SOURCE: Netton, Ian Richard. “Arabia and the Pilgrim Paradigm of Ibn Battuta: A Braudelian Approach.” In Arabia and the Gulf: From Traditional Society to Modern States, pp. 29-42. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes & Noble Books, 1986.

In the following essay, Netton argues that Ibn Battuta's account of his travels is not a random narrative, but is organized to show the patterns and characteristics of the Islamic world of his era.

The Riḥla of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (ad 1304-1368/9 or 1377) has been tackled over the years by a multitude of scholars in a variety of different ways. Often, however, the various studies which have been published have concentrated—to use, loosely, a not inappropriate pair of Ismā‘īlī terms—on a zāhir exposition of the text and its problems rather than on an analysis of a bāṭin structure. I do not, of course, mean that the Riḥla...