The year, 1326 of the Common Era, and Morocco was firmly under the rule of the Muslim Berber Marinid Dynasty. Berbers, the “free and noble” peoples who still occupy the North African coastal lands, had been converted to Islam in the 7th century, and had, like the Caliphates of the Middle East, developed their own highly advanced social communities.
Amongst the many characteristics of these societies, which lands around the world today might do well to consider, was their extraordinarily advanced system of education. Abu-Abdullah Mahommed, born in 1305, and these days, at least, better known as Ibn Batutta, was, by the age of 21, able to present himself, and be recognised by others, as a well educated lawyer. His early studies in Islamic jurisprudence, were to stand him in very good stead as he set off to Mecca, to perform his Hajj.
It is fairly clear that, from the outset, he planned to extend his journey to explore much further into the Islamic world which had survived the great destruction of the Mongol hordes in the previous century. A destruction that eventuated in the conversion, to Islam, of its leaders. Perhaps the Islamic world would never be quite the same again, but that, no doubt, was what he wanted to explore, originating, as he did, from a land that had avoided the Mongol depredations.
In the next 29 years he travelled, in his own, independent way, pioneering that great modern gap year practice of working his way, wherever possible. We can assume his studies of Islamic law qualified him to work anywhere in the Muslim world. He travelled 75,000 miles, and visited the sites of 44 modern nations, making him, certainly, the greatest traveller on record up until his time. Even the great Marco Polo could not begin to match his journeys!
Travelling first along the coast of North Africa, to Alexandria, if it is true that in the process he acquired two wives, it seems fair to assume the young man did not take his responsibilities seriously, evidently loving and leaving.
In Alexandria he encountered two ascetics, both of whom forecast for him extensive travels, although we may also believe that their forecast was largely based on his own expressed intentions, but, in his journal, used to justify his ambitions. One, Sheikh Burhanuddin seems to have given him letters of introduction to brothers in India, Sind and China, which, no doubt, reinforced his determination to travel. One such introduction, eventually, led him to the lands that are now Bangladesh.
Knowing it was safest to remain within lands controlled by the Mamluk Sultanate, whose capital was in Cairo, he travelled there. One false start took him towards the Red Sea, but encountering a local rebellion, he returned to Cairo, and took ship to Aleppo, in Syria, and thence Damascus, a voyage that enabled him to visit Hebron, Jerusalem and Bethlehem.
Joining a caravan from Damascus, he was able to travel, with some protection, first to Medina, to visit the tomb of the Holy Prophet, and thence, to Mecca itself.
From Mecca, in a move that justifies the suspicion that he sought to explore the influence of the Mongol advance on Islam, he travelled to a contemporary state name Ilkhanate, a breakaway state of the Mongol Empire, that was based on Baghdad, and comprised lands that are now parts of Iran, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, Western Afghanistan and South western Pakistan. Formerly a nation of which large parts had embraced both Buddhism and Christianity, having been conquered by the Mongols, only two decades before Battuta’s arrival, its Mongol ruler had embraced Islam.
Returning to Mecca, where, this time, he remained, perhaps, for three years, which suggests he may well have found some employment there, he then headed to modern Yemen, and took ship to Somalia.
The capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, was then at the height of its prosperity, a large city, with “many rich merchants,” noted for their trade in high quality fabrics … which may explain the contemporary connections thereabouts to the, then, Khilji dominated lands around the Ganges delta.
Travelling by sea, Battuta headed on, through modern Kenya to the lands that are now Tanzania, which had become important in the gold trade.
When the north east monsoon winds that had borne him down the East African coast reversed, he then headed back, for a third visit to Mecca.
Travelling north again, he headed for modern Turkey, then made his way around nations of the Black Sea before returning to Christian Constantinople before returning to Astrakhan, and heading through Afghanistan and the Hindu Kush into India, intent on visiting the famous Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughluq.
India, of course, had been unaffected, directly, by the Mongol hordes, although many Muslims had fled from countries in their path to refuge in the sub continent; not least being the Pathan Khilji, who ended their migration between Ganges and Brahmaputra, probably in ancient Sonargaon, in the part now known as Mograpara.
On the strength of his original studies, and his time in Mecca, Battuta managed to obtain an appointment in Delhi as a qadi, or judge. He notes in his journal his difficulty in enforcing Islamic law “beyond the Sultan’s court,” because most of the people were otherwise affiliated.
Travelling around the subcontinent, often more escaping from difficulties that with any clear aim, he arrived, eventually, in Chittagong, seeking to visit the connection made soon after the beginning of his travels in Alexandria, with Shah Jalal, whose arrival as a distinguished Sufi missionary has cast a long shadow over the history of those lands, once a part of Assam, and now a significant part of Bangladesh.
We often come across references about people who land in Chittagong, and travelled to Sylhet, even to Sonargaon, and early maps suggest there may well have been, unsurprisingly in Bangladesh, a somewhat changeable river pattern that developed over the centuries that greatly facilitated such a journey.
However, he made the journey, and we can be clear from his journal, that he made that journey to meet the man to whom he had been given a letter of introduction so many years earlier, in Alexandria.
The American historian, Ross E Dunn, in his work, “The travels of Ibn Battuta,” notes that Battuta, in his journal, wrote that, “foreigners like to call Bengal, ‘a hell crammed with good things.’” It may well appear that such was his own view formed on his visit. The oppressive climate he noted may well have been compensated by the “abundant and remarkably cheap food.” And there were other good things he found himself unable to resist, acquiring himself, “an extremely beautiful” slave girl for one gold dinar; one of his companions, however, having to pay twice as much for a beautiful young male slave!
Evidently warmly received by the Saint, he stayed, however, it seems, but three days, possibly travelling on into Assam, perhaps to explore the ancient Silk Route.
He then relates returning to the delta, passing, “water wheels, gardens and villages such as those along the banks of the Nile in Egypt,” before taking ship from Sonargaon, bound for Java. On the way, taking in a brief stop in Arakan, presumably one of the coastal cities, perhaps even Ramu, which we know had already been a flourishing centre of trade for over a thousand years, by then.
Six years after leaving Bengal, to visit China and South east Asia, Battuta returned, finally, to his home land, having been away for 25 years. He then spent a further four years in Spain, before finally settling back home.
The new ruler of Morocco ordered him to dictate a record of his travels to a scribe, so, it may well be that, reliant on memory, and seeking to gloss over less desirable parts of his journeys, we may never, in fact, be entirely certain of its complete veracity. But, somehow, his brief visit to the lands that are now Bangladesh have about them an air of credibility, and offer us a glimpse of these lands some six hundred and fifty years, or so, ago.
The climate may have been hell, but the good things seem to have left clear impressions on that memory of this famous visitor!
