November
1326 Iraq ilkhanate
Ibn-Battuta sits waiting for the ritual to begin at the appointed hour come the Sufi mystics
When the afternoon prayers had been said, drums were beaten and the brethren began to dance, he wrote
they had prepared loads of firewood
Which they kindled into flame and went into the midst of it dancing
Some of them rolled in the fire others aided in their mouths until they finally extinguished it entirely
Some of them will take a large snake and bite its head with their teeth until they bid it clean through
This is Islam as even Battuta has never seen it and it will make a lasting impression
When even Battuta was in Egypt to separate holy men
Prophesized that he would travel far to the east and settle in India, and that made a certain amount of sense
The sultan of delhi was actively searching for scholars and judges to fill his bureaucracy, and paying them handsomely
So when even Battuta got done with his pilgrimage to Mecca he decided to just keep going because not only was he seeing the world
He was making a profit doing it
You see on his journey
He'd found that rulers often gave pilgrims lavish gifts and a young Hadi got even more spectacular rewards
He'd heard that the further he got from the Islamic core of the Arabian Peninsula the more generously a young scholar would be rewarded
Therefore he made a vow to keep traveling to see as much of the world as possible
And to never take the same route if he could avoid it
his eventual goal was India
But he might as well have some fun and make some money on his way there
after all He might spend the rest of his life in India and never get another chance to see this part of the world
So he began his gap year of travel joining a Persian caravan and crossing out of Mamluk territory
Trekking for 44 days into Mesopotamia into the land of the cons,
A century before the Mongols had swept into Persia and Iraq
devastating what were until then some of the most impressive in advanced cities of the Islamic world and
When Genghis Khan died his empire split among his four descendents leaving Persia under a Mongol ruler
But in the century since then the Mongols have converted to Islam and were now patrons of religion and learning
Still as Ibn-Battuta passed through the once mighty city of Baghdad and ruined sights formerly renowned for beauty and scholarship
He reflected on the passing of Empires and he began to realize another thing
He was now truly abroad, his previous travels had taken him to new places, but this was different as he left the Arabian
Peninsula he ventured into lands that were still religiously Muslim but had underlying cultures
Increasingly divergent from his own many of the rulers and court figures out here
The people he associated with most were relatively new converts
Second and third generation Muslims some even first and their practices at times varied from what Ibn-Battuta considered the norm
he was about to see Islam in all of its many forms and that
Exploration began during his first encounter with Sufi mysticism a sect that used trance
ritual movement and chanting as a way to experience God's love on an emotional level rather than the intellectual manner in which
Ibn-Battuta was accustomed
the same year he got to meet the ill Khan himself
Joining the Royal Caravan traveling along the Silk Road to see the capital of Keni
on the way he visited with the Great Khan seeing firsthand how the Mongol invaders had become assimilated into Persian culture
far from a fierce steppe Raider
This Khan was a just ruler a handsome observant Muslim who played the lute and composed poems in both Persian and Arabic
His kingdom was mighty and powerful
Even Battuta did not know it then but when he next passed through eleven years later
The mighty ilkhanate would be no more its ravaged landscape filled with warfare and death
But that's in the future now
He bade the Sultan farewell and reached the khan's capital
Exploring its enclaves of Venetian Genoese Arab and Chinese merchants before touring the Euphrates and then heading back to Baghdad
But it was time to get on to India his gap year of religious tourism was coming to an end
But first a side trip, back to Mecca to make the Hajj pilgrimage again
Because who knew if we'd ever get another chance yet that took longer than expected
He'd overextended himself a bit
in one year Ibn-Battuta had traveled 4,000 miles and when he finally arrived back in Mecca
He was so exhausted an ill that after the Hajj he took a full year to study, pray and recover
But after that it was off to Delhi
He went south to the Red Sea traveling by ship until he was blown off-course and became too seasick
So he had to continue his travels on land, often walking across the mountains of Yemen
But eventually he made it to southern Arabia where Muslim ports controlled the Indian Ocean trade where he could get on another ship to India
And settle down at a real job, but first a side trip!
I mean because Africa was right there and look he might never get back this way again
So he jumped on a ship and went on a port hopping tour of East Africa
Visiting the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia as well as the Muslim courts of Mogadishu, Mombasa and Zanzibar
There he saw how Muslim merchants had settled into the ports converting locals and intermarrying into African families
Their language is blending to create what we now know as Swahili
He saw the African section of the vast Indian Ocean trade with merchants loading vast quantities of gold, ivory
spices and perfume ingredients into their triangle rig ships along with enslaved Africans captured from kingdoms further inland
and in these port towns
Ibn-Battuta first saw societies where Muslims were the minority where the elites and rulers didn't share a religious tie to the majority of their populations
but these were no frontier ports
They were cities whose rulers lived in palaces with indoor plumbing elites dressed in silk and ate off porcelain both imports from China
He saw great mosques and mansions carved from coral
mixed cultures formed from Islam's economic dominance of the maritime networks
But again, his time was running short the monsoon winds changing and blowing back north
So he hopped on a ship back to the Arabian Peninsula where he could finally travel on to India
But when he arrived on the southern coast of Arabia, he realized it would be cool to see the Gulf of Oman
Though that was a bit of a disaster
Their guide tried to rob and murder him and Ibn-Battuta only escaped after fending the man off with a spear
He reached the Gulf dehydrated half-dead from illness and feet bleeding from the trip
It was a close call and you know, probably an indication that now it was really time to head to Delhi
You know become established
But first a side trip back to Mecca for the Hajj, for a third time!
After another year of study and rest Ibn-Battuta was finally ready for India ,for real this time
He'd buffed his resume with qualifications could tell stories of far-flung places and had built up a tidy profit in gifts
But the trip itself would be treacherous and to get there. He needed a guide
And he couldn't find one. Hmm. Okay, no problem
Because everyone knew that the Turkish Silk Road caravans linked Anatolia with India
And if you joined them you'd get there eventually sure there were more direct routes, but he'd seen that stuff already
he went to Cairo and met up with a traveling buddy and
Reunited the two stepped onto a Genoese galley and made for Anatolia
And in this land whose urban centres contains neighborhoods of minority Christians Jews and Greeks and we're nomadic herders
Traveled the wild hillsides. They gave him a warm welcome. This country is one of the finest in the world
He wrote, in it God has brought together the good things dispersed throughout other lands
Its people are the most comely of men, the cleanest in their dress, the most delicious in their food and the kindliest folk in creation
wherever we stopped in this land whether it a hospice or a private house
Our neighbours came to ask after our needs when we left. They bade us farewell as though they were our relatives
He also saw one city execute people by firing them off a cliff with a catapult, but overall the people were really nice
Interestingly he found differences in their religious practice, though observant Muslims. They chewed intoxicating drugs and did not fail women
In fact Turkish society surprised him when he found out how high a status women had
Now further weighed down with Turkish gifts
He pushed north toward the Silk Road down the rapids of swollen rivers nearly freezing to death in the wilderness
Avoiding bandits and thieves but he made it to the Black Sea and boarded a ship for an even stranger place
One of nomads and horsemen the land of the Golden Horde but first a side trip!
Special thanks to our educational tier patrons Ahmed ziad Turk Joseph blaim and Dominic Valenciana