The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century

by Ross E. Dunn

  It is enough for you of a place where everything is imported, even water; and this (because of its bitterness) is less agreeable than thirst. We had lived between air that melts the body and water that turns the stomach from appetite for food. He did no injustice to this town who sang, “Brackish of water and flaming of air.”17

  Ibn Jubayr also took pains to warn travelers against the avarice of the ship captains, who loaded their vessels with pilgrims “until they sit one on top of the other so that they are like chickens crammed in a coop.”18 Somehow enduring these indignities, not to mention delays and storms, Ibn Jubayr had managed to reach Jidda after a week under sail and so continued on to Mecca. Ibn Battuta, as it happened, was not so lucky. When earlier he had passed through the town of Hiw (Hu) on the Nile, he paid a visit to a saintly sharif (descendant of the Prophet), one Abu Muhammad ’Abdallah al-Hasani. Upon hearing of the young man’s intention to go to Mecca, the sharif warned him to return to Cairo, prophesying that he would not make his first pilgrimage except by the road through Syria. Ignoring the omen, Ibn Battuta had continued on his way southward. Reaching ’Aydhab, he discovered much to his chagrin that the local ruling family, a clan of the Beja people who inhabited the hills behind the city, were in revolt against the Mamluk governor.19 The rebels had sunk some ships in the harbor, driven out the Egyptian garrison, and in this climate of violence no one was hoisting sail for Jidda. If he were to be assured of reaching the Hijaz before the start of the hajj, Ibn Battuta had no real choice but to retrace his steps to Cairo and continue from there by one of the northern routes.

  Fortunately, the trip back did not take long. The Nile was reaching summer flood stage, and so after crossing the desert again and rejoining the river at Qus, he boarded a ship and returned to the capital in eight short days, arriving there, he recalls, in mid July.

  Perhaps during his voyage down the river, where he had the leisure to think out his plans, he came to the conclusion that if he did not linger in Cairo he could reach Syria in time to catch the hajj caravan which normally left Damascus on or about 10 Shawwal (10 September of that year), or about two weeks earlier than the departure of the pilgrims from Cairo.20 It may have been his rather happy-go-lucky impetuosity that was driving him, or perhaps he thought it prudent to heed the word of the sharif of Hiw that he was destined to reach Mecca by way of Syria. In any case he stayed in Cairo, astonishingly enough, only one night before setting out for Syria, the Asian half of the Mamluk empire.

  The main route from Cairo to Damascus was the royal road of the kingdom, since Damascus was a kind of second capital, responsible for the military governance of Greater Syria and for the defense of the eastern marches against the Mongols of Persia. The sultan himself frequently traveled to Damascus, usually in the company of an army. Moreover, Damascus was as great a city as Cairo in the production of luxury goods. The military lords of Egypt depended heavily on the caravans from Syria for their fine silks and brocades, their ceramics and glassware, their magnificent tents and horse-trappings, all of these articles traded mainly for Egyptian textiles and grain. Damascene artisans, such as masons, marble workers, and plasterers, frequently accompanied the caravans to Cairo to work in the construction of palaces, mausoleums, and mosques. For both commercial and political reasons, then, the Mamluks were assiduous in protecting and provisioning the Cairo–Damascus artery, hemming it with garrison posts and building bridges and caravansaries to facilitate the passage of people and goods.

  If Ibn Battuta had gone to Mecca with the Egyptian hajj caravan, he would have traveled due east across the peninsula to Aqaba, then southward into the Hijaz. Instead, he set a northeastward course through the farming towns of the eastern delta and from there along the sandy Mediterranean plain to Gaza, the desert portal to Palestine. We have no idea with whom he may have been traveling, though he refers vaguely in the Rihla to “those who were with me” on this stretch of his journey. All along this trail the government provided public caravansaries where, according to the Rihla, “travelers alight with their beasts, and outside each khan is a public wateringplace and a shop at which the traveler may buy what he requires for himself and his beast.” At Qatya, a station located several miles east of the modern day Suez Canal, the state maintained a customs house where officials examined passports and merchandise and collected a bonanza in duties from the mercantile caravans moving between Syria and Egypt. Symon Semeonis, who passed through Qatya in 1323, describes Mamluk police techniques:

  The village . . . is entirely surrounded by the desert and is furnished with neither fortifications nor natural obstacles of any kind that might impede the passage of travelers. Every evening after sunset a straw-mat or carpet is drawn at the tail of a horse, sometimes near the village, sometimes far from it, now in one place, now in another, transversely to the route, for a distance of six or eight miles, more or less, according to the Admiral’s orders. This renders the sand so smooth that it is impossible for either man or beast to pass without leaving traces to expose their passage. Every morning before sunrise the plain is scoured in all directions by specially appointed horsemen, and whenever any traces of pedestrians or of horsemen are discovered, the guards hasten in pursuit and those who have passed are arrested as transgressors of the Sultan’s regulations and are severely punished.21

  At Gaza Ibn Battuta turned off the heavily traveled road leading to the Levantine ports and headed eastward into the high country of Judaea, having in mind to visit the sacred cities of Hebron (al-Khalil) and Jerusalem before continuing to Damascus.22 The trail along the hilly backbone of Palestine, from Hebron to the Galilee, was not an important commercial road, but it was a route of pilgrimage for all three monotheistic faiths. After the wars of the Crusades ended in the 1290s, increasing numbers of Latin pilgrims traveled to the Holy Land in small groups, by way of either Egypt or the Levant. Although they were frequently harassed and invariably overcharged, usually by local Muslims of the meaner sort, the Mamluk authorities, particularly in the fourteenth century, generally saw to it that they were protected from bodily harm.

  Hebron was special to Muslim, Christian, and Jew alike because it was the burial place of the fathers of monotheism: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as well as their wives and Jacob’s son Joseph. In Mamluk times only Muslims were permitted to enter the mosque, built originally as a Crusader church, that stood over the tomb cave containing cenotaphs of the three Patriarchs. In the Rihla Ibn Battuta describes the mosque, a massive stone structure “of striking beauty and imposing height,” as well as the cenotaphs standing inside, as a traveler of any faith might see them today. He also offers learned testimony to the truth of the tradition that the three graves do indeed lie beneath the mosque, a tradition verified by Frankish knights, who opened the cave in 1119 and discovered what were presumably the holy bones.23

  The distance from Hebron to Jerusalem through the terraced Judaean hills was only 17 miles, and Ibn Battuta probably made the trip, including a brief look around Bethlehem, in a day or two. Jerusalem plays so solemn a part in the religious and cultural heritage of Western peoples and commands so much attention in contemporary world politics that we are inclined to assume it was always one of the great urban centers of the Middle East. In fact the Jerusalem of the fourteenth century was a rather sleepy town of no great commercial or administrative importance. Its population was only about 10,000,24 and it was ruled as a sub-unit of the Province of Damascus. Its defensive walls were in ruins, part of its water supply had to be carried in from the surrounding countryside, and it was located on none of the important trade routes running through Greater Syria. From the point of view of a Mamluk official or an international merchant, it was a city of eminently provincial mediocrity. What kept it alive and sustained its permanent population of scholars, clerics, shopkeepers, and guides was the endless stream of pilgrims that passed through its gates. Jerusalem was a place of countless shrines and sanctuaries. For Christians the spiritual focus of the city was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, for
Jews it was the Western Wall of the temple (the Wailing Wall), and for Muslims it was the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary, revered as the third most blessed spot in the Dar al-Islam, after the Ka’ba in Mecca and the tomb of the Prophet in Medina.

  During his stay in the city of perhaps a week, Ibn Battuta probably spent a good deal of his time in the Haram, an expansive trapezoid-shaped area bounded by buildings and city walls and dominating the southeastern quarter of the city. The entire Haram was itself an enormous mosque open to the sky, though within it stood several sanctuaries having specific religious significance for Muslims. The most venerated of these was the Kubbat al-Skhra, the Dome of the Rock, a wondrously beautiful building set in the center of the Haram on the site of the ancient Temple of Solomon. This shrine, dating from the seventh century, is in the shape of a regular octagon, sumptuously ornamented with interwoven Arabic scriptural quotations and geometric designs and surmounted by a massive dome. Inside the sanctuary and directly beneath the dome lies embedded in the earth the blessed Rock of Zion. It was from here, it is told, that the Prophet Muhammad, transported at lightning speed from Mecca to Jerusalem in the company of the Angel Gabriel, was carried on the back of a great winged steed up to the Seventh Heaven of Paradise, where he stood in the presence of God. It is in commemoration of Muhammad’s Night Journey that Muslims enter the Dome, make a circuit of the Rock, and descend to the little grotto beneath it.

  Ibn Battuta mentions in the Rihla a number of the scholars and divines resident in Jerusalem. One of these, a Sufi master of the Rifa’i brotherhood named ’Abd al-Rahman ibn Mustafa, took a special interest in the young man and was apparently impressed enough by his sincerity and learning to give him a khirqa, the woolen, patch-covered cloak worn by Sufi disciples as a sign of their allegiance to a life of God-searching and self-denial. In the few days that Ibn Battuta stayed in Jerusalem he obviously could not have gone through any of the rigorous spiritual training required of initiates prior to receiving their khirqas. A master could, however, bestow a lower form of investiture upon a person whom he wished to encourage in the mystical path.25 The incident seems to be one more bit of evidence that Ibn Battuta’s piety and knowledge of Sufism were conspicuous enough, even in his youth, to place him on occasion in the graces of the most august saints and wise men, even though he had no plans to give himself wholeheartedly to the mystical life.

  In his time Sufism was becoming intricately melded into the everyday religious life of Muslims. Although there were those who adopted asceticism or celibacy as methods personally suitable for drawing closer to God, Sufism was in no general way “monkish” or confined to a spiritually militant minority. Rather it was the intimate, inward-turning, God-adoring dimension of Muslim faith, complementing outward, public conformity to the ritual and moral duties of the Sacred Law. It could take expression, depending on the individual’s personal inclination, in everything from a life of mendicant wandering to occasional attendance at brotherhood meetings where mystical litanies were recited. Sufi masters, such as Ibn Battuta’s friend in Jerusalem, rarely limited their patronage to their formal disciples, but rather gave freely of their spiritual guidance and baraka to ordinary men and women who needed the solace or healing that only a surer feeling of God’s presence could provide. Although Ibn Battuta’s life of worldly adventure had little in common with that of a cloistered dervish, he associated with mystics whenever he could, as if to fortify himself with a deeper calming grace before taking to the road again.

  Jerusalem, however, was not to be the place for a devotional retreat, for the hajj season was drawing nearer and Damascus beckoned. Ibn Battuta’s exact route northward is uncertain, but he very likely traveled through Nablus, Ajlun, and the Galilee and from there across the Golan Heights to the Syrian capital.26 This journey was probably accomplished in a few days’ time since the entire trip from Cairo to Damascus, if the dates he gives us are correct, took no more than 23 days. By his own reckoning he arrived in Damascus on 9 August 1326 (9 Ramadan 726).

  [Damascus] stands on the place where Cain killed his brother Abel, and is an exceeding noble, glorious, and beauteous city, rich in all manner of merchandise, and everywhere delightful, . . . abounding in foods, spices, precious stones, silk, pearls, cloth-of-gold, perfumes from India, Tartary, Egypt, Syria, and places on our side of the Mediterranean, and in all precious things that the heart of man can conceive. It is begirt with gardens and orchards, is watered both within and without by waters, rivers, brooks, and fountains, cunningly arranged, to minister to men’s luxury, and is incredibly populous, being inhabited by divers trades of most cunning and noble workmen, mechanics, and merchants, while within the walls it is adorned beyond belief by baths, by birds that sing all the year round, and by pleasures, refreshments, and amusements of all kinds.

  Thus wrote Ludolph von Suchem,27 a German priest who visited the city on his way home from the Holy Land in 1340–41. Muslims honored Damascus as the earthly equivalent of Paradise, and so it must have seemed to any haggard pilgrim tramping out of the Syrian waste. Quite unlike Jerusalem, bone dry on its craggy hill, Damascus lay in an oasis of extravagant greenness, a garden, in the gushy phrases of Ibn Jubayr, “bedecked in the brocaded vestments of flowers.”28 Although bordered by desert on three sides and by the Mountains of Lebanon on the west, which all but blocked rain-bearing clouds from the Mediterranean, the city drew life from the river that flowed down the slopes of the Anti-Lebanon and onto the plain, where Damascene farmers distributed its waters to the channels that fed thousands of orchards and gardens. Because the mountains prevented easy communication with the coast, Damascus was not in a choice geographical position to handle long-distance trade between East and West. But it prospered as an international emporium in spite of this, owing to the profuse fertility of its oasis (al-Ghuta), which supported a population of about 100,000.29

  Indeed Ibn Battuta saw Damascus in the flush of a new prosperity. During most of the preceding half century, hostilities between the Mamluks and the Mongol Ilkhans of Persia had weakened Syrian trade links to India. But the Mongol threat had dissipated by 1315. Diplomatic relations between the two states improved and trade routes from Damascus to Iraq and the Persian Gulf were opened once again. Furthermore, the city had developed a thriving trade with Asia Minor and the Black Sea region, specially in horses, furs, metals, and slaves, including, of course, Mamluk recruits.

  The visible splendor of Damascus, however, was a reflection not so much of international trade as of the city’s status as the Mamluk capital-in-Asia with its enormous garrison and the magnificent households of the high commanders. The royal armies, passing continually in and out of the city, required the production of huge quantities of provisions and weapons, while the ruling elite, together with their counterparts in Cairo, kept Damascene craftsmen busy day and night turning out exquisite wares and finery.

  Saif al-Din Tankiz, viceroy of Damascus from 1313 to 1340, was not only a man of exceptional administrative ability (Ibn Battuta refers to him as “a governor of the good and upright kind”), but a builder and city planner whose imagination and energy rivalled that of his sovereign lord al-Nasir Muhammad. Mirroring the sultan’s work in Cairo, Saif al-Din undertook a vast program to beautify and improve his city, endowing numerous mosques, madrasas, and other pious institutions, widening streets and squares, directing the expansion of residential areas outside the walls, and even waging an obsessive war against the surplus population of stray dogs.30 The Damascus that Ibn Battuta saw in 1326 was, like Cairo, a city in the process of transforming itself under the stimulus of a political regime that, at least for the time being, had struck a congenial balance between harsh, swaggering authoritarianism and a love of civilized taste and comfort.

  The guardians of Damascene high culture were of course the Arabic-speaking scholars, who, like their colleagues in Cairo, affiliated with numerous religious, educational, and philanthropic foundations scattered throughout the city. Whereas Cairo had no pre-eminent center
of learning in the fourteenth century, Damascus had its Great Mosque, called the Mosque of the Umayyads after its eighth-century builders. Around it all the other pious institutions revolved as satellites.

  During part of his stay in the city, Ibn Battuta boarded in one of the three Maliki madrasas there. (Malikism was the least important of the four legal schools in Syria and was represented by fewer colleges than the others.) But he may have fairly well lived in the Great Mosque, sitting beneath the marble columns of the golden-domed sanctuary, all around him the murmuring voices of lecturers and Qur’anic readers and children in circles reciting their sacred lessons. The prayer hall, a three-aisled nave more than 400 feet long, was open on its northern side and joined to a spacious court rimmed by arcades where, according to the Rihla, “the people of the city gather . . . in the evenings, some reading, some conversing, and some walking up and down.” The staff of officials attached to the mosque was huge, including, Ibn Battuta tells us, 70 muezzins (prayer callers), 13 imams (prayer leaders), and about 600 Qur’anic reciters. He describes the sanctuary as a place of continuous religious and educational activity, a never-ending celebration of God’s glory and beneficence: