Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta is the central figure of the book. Little biographical information is known about him except what is stated or implied in the Rihla, the written account of his wide travels created upon his return and based entirely on his own memory.

Ibn Battuta in born in Tangier in 1304 and leaves on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1325 at the age of 20. He is descended from a tribe of North African people called Berbers. He belongs to a comfortable class of educated people, and is presumably raised with the manners and sensibilities of polite society. He is educated in the Maliki tradition of Islamic law, which involves the memorization and analysis of legal and sacred texts.

He is a compulsive traveler, only rarely settling in one place for more than a year or two. In his travels, he visits nearly every part of the Islamic world of...