive village, with the curious feature that its houses and mosques are built of blocks of salt, roofed with camel skins. There are no trees there, nothing but sand. In the sand is a salt mine; they dig for the salt, and find it in thick slabs, lying one on top. of the other, as though they had been tool-squared and laid under the surface of the earth. A camel will carry two of these slabs.

No one lives at Taghaza except the slaves of the Massufa tribe, who dig for the salt; they subsist on dates imported from Dar'a and Sijilmasa, camels' flesh, and millet imported from the Negrolands. The negroes come up from their country and take away the salt from there. At Iwalatan a load of salt brings eight to ten mithqals; in the town of Malli [Mali] it sells for twenty to thirty, and sometimes as much as forty. The negroes use salt as a medium of exchange, just as gold and silver is used [elsewhere]; they cut it up into pieces and buy and sell with it. The business done at Taghaza, for all its meanness, amounts to an enormous figure in terms of hundredweights of gold-dust.

We passed ten days of discomfort there, because the water is brackish and the place is plagued with flies. Water supplies are laid in at Taghaza for the crossing of the desert which lies beyond it, which is a ten-nights' journey with no water on the way except on rare occasions. We indeed had the good fortune to find water in plenty, in pools left by the rain. One day we found a pool of sweet water between two rocky prominences. We quenched our thirst at it and then washed our clothes. Truffles are plentiful in this desert and it swarms with lice, so that people wear string necklaces containing mercury, which kills them.

Death in the desert

At that time we used to go ahead of the caravan, and when we found a place suitable for pasturage we would graze our beasts. We went on doing this until one of our party was lost in the desert; after that I neither went ahead nor lagged behind. We passed a caravan on the way and they told us that some of their party had become separated from them. We found one of them dead under a shrub, of the sort that grows in the sand, with his clothes on and a whip in his hand. The water was only about a mile away from him.

We came next to Tisarahla, a place of subterranean water-beds, where the caravans halt. They stay there three days to rest, mend their waterskins, fill them with water, and sew on them covers of sackcloth as a precaution against the wind.

From this point the "takshif" is despatched. The "takshif" is a name given to any man of the Massufa tribe who is hired by the persons in the caravan to go ahead to Iwalatan, carrying letters from them to their friends there, so that they may take lodgings for them. These persons then come out a distance of four nights' journey to meet the caravan, and bring water with them. Anyone who has no friend in Iwalatan writes to some merchant well known for his worthy character who then undertakes the same services for him.

It often happens that the "takshif" perishes in this desert, with the result that the people of Iwalatan know nothing about the caravan, and all or most of those who are with it perish. That desert is haunted by demons; if the "takshif" be alone, they make sport of him and disorder his mind, so that he loses his way and perishes. For there is no visible road or track in these parts, nothing but sand blown hither and thither by the wind. You see hills of sand in one place, and afterwards you will see them moved to quite another place. The guide there [sic] is one who has made the journey frequently in both directions, and who is gifted with a quick intelligence. I remarked, as a strange thing, that the guide whom we had was blind in one eye, and diseased in the other, yet he had the best knowledge of the road of any man. We hired the "takshif" on this journey for a hundred gold mithqals; he was a man of the Massufa. On the night of the seventh day [from Tasarahla] we saw with joy the fires of the party who had come out to meet us.

Thus we reached the town of Iwalatan [Walata] after a journey from Sijilmasa of two months to a day. Iwalatan is the northernmost province of the negroes, and the sultan's representative there was one Farba Husayn, "farba" meaning deputy [in their Ianguage]. When we arrived there, the merchants deposited their goods in an open square, where the blacks undertook to guard them, and went to the farba. He was sitting on a carpet under an archway, with his guards before him carrying lances and bows in their hands, and the headmen of the Massufa behind him. The merchants remained standing in front of him while he spoke to them through an interpreter, although they were close to him, to show his contempt for them. It was then that I repented of having come to their country, because of their lack of manners and their contempt for the whites.

I went to visit Ibn Badda, a worthy man of Sala' [Sallee, near the Morroccan city of Rabat], to whom I had written requesting him to hire a house for me, and who had done so. Later on the mushrif [inspector] of Iwalatan, whose name was Mansha Ju, invited all those who had come with the caravan to partake of his hospitality. At first I refused to attend, but my companions urged me very strongly, so I went with the rest. The repast was served--some pounded millet mixed with a little honey and milk, put in a half calabash shaped like a large bowl. The guests drank and retired. I said to them, "Was it for this that the black invited us?" They answered, "Yes; and it is in their opinion the highest form of hospitality." This convinced me that there was no good to be hoped for from these people, and I made up my mind to travel [back to Morocco at once] with the pilgrim caravan from Iwalatan. Afterwards, however, I thought it best to go to see the capital of their king [of the kingdom of Mali, at the city of Mali].

Life at Walata

My stay at Iwalatan lasted about fifty days; and I was shown honour and entertained by its inhabitants. It is an excessively hot place, and boasts a few small date-palms, in the shade of which they sow watermelons. Its water comes from underground waterbeds at that point, and there is plenty of mutton to be had. The garments of its inhabitants, most of whom belong to the Massufa tribe, are of fine Egyptian fabrics.

Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than the men. The state of affairs amongst these people is indeed extraordinary. Their men show no signs of jealousy whatever; no one claims descent from his father, but on the contrary from his mother's brother. A person's heirs are his sister's sons, not his own sons. This is a thing which I have seen nowhere in the world except among the Indians of Malabar. But those are heathens; these people are Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying books of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves, though they are assiduous in attending the prayers. Any man who wishes to marry one of them may do so, but they do not travel with their husbands, and even if one desired to do so her family would not allow her to go.

The women there have "friends" and "companions" amongst the men outside their own families, and the men in the same way have "companions" amongst the women of other families. A man may go into his house and find his wife entertaining her "companion" but he takes no objection to it. One day at Iwalatan I went into the qadi's house, after asking his permission to enter, and found with him a young woman of remarkable beauty. When I saw her I was shocked and turned to go out, but she laughed at me, instead of being overcome by shame, and the qadi said to me "Why are you going out? She is my companion." I was amazed at their conduct, for he was a theologian and a pilgrim [to Mecca] to boot. I was told that he had asked the sultan's permission to make the pilgrimage that year with his "companion"--whether this one or not I cannot say--but the sultan would not grant it.

When I decided to make the journey to Malli [the city of Mali], which is reached in twenty-four days from Iwalatan if the traveller pushes on rapidly, I hired a guide from the Massufa--for there is no necessity to travel in a company on account of the safety of that road--and set out with three of my companions.

On the way there are many trees [baobabs], and these trees are of great age and girth; a whole caravan may shelter in the shade of one of them. There are trees which have neither branches nor leaves, yet the shade cast by their trunks is sufficient to shelter a man. Some of these trees are rotted in the interior and the rain-water collects in them, so that they serve as wells and the people drink of the water inside them. In others there are bees and honey, which is collected by the people. I was surprised to find inside one tree, by which I passed, a man, a weaver, who had set up his loom in it and was actually weaving.

A traveller in this country carries no provisions, whether plain food or seasonings, and neither gold nor silver. He takes nothing but pieces of salt and glass ornaments, which the people call beads, and some aromatic goods. When he comes to a village the womenfolk of the blacks bring out millet, milk, chickens, pulped lotus fruit, rice, "funi" (a grain resembling mustard seed, from which "kuskusu" [couscous] and gruel are made), and pounded haricot beans. The traveller buys what of these he wants, but their rice causes sickness to whites when it is eaten, and the funi is preferable to it.

The Nile [actually the Niger] flows from there down to Kabara, and thence to Zagha. In both Kabara and Zagha there are sultans who owe allegiance to the king of Malli. The inhabitants of Zagha are of old standing in Islam; they show great devotion and zeal for study.

Thence the Nile [Niger] descends to Tumbuktu [Timbuktoo] and Gawgaw [Gogo], both of which will be described later; then to the town of Muli in the land of the Limis, which is the frontier province of [the kingdom of] Malli; thence to Yufi, one of the largest towns of the negroes, whose ruler is one of the most considerable of the negro rulers. It cannot be visited by any white man because they would kill him before he got there.

A crocodile

I saw a crocodile in this part of the Nile [Niger], close to the bank; it looked just like a small boat. One day I went down to the river to satisfy a need, and lo, one of the blacks came and stood between me and the river. I was amazed at such lack of manners and decency on his part, and spoke of it to someone or other. [That person] answered. "His purpose in doing that was solely to protect you from the crocodile, by placing himself between you and it."

Thus I reached the city of Malli [Mali], the capital of the king of the blacks. I stopped at the cemetery and went to the quarter occupied by the whites, where I asked for Muhammad ibn al-Faqih. I found that he had hired a house for me and went there. His son-in-law brought me candles and food, and next day Ibn al-Faqih himself came to visit me, with other prominent residents. I met the qadi of Malli, 'Abd ar-Rahman, who came to see me; he is a negro, a pilgrim, and a man of fine character. I met also the interpreter Dugha, who is one of the principal men among the blacks. All these persons sent me hospitality-gifts of food and treated me with the utmost generosity--may God reward them for their kindnesses!

Ten days after our arrival we ate a gruel made of a root resembling colocasia, which is preferred by them to all other dishes. We all fell ill--there were six of us--and one of our number died. I for my part went to the morning prayer and fainted there. I asked a certain Egyptian for a loosening remedy and he gave me a thing called "baydar," made of vegetable roots, which he mixed with aniseed and sugar, and stirred in water. I drank it off and vomited what I had eaten, together with a large quantity of bile. God preserved me from death but I was ill for two months.