Ibn Battuta

Ibn Baah , or simply Muhammad Ibn Battuta , was a Medieval Berber Muslim traveler and scholar, who is widely recognised as one of the greatest travelers of all time. He is known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in the Rihla . Over a period of thirty years, Ibn Battuta visited most of the known Islamic world as well as many nonMuslim lands. His journeys included trips to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Africa, Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China.

All that is known about Ibn Battutas life comes from the autobiographical information included in the account of his travels, which records that he was of Berber descent, born into a family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco, on February 25, 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty. He claimed descent from a Berber tribe known as the Lawata. As a young man he would have studied at a Sunni Maliki madhhab , the dominant form of education in North Africa at that time. In June 1325, at the age of twentyone, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would take sixteen months. He would not see Morocco again for twentyfour years.

Source: Wikipedia