3

Ibn Battuta

Morocco

1326

Ibn Battuta, who traveled farther than any writer before him, is rightly considered one of the great medieval voyagers. He set out from Morocco on the pilgrimage to Mecca, then continued moving east for twenty years, covering most of the known world from North Africa to China before returning home to dictate his book to a young scribe. Neither a miniaturist like Khosraw nor a sophisticate like Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Battuta was more a force of nature, contradictory, opinionated, anecdotal, sweeping, and a shrewd observer of humanity. He traveled longer and farther, and wrote more, than Marco Polo. Jammed with vivid description and adventure, his book, exceeding a thousand pages, is the longest and most complex travel work in Arabic to survive the Middle Ages.

Ibn Battuta was born in 1303 or 1304 into a family of lawyers in Tangier, Morocco, just across the strait from Muslim Spain. He studied law as a young man, then set out alone for Mecca in 1325. He crossed North Africa slowly by horse, burro, and camel, taking the coastal land routes, always in the company of strangers. In Libya, he joined the annual pilgrim caravan. After an eight-month tour through Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, he finally performed his initial Hajj in 1326. (See Figs. 9 and 10.) He was twenty-three years old.

Probably, on leaving home, he had intended to return, after his Hajj, to take up a job at the Sultan’s court in Fez, but the journey changed him. Smitten by travel, sensing the very real opportunities before him, he traveled on. From Medina, he continued to Mesopotamia and Persia, then doubled back to Mecca and stayed a year. Next he visited Africa, then the Persian Gulf, performed the Hajj again, and set out for India, probably in 1332. He took the long way, through Syria and Asia Minor to Constantinople and the Asian steppes. In India for at least eight years, he rose to the post of grand judge in Delhi, then was appointed ambassador to the court of the Mongol emperor of China. After a shipwreck and several years in Ceylon and the Maldive Islands, he continued eastward, visiting Nepal, Burma, Sumatra, and perhaps China.

Returning west in 1347, Ibn Battuta stopped off in Mecca one last time. He reached Tangier early in 1350. Three years later the Sultan at Fez commissioned him to set down his adventures. By then, he had been on the road for two and a half decades, had visited the equivalent of fifty modern countries, and had covered more than seventy-five thousand miles. “I have realized my deepest desire in this world,” he wrote, “which was to travel through it. In this respect, I have accomplished something no one else to my knowledge has done.”

Ibn Battuta’s experiences abroad confirm the existence of a single, intercommunicating culture extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the South China Sea; not a narrow corridor spanned by a handful of trade routes east and west over which privileged figures traveled on official business but a global arena, an Afro-Eurasian zone actively crisscrossed by large populations of itinerant professionals who settled where they chose, furthered a career, and felt at home. Ibn Battuta was not unique in this milieu—he was representative. The roads of his time were filled with provincial scholars, judges, lawyers, teachers, businessmen, and traders from every corner of the earth who shuttled almost routinely among North Africa, Egypt, Persia, India, and Indonesia. Not only Muslims but Christians and Jews, too, took advantage of this trading network. They moved along lines that appear to have provided real support to a large class of mobile professionals. Ibn Battuta moved with them, working and traveling, recording a way of life that in certain ways prefigures the social flux of modern, free market capitalism. Bangladeshis at work in Silicon Valley, Iranian families thriving in Japan, would not have surprised Ibn Battuta. In fourteenth-century Damascus, he assures us, any Moroccan running out of money would be sure to find the means to earn his way. When he himself fell sick there, then went broke, benefactors appeared out of the woodwork. Later, in India, he met lawyers from around the world working at the sultan’s court in Delhi, earning handsome salaries and socializing with the upper classes. Still later, in China, as a guest of prosperous Egyptians in the huge city of Hang-chou, with whom should he cross paths in its large Muslim quarter but a neighbor from his own street in Tangier.

Ibn Battuta’s account is greatly enriched by this sense of belonging and by the social opportunities it allowed. A non-Muslim author would have been stopped short at most of the doors that Ibn Battuta passed through; many a Muslim merchant, too, must have lacked his access to first families and potential patrons. In addition to a magnetic manner, Ibn Battuta made astute use of his knowledge in the law and in Sufi doctrine. These assertions of specialized knowledge earned him deference and respect in the wider world of Islamic values. They smoothed his way over thousands of miles and, very often, paid it, too, with lucrative appointments at court and hospitality along the roads.

Ibn Battuta’s pages offer what in many cases seem to be the only surviving views of daily life at court and in the streets of fourteenth-century Muslim Asia. As an author, he made productive use of even the most trivial-seeming scenes. Seeing a servant drop a plate in the streets of Damascus, for example, he puts to use this fleeting accident to shed light on the city’s social institutions. Like Herodotus, he is a productive gossip, too, providing the reader with mosque and court intrigues and depicting his own negotiations with local dignitaries, all in order to enrich his record. For this purpose, he willingly discoursed on any topic, from the court system in Delhi to the sexual customs of Maldive Islanders.

Shaped by the world he traveled, Ibn Battuta was socially inclusive to a radical degree. Religiously, he was a walking resolution to the sometime antagonism between Sufi mysticism and Sunni orthodoxy. He was both a paid practitioner of Muslim law and a devotee of several Sufi orders, without apology to either side. Again and again in North Africa, approaching a Sufi hermitage or lodge, he would leave the road at a moment’s notice, sometimes riding all day to visit some legendary sage or teacher. Such detours increase spiritual capital, he tells us. Indeed, the Hajj roads of the Maghrib are circuitous to a degree surprising to any modern traveler. Rarely laid out on the shortest distance between points, they describe an altogether different purpose: to allow pilgrims to touch base with all the important mosques and shrines along the way. In Ibn Battuta’s case, these “detours” also helped an uncertain youth define his long-range goals. This binding force of spiritual societies throughout the Muslim world is often ignored by Western scholars. Ibn Battuta shows it working everywhere.

Lawyer, lay mystic, itinerant judge, scholar, courtier, and sometime spy— Ibn Battuta’s professional life touched every social stratum of the period. He was not a successful public servant like Naser-e Khosraw and Ibn Jubayr, who in middle age threw off their courtly clothes to go to Mecca. He was not a man of independent means. He went broke once at least before he reached Mecca. There and in Damascus, he acquired diplomas at a frantic pace, knowing that later he must keep on working. Fourteenth-century Mecca appears to have been a popular finishing school for fledgling lawyers like himself, a place to make contacts and qualify oneself to earn a living. All the major paths of Islamic thought maintained schools there, with influential scholars who tutored students from around the world. In the lives of these young aspiring elites, Mecca functioned as an influential hub, not as a terminus.

For Naser-e Khosraw, the pilgrimage was a watershed experience; for Ibn Jubayr, a journey of devotion. In each case, the route was circular. After the Hajj, both men turned home. For Ibn Battuta, Mecca marked the first leg of a much longer journey. His Hajj was a precipitating event, a catalyst that transformed him into a world traveler. His meetings and friendships during this period opened his eyes to a region full of promise farther east. “Seek out knowledge even as far as China” is one of the Prophet Muhammad’s best-known sayings. Ibn Battuta took it literally. He did not look back after Mecca. In 1328, after passing a year there, he made a vow: never to travel the same route twice so far as he was able. He set out for India, taking the long way, through Turkey, through Russia.

Ibn Battuta began his travels the year after Marco Polo died. Although he visited more places and traveled somewhat longer, the deeper distinction between their works is not a question of distance or years on the road but a matter of viewpoint. Whereas Marco Polo was always an outsider, Ibn Battuta, through most of his wanderings, remained within the borders of Islam. Music and dress changed a dozen times between Tangier and Delhi, yet the calendar and etiquette remained almost identical. Even in Canton, Muslims prayed five times a day, fasted together for a month, practiced Muslim hospitality, and lived by the same religious law. Ibn Battuta could always find work because the network of a global Islam provided it. He settled down, sometimes for years (in Mecca, Damascus, Baghdad, Delhi), married six times, had children, earned and spent small fortunes, and held official positions many times. The law he had studied as a young man in Morocco supported him in India and Sumatra. Over most of the lands he crossed, he remained immersed in a single community, a guest among fellow Muslims and an equal, speaking Arabic, sharing in a culture that ate, bathed, judged, and thought in common ways. Marco Polo was always an alien. Ibn Battuta, for all his mileage, remained at home.

When Ibn Battuta settled in Fez in 1353, the Sultan, Abu Inan, requested him to set down his travels; a young secretary named Ibn Juzayy, a poet and traveling scholar, was appointed to assist him. Ibn Juzayy describes the book they composed together as his own “abridgment” of the traveler’s “notations” and “dictation.” To these materials, in the spirit of his day, he occasionally inserted passages from the works of earlier travelers. For the physical descriptions of Damascus, Mecca, and Medina, the book relies heavily on Ibn Jubayr. These, and the swatches of purple prose Ibn Juzayy composed to introduce them, stand out clearly from the more direct voice of Ibn Battuta. The secretary’s shaping hand may also be seen pressing into more logical shape his author’s confusing itinerary. They worked together for two years. Of that process, Ibn Juzayy wrote, “I have rendered the sense of the narrative in language that adequately expresses the purposes he had in mind, and I have set forth clearly the ends he had in view. Frequently I have reported his words in his own phrasing, without omitting either root or branch.” Still, he clearly had his orders: to smooth, and impose a more graceful shape on, the rough reminiscences of a traveled man who was not a writer.

Over the centuries, this work was considered lost. Then, in the early 1800s, the Swiss explorer J. L. Burckhardt (whose Hajj account appears here later) discovered and sent back from Cairo an Arabic excerpt of Ibn Battuta’s travels, which was translated into English in 1829. Thirty years later, five manuscripts were unearthed in Algeria during the French occupation. From these, a complete French edition was prepared in 1858. Although it remains the accepted text, no one can say if we are reading a draft or a finished work. Nor can we know if Ibn Battuta gave it his blessing, nor how much Ibn Juzayy may have added later, nor how much is the work of copyists.

The selections that follow contain none of Ibn Juzayy’s additions. Although this is merely a sliver of the total work, we are shown a surprising amount in a few pages: the disrupted state of North Africa in the fourteenth century, civil and religious life along the Nile, the aftermath of the Crusades, the social infrastructure of Damascus, the Syrian caravan to Medina, and the mystical devotees of Mecca.

from The Travels of Ibn Battuta

TANGIER TO TUNIS. JUNE–JULY 1325 I left Tangier, my birthplace, on Thursday the second of Rajab, . . . intending to make the pilgrimage to the Sacred House at Mecca and to visit the tomb of the Prophet at Medina. I set out by myself, with no companion to cheer me along or any caravan to join with, compelled by an overwhelming urge and a long-held desire in my heart to visit these famous sanctuaries. So I confirmed my decision to leave everyone dear to me, men and women, and flew from my home as birds desert their nests. My parents were still alive at the time, and it weighed me down terribly to leave them. Both they and I were saddened when we parted. I was twenty-two then.

I came to Tlemcen when Ibn Zayyan was its Sultan. My arrival there happened to coincide with a visit by two envoys from the King of Ifriqiya. These men were justices of the peace at Tunis. Their names were Muhammad al-Nafzawi, a judge, and Muhammad al-Zubaidi, a Berber shaykh from a coastal town near Mahdiya. Shaykh al-Zubaidi was one of the foremost scholars of his time. He died in 1340.

The day I arrived, these two were leaving town, and an intermediary advised me to go with them. I consulted the Quran for a sign in the matter, and after three nights in Tlemcen spent procuring my provisions, I left town, riding after them at a gallop, and caught up with them in the town of Miliana. This was in the hottest part of the summer. Both envoys fell ill, and so we halted there ten nights. We had no sooner started out again than al-Nafzawi’s condition became much worse. We stopped near a stream a few miles outside town, but the man died on our fourth morning there, and his son and al-Zubaidi went back to Miliana and buried him. At this point we parted company, and I continued my travels with a group of merchants from Tunis. When we reached Algiers, we camped outside town for several days, until al-Zubaidi and the dead man’s son overtook us. Then we went on together through the dry flats of Mitija into the eastern Kabyle Mountains.

In Bejaïa, I was stricken by fever. Al-Zubaidi advised me to stay behind until I had fully recovered, but I refused, saying, “If God says I must die then let it happen on the road, while I’m facing Mecca.” “Well,” he answered, “if you really mean it, then sell your mount and your heavy baggage. I’ll lend you a mule and a tent. That way you can keep up with us. We have to move quickly. There are thieves along these roads.” I took his suggestion.

We continued on to Constantine and stopped outside it. During the night, heavy rains drove us from our tents and we ran for cover to some nearby buildings. In the morning the Governor of the town, a man named Abu al Hasan, a descendant of the Prophet, came to greet us. Seeing my clothes, which were soaked and muddy from the rain, he sent them to be laundered at his home. My mantle was in such ragged shape that he sent me a new one of fine cloth from Baalbek. Tied into one of its corners were two gold dinars, the first alms of my journey.

From Constantine we rode on to Annaba and lodged inside the city walls. A few days later, due to the dangers of the road, we parted from the merchants and traveled light with greater speed, pushing on day and night without a stop. I fell ill again with a fever and actually tied myself to the saddle with a turban to keep from falling off in my weakened state. It wasn’t possible to dismount because of the danger. When we finally reached the town of Tunis, people came out to welcome Shaykh Zubaidi and the others home. They surrounded these men on every side with greetings and questions, but no one spoke to me because nobody knew me. I felt such loneliness I could not keep back my tears. One of the people noticed this and made a point of greeting me warmly. He continued to comfort and talk to me until I came into the city, where I found lodgings in the college of the booksellers.

ALEXANDRIA TO AYDHAB, EGYPT. APRIL–JULY 1326 I went to visit the Pharos lighthouse and found one side of it in total ruin. It is a square building soaring into the sky, with a single door far above ground level. The only way to enter it was over wooden planks laid between the door and an adjacent building. There was a place for a guardian just inside the door, and within the lighthouse itself lay many chambers. The inner passage is about 7 feet wide. The wall is 7½ feet thick; each of the lighthouse’s four faces is 105 feet broad. It stands on a high mound three miles from the city on a long finger of land extending into the water on three sides. The town cemetery is on the same peninsula. I visited the lighthouse again on my return to Morocco in 1349, but it had fallen into such ruin by then that I couldn’t enter it or even climb up to the doorway. . . .

During my time in Alexandria, I heard about a pious sage named al-Murshidi, who lived a life of pure devotion cut off from the world and who supplied all his needs from divine sources. He was certainly a true sage with real insight into the unseen. I learned that he was living in isolation in a village called Munyat Bani Murshid. He lived alone in a hermitage there, without servants or companions, and he was constantly sought out by ministers of state. Men from every walk of life came to him daily, and he would serve them. Because food prepared by such a man is blessed, everyone who came to see him would ask to eat some meat or fruit or candy in his dwelling, and he would bring whatever they asked for, even when it was out of season. Doctors of theology came to seek appointments from him too, and he would give them or retract them, depending on each man’s merit.

Shaykh al-Murshidi’s retreat lies close to Fawa, separated from the town by a canal. I passed through the town and reached the shaykh’s cell before the afternoon prayer hour. I found him with a visitor, an officer of the Sultan’s bodyguard, who had camped with his troops outside the cell. When I came to the Shaykh, he rose to meet me, embraced me, and invited me to eat. He wore a black wool tunic. When the time arrived, he asked me to lead the prayer, and I continued this throughout my stay there. When I was ready to go to sleep that night, he said: “Go up on the roof of the cell and sleep there.” This was during the worst of the summer heat and he wanted me to be comfortable. I deferred to the Sultan’s officer, but he replied by quoting the Quran: “Everyone has his appointed place.” I went up to the roof and found a bed of straw, a leather mat, and water jugs for washing and drinking. I lay down to sleep there.

That night I dreamed I was perched on the wing of an enormous bird which flew with me in the direction of Mecca. There it turned south to Yemen, then east, then south again, and finally made a long flight toward the east, alighting in a dark and greenish country, where it left me. I woke astonished. I said to myself: “If the shaykh shows me that he knows about this dream, he is all that people say he is.” In the morning I led the prayer again, then the Sultan’s officer went on his way. Shaykh al-Murshidi gave small cakes to his other visitors and they departed. After the mid-morning prayer, he called me in and asked what I had dreamed. I told him. He replied: “You are going to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and visit the Prophet’s tomb (at Medina), then you will travel to Yemen, Iraq, Turkey, and India. You will remain in India a long time and meet my brother Dilshad there. He will save you from a dangerous situation.” Then he provided me with cakes and silver coins and I departed. . . .

I passed through a region of sand to Damietta, a city of spacious neighborhoods laden with fruit. It lies on a bank of the Nile, and the people in the houses near the river go down to it easily with buckets, for many homes have stairs right to the shore. Damietta is richly endowed and well laid out. Bananas thrive there; the fruit is carried down to Cairo on boats. Because its sheep and goats graze freely day and night, there is a saying about the city: “Its walls are made of sweet fruit and its dogs are sheep.” Once you have entered the city, you may leave it only by showing a “pass” from the Governor. People of standing carry a seal stamped on a piece of paper, which they show at the gate. Others have the seal stamped on their forearms and must show that.

Seabirds35 are in abundance in the market, as are various forms of a buffalo milk unsurpassed in their sweetness and a type of mullet exported not only to Cairo but to Syria and Anatolia. Outside town an island lies between the sea and the river, called the isthmus. Here there are a mosque and a hermitage whose shaykh I met, a man named Ibn Qufil, who has around him numerous dervishes all devoted to a life of faith. I spent a Thursday night with him, listening to their prayers and incantations.

The present city of Damietta is new; the old town was destroyed after being freed a second time from the Crusaders in the days of al-Malik al-Salih (1249–50). Here lies the hermitage of Shaykh Jamal al-Din al-Sawi, now deceased, who set the style for a group of wandering dervishes called the Qalandariya. These Qalandariya shave off their beards and eyebrows. The story goes that as a young man Shaykh al-Sawi was well built and handsome, and a Persian woman living here conceived a passion for him, sending him letters and stopping him on the street with invitations to come and see her. One day, baffled by his refusals, she posted a woman along his usual route to the mosque. As he passed, she stepped from the doorway with a letter. “Sidi, can you read?” she asked. “It’s a letter from my son. Can you tell me what’s in it?” Then, before he had broken the seal, she added: “My son’s wife is in the hallway of this house. Would you read it to her through the door, so she may hear it?” He agreed, but when he was between the inner door and the outer one, the old woman locked the first door and the Persian lady came through the second with her servants. They seized him and dragged him into the house, where the woman attempted to seduce him. Seeing no way out, the Shaykh played along. “Where is your toilet?” he asked, and the woman showed him. He took a jar of water in with him and shaved off his beard and eyebrows with a razor, then returned to her side. She was so horrified and angered by what he had done that she forgot herself and threw him out. He kept up the practice afterwards, and so have his followers. . . .

There was a governor in Damietta named al-Muhsini, a good man and charitable too, who had built a college on the riverbank. I lodged in this college during my stay there, and a strong friendship grew up between us. When I finally left town and was on my way to Fariskur, a rider sent out by al-Muhsini overtook me. He said, “The Amir asked after you today. Hearing you had left, he sent you this—” and he handed me a little sack of coins. May Allah reward him. . . .

I continued on my journey from Ikhmim to Hu, another large town on the riverbank. I stayed here at the college of Ibn al-Sarraj and watched his followers recite a section of the Quran every day after the dawn prayer, followed by the devotions of al-Shadhili.36 The noble Abdullah al-Hasani, a descendant of the Prophet and one of the saintliest of men, lives in Hu. I went to visit him, to receive his blessing. When he asked me my plans, I told him that I intended to make the pilgrimage to Mecca by way of Jidda, over the Red Sea. He said: “You won’t succeed in doing that this time. Go back. Your first Hajj will be performed by the road from Damascus.” I left him. Instead of taking his advice, I continued on my way . . . and finally, after fifteen days through the desert, I reached .. . . . There the current King was locked in a battle with the troops of the Sultan of Egypt. As a result he had sunk all the ships [that would have taken us to Jidda]. It was impossible for us to cross the sea, so we sold the provisions we had brought with us for the trip and returned to Upper Egypt with the Arabs who had rented us our camels. From Qus we sailed back down the Nile (which was in flood) and after a passage of eight nights arrived back in Cairo. I stayed one night there before setting out for Syria.

DAMASCUS. AUGUST 1326 On Thursday, the ninth day of the fast of Ramadan, I reached Damascus. I lodged there at the Maliki college.37 For sheer beauty Damascus surpasses any other city I have seen. . . . It is surrounded on three sides by extensive suburbs, whose districts are more pleasant than the city center, where the streets are very narrow. To the north lies the suburb of Salihiya, a city in itself, with beautiful markets, a congregational [Friday] mosque, and a public hospital. There is a college there, named for Ibn Omar, exclusively endowed for older people who want to turn to the study of the Quran. Here food and clothing are provided for both students and professors. Damascus has such a college, too. . . .

I was walking one day in a narrow lane in Damascus when I saw a young servant let slip from his hands an expensive-looking dish of Chinese porcelain. It broke into bits and a crowd gathered around him. Then one of these onlookers advised the boy: “Pick up the pieces and take them to the office of the Utensils Fund.” The boy picked them up and the man went along with him to the office, where they showed the broken platter to a custodian. The boy was then given enough money to buy a suitable replacement. This fund is one of the best things about Damascus, for the boy’s master would undoubtedly have beaten him for dropping such a dish. The fund is a service to mend the human heart. May God reward its benefactors.

People of means here compete with each other in the endowment of mosques, colleges, and sanctuaries. Because they have a high opinion of Moroccans, any of my countrymen who runs out of money in Damascus will find some way of earning a living open to him. He might be given an appointment as an imam in a mosque, as a teacher in a college with free room and board, as a reciter of the Quran, or as the keeper of a sanctuary; or he might go and live at a Sufi hermitage and there receive both food and clothes. Furthermore, anyone living on charity here is protected from having to earn his keep at the cost of his self-respect and dignity. In this way manual workers and domestics may wind up guarding an orchard, attending to a mill, or caring for children, walking them to their morning classes and returning with them in the evening. If they want to pursue a course of studies or enter the religious life, they receive every assistance in the matter. . . .

When I first arrived here, I became good friends with the Malikite professor Nur al-Din al-Sakhawi, and he encouraged me to breakfast at his house each night during Ramadan.38 I visited him four nights in a row, then had a stroke of fever and stayed away. He sent someone to search for me, and although my weakened state gave me good reason, he would not accept any excuse, and I wound up going to his house and spending the night there. When I tried to leave in the morning, he objected. “Think of my house as yours or your father’s or brother’s,” he told me. He sent for a doctor, arranged for medical prescriptions, and ordered special foods to be prepared which the doctor prescribed for me. I remained with him in the same condition until the end of Ramadan. On the day of the festival prayers ending the fast, which I attended, God healed me, but by then the funds reserved for my Hajj had run out. Nur al-Din, hearing this, hired camels for me and provided me provisions and money, too. He said: “The money will be useful for anything of importance you may need.” May God reward him.

THE DAMASCUS CARAVAN TO MECCA. SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 1326 When the new moon of Shawal appeared, the Hijaz caravan trooped out to the south side of the city and camped at a village called Kiswé. I set out with them, traveling with a tribe of Bedouin called the Ajarima, whose Amir was Muhammad al-Rafi’. We marched from Kiswé to a sizable village, Sanamayn, and went on from there to the small town of Zur’a in the district of Hauran. After a stop near Zur’a we continued on to the small town of Busra. The caravan usually stops there for four nights, to await any stragglers from Damascus. When Muhammad was a young man and a trader in the employ of his wife, Khadija, he met a Christian monk [Bahira] here who foretold his future mission as a prophet. Today a large mosque stands on the place where his camel rested. People from all over the district of Hauran flock to this town, bringing produce to sell the pilgrims for their journey. From Busra the caravan traveled on to the Pool of Ziza, stopped there for a day, then continued on to Lajjun, where there is running water. From Lajjun we marched to the castle of Karak.39

Karak is one of the most remarkable, inaccessible, and famous of the Sinai fortresses. It is sometimes called the Raven’s Castle. The river wraps around it on all sides, and it has only one gate, the entrance to which is hewn out of the rock. Today this castle is a stronghold for neighboring kings in times of trouble. . . . We stopped outside Karak for four days, at a place named Thaniyya. Here we prepared to enter the real desert. From Thaniyya we traveled on to Ma’an, the last town in Syria, then descended through the Pass of Flints into the wilderness. People say of this region that anyone entering it is lost and anyone leaving it is reborn. After a two-day march we stopped at Dhat Hajj, where water lies in beds deep in the ground and there are no houses. We continued on from there to Wadi Balda, a dry river, and then to Tabuk. This is the same place the Prophet raided [in 631]. . . .

The enormous caravan camps near the spring, and everybody satisfies his thirst. The pilgrims stay here for four days to refresh themselves, water their camels, and stock up on water for the even more fearsome emptiness between Tabuk and Ula. The water bearers set up buffalo-hide tanks beside the spring, filling them up like reservoirs. They water the camels and also fill water bags for the caravan and smaller skins for individuals. Each amir and person of rank has a private tank; the rest of the pilgrims make arrangements with the bearers for a fixed amount of money. Then the whole caravan leaves Tabuk and pushes on with haste, traveling night and day without stopping, for the wilderness is at its worst here. Halfway through lies the valley of Ukhaidir [Little Green Place], which might be more aptly named Valley of Hell. One year the hajjis suffered terribly in this place, for the samoom [poison wind] began blowing, their waterskins dried up, and the price of a drink rose to a thousand dinars. Both seller and buyer perished. The story is inscribed on one of the rocks as you pass through the valley. . . .

Five days beyond Tabuk the pilgrims reach the well of Thamud, which is full of water. In spite of their violent thirst, however, nobody draws a single bucket from this well, for the Prophet, when he passed here, told his people not to drink from it. (A few had already used the water to make dough; they subsequently fed it to their camels.) Here the dwellings of ancient Thamud stand carved into the hills, hewn out of reddish rock with elaborately decorated thresholds that look quite modern.40 Their builders’ bones lie turning to dust inside them, “a real sign for those with eyes to see.”41

From Thamud to Ula is about a half-day journey. It is a large, pleasant village with palm groves and springs. Here the pilgrims stop for four nights to reprovision and to wash their clothes. The local people are honest and many pilgrims leave surplus provisions on deposit with them for the return journey, taking along only what they may need to reach Medina. Ula marks a boundary line, south of which the Syrian Christian merchants may not go. These people trade in provisions and goods with the pilgrims.

The day after the caravan leaves this town, the pilgrims camp in the valley of Itas. The heat here is killing and the fatal samoom is common. The last time it blew in this season, only a few pilgrims escaped with their lives. Past Itas they camp at Hadiyya, a place with underground water in a valley, where they dig shallow pits and water magically appears, but it is brackish. On the third day out we caught sight of the sanctified city of Medina, the City of the Prophet. . . .

When it came time to leave Medina and head for Mecca, we halted near the Dhu al-Hulayfa mosque, where the Prophet himself put on his pilgrim clothes for the Farewell Hajj. The mosque is five miles from Medina, near the stream of Aqiq. It marks the limit of Medina’s sacred territory. Here I put away my tailored clothes, bathed, put on my consecrated lengths of unstitched cotton, and performed the customary prayers. I entered the life of a pilgrim at this stage, stating my intention to perform the Hajj as a rite separate from the Umra. I felt such enthusiasm then that I took up the chant of the caravan42 and went on with it through every hill and valley until we reached the Pass of Ali, where we stopped for the night.

MECCA. OCTOBER–NOVEMBER 1326 At the time of my arrival there, the title of Amir of Mecca was held by two brothers, Rumaytha and Atayfa, sons of Abu Numayy Qitada, all descendants of the Prophet through Hasan. Rumaytha, although older, insisted that Atayfa be named before him in the Friday sermon at the mosque, because of the latter’s widespread reputation for justice. Atayfa’s home stands to the right of the Marwa Hill; Rumaytha lives in the hermitage of al-Sharabi, near the Shayba Gate. Drums are beaten outside their doors every morning.

The generosity and good manners of the Meccans are outstanding. Not only do they give food to the poor before they start a feast; they invite them in and serve the food themselves. Meccans routinely give a third to a half of all their bread away. They are particular about their dress and usually wear white. The men wear perfume, darken their eyes with kohl, and frequently carry toothpicks made from the branches of a local tree. The women are beautiful. They also use scents and unguents liberally, and some go without food in order to buy them. When they perform the tawaf on Thursday nights, their perfumes fill the mosque and remain behind them long after they leave. . . .

During the week, the first of the four imams to recite the daily prayers is the Shafiʿi imam. The majority of the Meccans belong to this rite and he is appointed by those in authority. He performs his prayer behind the Station of Abraham, in an admirable enclosure made especially for him. It is formed by beams joined in the shape of two ladders affixed to a plaster pedestal. A top beam supports many rows of glass lamps hanging on hooks. When the Shafiʿi imam has finished his prayer, the imam of the Malikites prays in a separate oratory facing the Kaʿba’s southern angle; the imam of the Hanbalites prays along with him, facing the eastern wall of the shrine. Lastly, the Hanafi imam prays, facing the roof spout of the shrine. He stands in an enclosure quite similar to the leader of the Shafiʿite’s. This order of prayer remains the same for four of the five daily prayers. At the sunset prayer they pray in unison, each imam leading his own congregation. One notices some distraction among the people at these times, Malikites bowing in time with the Shafiʿites, Hanafites prostrating with the Hanbalites. You can see the people listening with great attention to the voice of their particular muezzin, in order to avoid confusion.

At the Friday sermon the imam enters dressed entirely in black, with a turban and a muslin veil hanging down his back, furnished by the King of Egypt. He walks at a dignified pace between two black flags borne along by two of the muezzins who will call the prayer. A chamberlain precedes him carrying a tall stick, the farqʿa, with a thin twist of cord tied at one end, which is cracked like a whip as a signal to everyone that the imam is coming. First he goes to kiss the Black Stone. Beside him comes the senior muezzin of Zamzam, dressed in black, bearing a sword on one shoulder. Then the two flags are placed on either side of the pulpit, which stands very near the Kaʿba, close to the wall between the Black Stone and the northern (Iraqi) angle of the shrine. As the imam prepares to mount the steps, the muezzin gives him the sword, and the imam strikes the first step with it. This draws the attention of the crowds. He does the same with the other steps and strikes a fourth time at the top. Next, he prays in a low voice, facing the Kaʿba, then turns to the public, bowing to his right and to his left. The congregation returns the gesture. At the very moment that he sits down, the muezzins begin the call to prayer, standing on the dome of the Zamzam Well.

The imam prays for Allah’s Prophet many times, then for the Prophet’s family: his uncles, Hamza and Abbas; his grandsons, Hasan and Husayn; Fatima, their mother, and Khadija, his first wife, too; then for Malik al-Nasir of Egypt; for the Sultan, Nur al-Din Ali; for the two amirs of Mecca; and for the Sultan of Iraq (though not recently for this last one). After his sermon he prays again, then returns the way he came, and the order of his departure is the reverse of his arrival.

SOME SOJOURNERS AT MECCA Among those who had come to perform the Hajj, then remained long after, there were the following:

—A wise and pious imam known as al-Yafiʿi, who was also a Sufi adept and devotee. This man was almost constantly circling the Kaʿba “by night and at the odd hours of the day.”43 Often, after performing his evening circuits, he would climb to the roof of the Muzaffariya college and sit there watching the Kaʿba until he fell asleep. He would place a flat stone beneath his head and rest a little, then renew his ablutions [wudu’]44 and take up his circling again until the time came for the morning prayer. He was married to the daughter of Shihab ibn Burhan, a lawyer and fellow Sufi. A young woman, she constantly complained to her father of neglect; he advised her to be patient, and she stayed with al-Yafiʿi for some years, but things did not improve and she divorced him.

—Shaykh Abu al-Abbas ibn Marzuq, who often resided in Mecca. I saw him there in 1328 and he was by far the most determined in circling the Kaʿba. His persistence in spite of the heat always amazed me, for the pavement around the shrine is flagged with black stones and the midday sun heats them up like red-hot plates. I have seen the water bearers attempt to wet them down, but no sooner does the water hit the stone than the spot changes color and starts steaming. Most people performing the tawaf at that hour wear sandals, but this man did it with bare feet. One afternoon I saw him circling and thought I would like to join him. But when I crossed the pavement to kiss the Black Stone, the heat of its surface overpowered me. I steeled myself enough to reach the Stone but hurried away without making the first circuit, laying my head scarf on the ground and treading on it again and again until I reached the colonnades.

—Najm al-Din al-Usfuni had been a judge in Upper Egypt, then quit the post, became a devotee, and then a sojourner at the Sanctuary. He used to perform the Umra every day and, during the fast at Ramadan, twice a day, relying upon a statement attributed to the Prophet that performing this rite during Ramadan is equivalent to the performance of the Hajj.45

—Abu Bakr al-Shirazi, known as the Silent. He was almost constantly engaged in circling the shrine and stayed at Mecca for many years, during which he never spoke a word.

—Izz al-Din al-Wasiti, a man of tremendous wealth who received a large remittance from his native town each year. He used to buy grain and dried dates with the money and distribute them to the poor and those in need, transporting the goods to their homes himself. He occupied himself this way until he died.

—Abu al-Hasan al-Anjari, a lawyer from the district of Tangier. He sojourned at Mecca for some years and died there. My father and he had a long-standing friendship, and whenever he came to Tangier, he stayed in our home. At Mecca he had a room at the Muzaffariya college, where he taught theology during the day. At night he retired to a dwelling in the hermitage of Rabiʿ. (The people of the Hijaz hold this hermitage in high esteem and bring offerings to it. The people of Taʾif supply it with fruit. Anyone in Taʾif with a garden of date palms, grapes, peaches, or figs has long ago agreed to give a share of the produce to this place and to convey it there on their own camels. Taʾif is a two-day ride from Mecca.)

THE STORY OF HASAN, THE MAD In the later days of my own sojourn in Mecca, in 1328, there lived a man named Hasan of the West. He was possessed and had a strange life and a remarkable character. He had not always been insane. Formerly he had served the sage Najm al-Din al-Isbahani.

During the years when Najm al-Din was at Mecca, Hasan used to circle the Shrine many times at night, and he often saw a Sufi student making the turns, too, but the man never appeared to him in the daytime. One night the man approached him and said, “Hasan, your mother is weeping for you. She wants to see you. Would you like to meet with her?” Hasan replied, “Yes, but it’s impossible. She is no longer with us.” The student said, “Meet me here tomorrow night. We will see what Allah brings.” The following night, a Thursday, Hasan met the man and they circled the Shrine together many times. Then the student left the mosque and Hasan followed. Outside the Maʿla Gate, the man told him to close his eyes and hold on to his sleeve. Hasan took the man’s sleeve. In a little while the student said, “Would you know your hometown if you saw it?” Hasan opened his eyes and found himself at the gate of his mother’s home. (I think his town was the city of Asafi.) He went inside and stayed with her about three weeks, not saying a thing about how he had come there. Finally one day he went out to the cemetery and crossed paths with the student. “How are you?” he asked. Hasan replied, “I’ve been trying to find Shaykh Najm al-Din. I left his home in the normal way, but now I’ve been away too many days, and I’d like you to take me back to him.” The student said, “Certainly,” and they made an appointment to meet that night. When Hasan returned to the graveyard, the student had him close his eyes and take his sleeve. In a little while they were back in Mecca. The student made Hasan swear not to tell Shaykh Najm or anyone else what had happened. When the Shaykh asked Hasan where he had been, he would not tell him. When he was pressed, he told Najm the story. The Shaykh said, “Show me the man,” and went to the Shrine with him that night. The student was there, and Hasan pointed him out. The student heard him and struck him on the mouth, saying “Be silent.” Hasan’s tongue became tied at that moment and his reason left him forever. He remained in the mosque, a demented figure, performing the circuits night and day without washing or saying prayers. The people saw him as a means to acquire blessings and clothed and fed him. When he felt hungry, he would step out to the market, pick out any booth, and eat what he liked from it. No one drove him away or tried to stop him. On the contrary, people were pleased if he ate their food, for it brought them blessings and seemed to improve their sales. He did the same with the water bearers when he wanted to drink. He went on this way until 1329, when the same soldier of the Sultan’s guard whom I had crossed paths with at al-Murshidi’s hermitage in Egypt came for the Hajj and took Hasan back to Egypt. Since that time I have not heard of him.

35 Seabirds: geese, ducks, teal, and ibis. [Ed.]

36 al-Shadhili (1196–1258): a Moroccan Sufi theologian who, while in Egypt, founded the Shadhiliyah order, which later became one of the most popular mystical schools of the Middle East and North Africa, giving rise to fifteen other orders. [Ed.]

37 The four orthodox “schools” of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam are Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafiʿi. They take their names from their founders. With slight variations, all four interpretations follow the path, or sunna, of the Prophet Muhammad.

At Mecca until this century, each school was represented by a pulpit facing one of the four sides of the Kaʿba. From here, their imams took turns leading the prayers.

To some degree, the sway of each rite is regional. Morocco, for example, follows the Maliki rite almost exclusively. Being far from home, it makes sense that Ibn Battuta would find hospitality among their representatives. He frequently did so. [Ed.]

38 The annual, month-long fast of Ramadan lasts each day from dawn until sunset. Thus, the Ramadan “breakfast” takes place at dusk. [Ed.]

39 In the days of Ibn Jubayr, Karak was held by “the demon of the West,” Reynald de Chatillon, among the most violent and fanatical of the Crusaders. From here, he raided the pilgrim caravans. In 1188, Saladin’s general al-Adil captured the castle. Saladin executed Reynald with his own hand, and the balance of power shifted for good away from the Crusaders. [Ed.]

40 The modern name of the site is Mada’in Salih. Along the caravan route rise many freestanding buttes carved away by the wind into grotesque shapes that, by some feat of unexplained genius, contain near their tops rock-hewn dwellings with plinths, peristyles, columns, and classic arches around the entries. At first glance, these dwellings resemble works of ancient Rome. In fact, they are architectural cousins of the rock-hewn houses at Petra, Jordan. [Ed.]

41 Quran III:13. [Ed.]

42 “Here I am, Lord. What is your command?” [Ed.]

43 Quran XX:130. [Ed.]

44 wudu’: a light washing of the face and limbs, establishing a state of purity required before Muslim prayer. [Ed.]

45 In orthodox Islamic law, there is no substitute for or “equivalent” to the Hajj. [Ed.]