Ibn Battuta in Black Africa - Hardcover

Ibn Battuta; Noel King; Said Hamdun

3.61

208 ratings by Goodreads

9781558760875: Ibn Battuta in Black Africa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1558760873 ISBN 13: 9781558760875

Publisher: Markus Wiener Pub, 1995

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Abu Abdalla ibn Battuta (1304-1354) was one of the greatest travelers of pre-modern times. He traveled to Black Africa twice. He reported about the wealthy, multi-cultural trading centers at the African East coast, such as Mombasa and Kilwa, and the warm hospitality he experienced in Mogadishu.

He also visited the court of Mansa Musa and neighboring states during its period of prosperity from mining and the trans-Saharan trade. He wrote disapprovingly of sexual integration in families and of a "hostility toward the white man." Ibn Battuta's description is a unique document of the high culture, pride, and independence of Black African states in the fourteenth century.

This book is one of the most important documents about Black Africa written by a non-European Medieval historian.

The new appendixes include reports by contemporary Arab travelers who witnessed events described by Ibn Battuta, such as Ibn Khaldun, al-Maqqari, Ibn al-Dawadari and Al-Maqrizi.

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Review:

Everybody knows the names of European explorers such as Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, but how many have heard of Ibn Battuta? This intrepid North African scholar first set out for Mecca in the year 1325 A.D. and became so smitten with life on the road that he just kept traveling for the next 29 years. Though Mecca was the object of most of his journeys, Ibn Battuta took different routes each time and thus managed to visit such far-flung places as the Maldive Islands, northern Turkey, and southern China. Ibn Battuta twice traveled south of the Sahara, once visiting the coast of East Africa during a voyage back to Morocco from Arabia, and once journeying to Mali by camel caravan--his last recorded adventure. As with all his journeys, Ibn Battuta kept a detailed account of the places he visited and the people he met. In Ibn Battuta in Black Africa, editors Noel King and Said Hamdun have selected and translated many of Ibn Battuta's writings about his travels in Africa. Anyone interested in the precolonial cultures that thrived in sub-Saharan Africa will find this highly personal account of the private lives and public institutions of the peoples of 14th-century East and West Africa fascinating reading.

About the Author:

Ibn Battuta (1304-1377) was one of the first great travellers in world history - a century before Marco Polo. He was a scholar of Islamic law and found employment all over the Muslim world as a traveling judge or advisor to the rulers. He travelled to medieval Ghana, Mecca, India, and China and wrote his travel stories after his return to his native Tangier, Morocco, which were widely translated numerous times from Arabic.

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