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Ibn Battuta
10 quotes
“I arrived at length at Cairo, mother of cities and seat of Pharaoh the tyrant, mistress of broad regions and fruitful lands, boundless in multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour, the meeting-place of comer and goer, the halting-place of feeble and mighty, whose throngs surge as the waves of the sea, and can scarce be contained in her for all her size and capacity.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter I (tr. H. A. R. Gibb, 1929, p. 50)
“On the bank of the Nile opposite Old Cairo is the place known as The Garden, which is a pleasure park and promenade, containing many beautiful gardens, for the people of Cairo are given to pleasure and amusements. I witnessed a fete once in Cairo for the sultan's recovery from a fractured hand; all the merchants decorated their bazaars and had rich stuffs, ornaments and silken fabrics hanging in their shops for several days.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter I (tr. H. A. R. Gibb, 1929, p. 50)
“The mosque of 'Amr is highly venerated and widely celebrated. The Friday service is held in it and the road runs through it from east to west. The madrasas [college mosques] of Cairo cannot be counted for multitude. As for the Maristan [hospital], which lies "between the two castles" near the mausoleum of Sultan Qala'un, no description is adequate to its beauties. It contains an innumerable quantity of appliances and medicaments, and its daily revenue is put as high as a thousand dinars.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter I (tr. H. A. R. Gibb, 1929, p. 50)
“After this I proceeded to the city of Barwan, in the road to which is a high mountain, covered with snow and exceedingly cold; they call it the Hindu Kush, that is Hindu-slayer, because most of the slaves brought thither from India die on account of the intenseness of the cold.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XIII (tr. Samuel Lee, 2010, p. 97)
“Near the eastern gate of the mosque lie two very big idols of copper connected together by stones. Every one who comes in and goes out of the mosque treads over them. On the site of this mosque was a budkhānā that is an idol-house. After the conquest of Delhi it was turned into a mosque.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter III (tr. Mahdi Hussain, 1976, p. 27)
“There are a large number of religious establishments ["convents"], which they call khánqahs, and the nobles vie with one another in building them. Each of these is set apart for a separate school of darwishes, mostly Persians, who are men of good education and adepts in the mystical doctrines. Each has a superior and a doorkeeper and their affairs are admirably organized. They have many special customs one of which has to do with their food. The steward of the house comes in the morning to the darwishes, each of whom indicates what food he desires, and when they assemble for meals, each person is given his bread and soup in a separate dish, none sharing with another. They eat twice a day. They are each given winter clothes and summer clothes, and a monthly allowance of from twenty to thirty dirhams. Every Thursday night they receive sugar cakes, soap to wash their clothes, the price of a bath, and oil for their lamps. These men are celibate; the married men have separate convents.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter I (tr. H. A. R. Gibb, 1929, p. 51)
“The sultan sent for me once when I was at Delhi, and on entering I found him in a private apartment with some of his intimates and two of these jugis. One of them squatted on the ground, then rose into the air above our heads, still sitting. I was so astonished and frightened that I fell to the floor in a faint. A potion was administered to me, and I revived and sat up. Meantime this man remained in his sitting posture. His companion then took a sandal from a bag he had with him, and beat it on the ground like one infuriated. The sandal rose in the air until it came above the neck of the sitting man and then began hitting him on the neck while he descended little by little until he set down alongside us. Then the sultan said “If I did not fear for your reason I would have ordered them to do still stranger things than this you have seen.” I took my leave but was affected with palpitation and fell ill, until he ordered me to be given a draught which removed it all.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter VII (tr. H. A. R. Gibbs, 1929, p. 226)
“One day I rode in company with ‘Alā-ul-mulk and arrived at a plain called Tārna at a distance of seven miles from the city. There I saw innumerable stone images and animals, many of which had undergone a change, the original shape being obliterated. Some were reduced to a head, others to a foot and so on. Some of the stones were shaped like grain, wheat, peas, beans and lentils. And there were traces of a house which contained a chamber built of hewn stone, the whole of which looked like one solid mass. Upon it was a statue in the form of a man, the only difference being that its head was long, its mouth was towards a side of its face and its hands at its back like a captive’s. There were pools of water from which an extremely bad smell came. Some of the walls bore Hindī inscriptions. ‘Alā-ul-mulk told me that the historians assume that on this site there was a big city, most of the inhabitants of which were notorious. They were changed into stone. The petrified human form on the platform in the house mentioned above was that of their king. The house still goes by the name of ‘the king’s house’. It is presumed that the Hindī inscriptions, which some of the walls bear, give the history of the destruction of the inhabitants of this city . . . about a thousand years ago.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter I (tr. Mahdi Hussain, 1976, p. 10)
“Reliable men among the inhabitants of the islands, like the jurist (faqīh) and teacher (mu‘allim) ‘Alī, the judge 'Abdullāh – and others besides them – told me that the inhabitants of these islands were infidels. . . . Subsequently a westerner named Abul Barakāt the Berbar who knew the great Qur’ān came to them. . . . He stayed amongst them and God opened the heart of the king to Islām and he accepted it before the end of the month; and his wives, children and courtiers followed suit. . . . They broke to pieces the idols and razed the idol-house to the ground. On this the islanders embraced Islām and sent missionaries to the rest of the islands, the inhabitants of which also became Muslims. The westerner stood in high regard with them, and they accepted his cult which was that of Imām Mālik. May God be pleased with him! And on account of him they honour the westerners up to this time. He built a mosque which is known after his name.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter ? (tr. Mahdi Hussain, 1976, p. 203)
“A group of these Blacks who eat the sons of Adam came to the Sultan Mansā Sulaimān with their amir. It is their custom to put in their ears big pendants, the opening of each pendant being half a span across. They wrap themselves in silk and in their country is a gold mine. The Sultan treated them with honour and gave them in hospitality a slave woman, whom they killed and ate. They smeared their faces and hands with her blood and came to the Sultan to thank him. I was told that this is their custom whenever they come on an embassy to him. It was reported of them that they used to say that the best parts of the flesh of human females were the palm of the hand and the breast.”
Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) said by 1368 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chapter XXV (tr. H. A. R. Gibb and C. F. Beckingham, vol. 4, 1994, p. 968)