Ibn Battuta Argumentative Essay

If one were to take the famous travelogue of Ibn Battuta as a source of historical account then a major scrutiny would have to be done by the individual because the so called travel analogue is lacking in authenticity. It is not just the events that have been given overemphasis from data of other travelers but the more extreme speculation is, did Ibn Battuta even travel to all of the places mentioned in his work? The travels of Ibn Battuta, by Ibn Battuta and his editor Ibn Juzayy is in jeopardy as a reliable source due to some of the dubious supposition, such as the chronology, plagiarism, and places such as China, Palestine, and Balghur, which makes one question the actual presence of the traveler at these places.

The famous traveler from Morocco, Ibn Battuta embarked on a thirty year-long journey in 1325 at the age of 22. The reason was to make his tribute to Islam by completing one of the five pillars, a Hajj, which is

(Elger ,71) He points out several times that there are extensive passages in Ibn Battuta’s work that are taken from Ibn Jubayr a traveler before Battuta. If Elger is right, then how is it possible for the travelogue to stand legitimacy? It is a well constructed work with multiple subtle details about architecture and also the people who the traveler has encountered on his journey makes it much more accountable. But to show how some events are invented or borrowed can be through the anecdotes of China. Ross E. Dunn speculates that due to the vaguely written passages and the lack of chronology makes the voyage to China unreliable. Which with Elger’s argument that the event of the death of the Mongol Qan in China, Peking which was due to a rebellion that Battuta witnessed did not happen at all and was only invented. Elger also suspects that many of the information on China was taken from the traveler al-Umari even though the structure is not that