The Travels of Ibn Battutah (Macmillan Collector's Library)

This work captures an entire era as no other book has done. Ibn Battuta is a hero of the first order. I’m writing a book about Mombasa in the 1500s and Battuta is my guide. Thank you.

If you want to read ibn Battutah in his own words, this is the best source currently available. But know what you are getting. 300 pages of small print, no pictures, no maps, no chronology, just the voice of ibn Battutah, echoing down through the ages. 25 pages of footnotes at the back help with the clarification of time, place, and bits of history. But for context, you need to read this book in conjunction with The Adventures of ibn Battuta by Ross Dunn.This is a great way to hear ibn Battutah's story in his own words. The translation is clear and accessible, without seeming "modernized." Ibn Battutah's personality definitely comes through.

Really enjoyed this book! Learned a lot about how much (and how little) the world has changed in 700 years.

I have a particular affection for old travel books. I love Marco Polo and Richard Hakluyt, so I thought I’d try Ibn Battutah’s travel commentaries. His time on earth overlapped Marco Polo’s, so they are both exponents of the same Zeitgeist. But whereas Marco Polo was a Venetian Christian, Ibn Battutah was born in the Magrib (modern Morocco) and was a devout Muslim. These facts inform everything he writes. So, both Polo and Ibn Battutah visited China, but their perceptions are vastly different. Whereas Marco Polo was rather tight-lipped about sex, Ibn Battutah seems to have copulated his way across the then-known world with hundreds of slave girls, concubines, and temporary “wives.” He also left more than a few offspring in his wake. His trip lasted 29 years and was three times the length of Marco Polo’s. He writes about not only what he actually experienced, but also includes gossip, rumors, and legends about the things and the people he encountered. Some of it is rather horrifying. I quote this passage from his chapter “In the Country of the Blacks”:“A group of these Blacks who eat the sons of Adam came to the Sultan Mansa Sulaiman with their amir. It is their custom to put into their ears big pendants, the opening of each pendant being half a span across. They wrap themselves in silk, and in their country is a gold mine. The sultan treated them with honor and gave them in hospitality a slave woman, whom they killed and ate. They smeared their faces and hands with her blood and came to the sultan to thank him. I was told that this is their custom whenever they come on an embassy to him. It was reported of them that they used to say that the best parts of the flesh of human females were the palm of the hand and the breast.”Yikes!Basically, Ibn Battutah’s sensibilities and mine are 180 degrees apart. I cite this passage as an example: “We came first to the country of the Bardamah, who are a Berber tribe. Their women are the most perfectly beautiful of women and have the most elegant figures; they are pure white and very fat. I have never seen any who are as fat as they. They feed on cows’ milk and pounded millet, which they drink mixed with water, uncooked, night and morning. Anyone who wants to marry among them settles with them as near to their country as possible and does not go with them further than Gawgaw and Iwalatan.”I did not enjoy the book as much as Marco Polo’s, but I did find it compelling reading which provided a lot of food for thought. Four stars.

My 15-year-old son is enjoying reading the book very much. Every now and then he would tell us about an interesting observation Ibn Battutah wrote about. Quite few are still relevant now. For example, Ibn Battutah talked about the fish market in Somalia and Sudan during his time of travels. He mentioned the Nusairis (known as Alawis now) in Syria. The richness of Egypt where the the city of Cairo was built on one side of the Nile and public parks on the other! I think I will read the book too when my son is finished reading it.

Excellent book delivered promptly!

I love this book it is one of a kind I recommend to anyone who love's History. An Amazon Service has usual fantastic the very BEST.

The book is extremely beautiful with a small compact hardback design. The key and the most attractive feature of the book is that it has golden pages which makes it look more authentic and royal. I just loved it completely.

A pleasantly presented format

Very intresting to read his descriptions about life and impressions entering important cities in the XIII century, like Cairo, Damaskus, Constantinople, Delhi etc. Also to find how was the relation between Islam and slavery!

Très belle traduction facile à lire. Le récit est fascinant et les nombreux détails nous font facilement voyager dans l’âge d’or du monde musulman ! Ibn Battuta gagnerait à être plus connu et étudié car il est tout simplement admirable. C’est un voyageur, poète, juge, intellectuel, religieux... tour simplement fascinant !

Someone asked me if I was reading the bible while I had this out in the bus. It's an interesting looking book.

very well documentation of the people who lived in that century