Ibn Battuta

Who is Ibn Battuta? Abu Abdallah Ibn Battuta (shortly known as Ibn Battuta) was born in 1304 in Tangier, Morocco, in a Muslim family. He studied law as a young man. By the time, he was about 20 years old, he decided to go to “hajj,” a sacred place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Instead of taking a shorter route to go to “hajj,” he took the longer route because he loved to travel and wanted to observe different cultures. After he arrived back home, after 29 years of journey, the Sultan of the Morocco, Abu Inan, insisted Ibn Battuta tell the story of his journey, especially about his experiences and his observations of the Islamic world of his day, to a scholar, Ibn Juzayy. Ibn Battuta is also known as the “Marco Polo of the Muslim world.” Although

This depicts that cultures are diffusing within societies through religion. The Sultan Muhammad Tughluq needed judges, scholars, and administrators for his province, instead of hiring local people, the Sultan turned to outsiders to fill these position because Sultan did not trust Hindu people, thinking they would go against him and throw him from his crown. Thus, he hired foreigners and rewarded them with luxury gifts and high salary. Ibn Babutta saw this as a perfect opportunity to live and observe the Indian culture. When he came to India, he brought a lot of gifts such as “a load of arrows, several camels, more than thirty horses and…white slaves and other goods” for Sultan because he knew Sultan would give him, even more, gifts in return. Ibn Battuta received 2,000 silver dinars and a comfortably furnished house in return. Ibn Battuta got a job as a quid, or judge, and his annual salary was 5,000 silver dinars. He also received 12,000 dinars in cash as an advance bonus and a horse with saddle and bridle. Since Ibn Battuta did not speak Persian well enough, he was given two assistants as translators. Ibn Battuta knew the culture of Sultan. Whenever he meets sultan, he would kiss sultan’s hand whenever sultan says something nice to him until he kisses him seven times and receives a “robe of honor.” This shows that Ibn Battuta was

But all of his observations and experiences matched with many scholarly written textbook. One such textbook is Worlds Together, Worlds Apart A History of the World From the Beginnings of Humankind to the Present by Robert Tignor and eleven of his colleagues. For example, in the book, Indians would wear “their distinctive trousers and robes.” When Ibn Battuta kissed Sultan Muhammad Tughluq seven times for praising him with his words, he was given a robe as a gift. Indians were known for “their horse-riding skills.” We can see that when the Sultan Muhammad Tughluq was coming to Delhi from a war, he was being carried on a horse and later Ibn Battuta demanded a horse in Maldives. Also in the textbook, it says, “although the sultans spoke Turkish languages, they regarded Persian literature as a high cultural achievement and made Persian their courtly and administrative language.” It is also true as we can see that when Ibn Battuta was a judge, he was given two assistants as a translator and the Sultan himself spoke