I'm in Morocco this week, traveling in Marrakesh, Rabat, and Tangier to report on the story of Ibn Battutah.
Have you ever come across his name?
If that's a no, you are not alone.
Ibn Battutah was a renowned 14th-century Muslim Amazigh scholar and traveler who circumnavigated much of his time's known world on an astonishing three-decade-long adventure.
On his journey, Ibn Battutah went as far as Mali, Malaysia, and the Maldives. He set foot in the equivalent of 44 modern-era countries and covered 75,000 miles, a feat surpassing that of his near contemporary, Marco Polo, by threefold.
Yet, his name remains largely unknown in the global North.
Why is that?
At the time when the war-hungry U.S. government is bombing Iran (NPR) and enabling the Israeli government's genocide of the Palestinian people (Amnesty) (named so by numerous human rights organizations and genocide scholars), the answer feels both freshly relevant and centuries-old.
Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.
Did Ibn Battutah utter this sentence above, perhaps the sole well-known contribution of his to Western travel lore?
I hope to learn that soon.
Ibn Battutah left his birthplace of Tangier on June 13th, 1325.
He returned to Morocco three decades later and set out to recite an extensive account of his travels, Al Rihla, to a young writer by the name of Ibn Juzayy.
Inside Al Rihla, the scholar describes in great detail much of Dar al Islam, the 14th-century Muslim world.
Thanks to his book, we know what it was like to walk on the streets of the Sultanate of Delhi or sit with the nomadic tribes of the Chagatai Khanate, an empire created by Genghis Khan's son Chagatai that encompassed parts of modern-day Kazakhstan (my birthplace), Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan.
700 years and 14 days after Ibn Battutah departed from Tangier, I will arrive there.
In Tangier and across Morocco, I'll be visiting his tomb and searching for answers to some of my questions about this original seeker of knowledge and understanding between places and people.
Whatever I find, you'll know about it here.
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