Ibn Battutah's Travels

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Ibn Battutah was a Moroccan scholar who traveled to different regions in Asia and Africa. Throughout 1325 to 1354 C.E he traversed the regions of Asia and Africa. Ibn Battutah decided after his second pilgrimage to Mecca, he would travel on the road. He documented each of the travels he did on his journey. He wrote down his experiences, his thoughts, the diverse individuals he met, the customs of the different countries and regions he visited, and the overall state of the regions he visited. Throughout his travels, Ibn Battutah found the cultures, he visited noteworthy. He was critical of some of the unique cultures as well. Some of the practices of the foreign cultures that Ibn Battutah documented completely differed from some of the customs of his culture. The differences in cultures of the made him critical of the places he visited. After Ibn Battutah returned to Morocco in 1354 after his journey, the Sultan of Morocco requested that Ibn Battutah write an account of his travels. Some of the regions Ibn Battutah traversed through are the desert region of Africa, southern Asia, the eastern coast of Africa, and China. Ibn Battutah's journey began after he left his hometown of Tangier on July 14, 1325. He traveled to the city of Cairo and was amazed by the city. He referred to it as the “mother of cities, mistress of broad regions and fruitful lands, boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the halting-place of feeble and mighty, whose throngs surge as the waves of the sea, and can scarce be contained in her for all her size and capacity”. After leaving Cairo, he traversed through Upper Egypt and was astounded by the Nile River. Ibn Battutah described the Nile Riv...

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...mplete his journey and return to Morocco in 1354. Throughout his journey Ibn Battutah had to take detours and different routes because of certain unavoidable circumstances. For example, Ibn Battutah needed to take a detour because of the Beja people being at war with the Turks. He needed to traverse via Camel to his next destination. By doing traveling via Camel, increased the amount of time travel to his next destination. Ibn Battutah also made frequent rest stops during his travels and that increased his travel time. For example, Ibn Battutah traveled to Bethlehem on route to Jerusalem. With the detours that Ibn Battutah made during his journey extended and the amount of miles he traveled makes it unbelieveable that he traversed the vast Asia continent. The Asian continent is vast and I find difficult to believe he could make the journey in a short amount of time.

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