Ibn Battuta: Traveler From Tangier

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Ibn Battuta may well be called the biggest diamond in the rough when compared to other famous travelers and explorers. Ibn Battuta travels exceed the distances of Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama, and Christopher Columbus combined 125 years prior to their explorations and yet he was unheard of, this is because his travels were lost to the western world. Until his travels were discovered in Algeria Ibn Battuta’s travels were unheard of to a mass population of the world. Even today, debates arise in concern that Ibn Battuta does not receive the recognition that he deserves in contemporary society compared to his European traveling counter parts. In 1325, Ibn Battuta set off for his hajj to Mecca reluctantly in fear of leaving his parents, when he made his travels from his home in Tangier to Mecca; a journey of 3,000 miles, he became curious about the world around him as he traveled through the cities of Jerusalem, Aleppo and Damascus. Ibn Battuta made the hajj to Mecca seven times, the second time he made the hajj he stayed and studied with Mecca’s great scholars. After numerous hajj’s Ibn Battuta set off for India. Ibn Battuta traveled to India in hopes of joining the court of the Sultan of Delhi. Ibn Battuta traveled through Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Russia before he arrived in Delhi; where he served as a qadi for the sultan for eight years. During his eighth year, the sultan set Battuta off for China, where he would serve as the sultan’s ambassador. Unfortunately, soon after Ibn Battuta left for China he was kidnapped and kept hostage by Indians, Ibn Battuta narrowly escaped death with the kind assistance of a young man that took pity on him. Upon his escape he arrived in the wilderness by eating roots and nuts until he finally rejoined his group in Calicut. Reunited with his entourage Ibn Battuta arrived in Zaytun, China where he declared that “there is no

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