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The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century, With a New Preface Paperback – Illustrated, June 1, 2012

by Ross E. Dunn (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 169 ratings
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Ross Dunn here recounts the great traveler's remarkable career, interpreting it within the cultural and social context of Islamic society and giving the reader both a biography of an extraordinary personality and a study of the hemispheric dimensions of human interchange in medieval times.
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  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    University of California Press
  4. Publication date
    June 1, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0520272927
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0520272927
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

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"In 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his native Tangier on the hajj to Mecca. He did not return to Morocco until 1349, by which time he had visited not only Mecca, but also Egypt, Syria, Persia, Iraq, East Africa, the Yemen, Anatolia, the steppelands of southern Russia, Constantinople, India, the Maldives, Sumatra, and China. . . . An excellent synoptic introduction to the Muslim world in the Middle Ages." ― Times Literary Supplement

"Dunn has produced an attractive, intelligent, and useful book, and one that is a pleasure to read." ― International History Review

"Dunn has succeeded splendidly in his aim of bringing the Moroccan judge alive for a general audience and of presenting an analysis of his travels which is both descriptive and critical."  ― Journal of Islamic Studies

"Written in an engaging style that should easily appeal to the non-historian, this book is very probably unprecedented in concept and execution––placing it in a class apart and above the majority of books from Western scholars that deal with Islamic subjects."  ― Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

"A remarkable achievement: [Dunn's] book is more than he set out to write; it is not simply a retelling of the Ibn Battuta story for a general audience, as he rather modestly puts it, but an introduction to the Islamic world in particular, and the late medieval world in general." ― British Society for Middle Eastern Studies Bulletin

"Professor Dunn's book is based on Ibn Battuta's own writings. . . . and provides a commentary on the society and places which he visited, making admirable use of the great increase of our knowledge over the last generation. The result is fascinating." ― Asian Affairs

About the Author

Ross E. Dunn is Professor of History at San Diego State University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of California Press; First Edition (June 1, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0520272927
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0520272927
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 169 ratings

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  1. Ross E. Dunn

    Ross E. Dunn

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    Ross Edmunds Dunn is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University, where he taught African, Islamic, and world history. He is an Associate Director of the National Center for History in the Schools at UCLA, and he directs World History for Us All, an online model curriculum for schools. [http://worldhistoryforusall.ss.ucla.edu]. He is a founding member of the Alliance for Learning in World History, a collaborative project initiated in 2012 to advance world history education.

    Ross has written on North African history, world history, and history education. His first book was Resistance in the Desert: Moroccan Responses to French Imperialism, 1881-1912 (1977). His work titled The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, a Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century (1987) has appeared in its third edition and in Indonesian, Italian, Malayan, and Turkish. He is coauthor with Gary B. Nash and Charlotte Crabtree of History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (1997). Ross and Laura J. Mitchel (UC Irvine) wrote Panorama: A World History (McGraw-Hill Education 2015). He is co-editor with Laura J. Mitchell and Kerry Ward of The New World History: A Field Guide for Teachers and Researchers (University of California Press, 2016). He joined with Edmund Burke and David Christian to write The Big Eras: A Compact History of the World for Teachers and Students (National Center for History in the Schools.) Ross was the first elected president of the World History Association (1983-85).

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
169 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Henry Price (Hard Fried History)
5.0 out of 5 stars Just the right amount of everything
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2020
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An interesting view into the vast and diverse world of islam during the 14th century. Dunn does an excellent job of interweaving the narrative of Ibn Battuta's itinerary with a brief history of the area he was traveling in, while also peppering in his own analysis and explanations of where the scholarship currently resides on this figure. Well-paced and never really dull, Dunn gives you just enough details and background info without bogging the reader down in dry facts, and the pictures/maps are well woven into the book itself. Read for an episode of my podcast, Hard Fried History.
2 people found this helpful
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Bruce Loveitt
4.0 out of 5 stars World-Class Traveler !
Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 1999
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It is incredible to think that back in the 1300's one person could have traveled from Morocco through North and East Africa, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey, the Crimea, India, Ceylon, Indonesia and China. I get tired just writing about it! But this is what Ibn Battuta did. When you think of how difficult (and dangerous!) it was to travel back in those days, it is just amazing. What makes this book especially fascinating is the look it provides into Muslim society. Here was a man who journeyed thousands of miles over many, many years but who only very rarely felt himself to be a stranger in a strange land. In some places Islam was in the majority and in some places it was the minority but Ibn Battuta was always able to find educated Moslems similar to himself who could provide a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear and money to spend. Very importantly also, they could provide spiritual support to a person very far from home. This book is best when it settles down in one place for an extended period, such as when Ibn Battuta journeyed to Medina and Mecca. This is the most important trip a Moslem takes during an entire lifetime and it is expected, health and finances permitting, that a believer will make the trip at least once in a lifetime. Medina is where the tomb of The Prophet is and Mecca was His birthplace. Mr. Dunn provides a physical description of the landscape of both places so that you can almost feel you are there and he also gives a fascinating description of the logistics of the journey as this is a trip that thousands of people would take each year and a solid support system was needed to provide transportation and food and water, etc. The religious ceremonies that a person was required to go through once in the Holy Cities is also given in great detail. The book is also very good when Ibn Battuta settles down in India for awhile and gets a nice, cushy government job working for a despot who sounds as though he was probably psychotic! You could be in his favor one minute but apparently if you looked at him the wrong way he might decide on the spur of the moment to have you executed. He would also come up with grandiose ideas to rearrange the entire society which would usually wind up making everyone miserable, if not dead. Kind of sounds pretty familiar, doesn't it? I guess some things don't change over the centuries..... Anyway, the only drawback to this book is that Mr. Dunn is trying to cram a lot of travel into a 300 page book so that some of the time you feel as though you are being given the "bum's rush" on one of those modern package trips where they shuttle you through 14 cities in 14 days. After awhile some of the itinerary starts to become one, big blur. It makes you wish that Mr. Dunn would have decided to write a longer book where things could have proceeded at a more leisurely pace. But this book is a good starting point and it gave me a glimpse into a world I knew very little about but would like to learn more of.
123 people found this helpful
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M Fox
5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific adventure!
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2024
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If you like reading about ancient or medieval travelers or the Silk Routes, this book should be on your list. Not a translation. Commentary sets it in context and compares with other fearless, wide ranging travelers. Extraordinary adventures! Recommended if you don’t mind it not being a translation. Came as advertised.
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Mark Lee
5.0 out of 5 stars 14th Century Muslim Travelogue for Modern People
Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2008
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Ross Dunn, historian, has done a remarkable job of telling us about the travels and adventures of a man who traveled the world a half-century after Genoese adventurer Marco Polo taught Europe about the Orient. The difference between Polo and Ibn Battuta is that the latter simply left home as a young man to perform the Muslim religious duty of the hajj - the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina - and got caught up in other projects on the road for the next couple of decades.

Ross' narrative is informed - he's a scholar who knows Arabic and is familiar with the history of Islam - and also very funny. His dry humor permeates the narrative and adds much readability to what might be otherwise unremarkable material. Examples include his observations about Ibn Battuta's Sunday shouting down with Quranic verses of the Christian bells in an Anatolian town and the story of Ibn Battuta being stripped and left with a flourish by sea pirates.

Ibn Battuta traveled in high Muslim circles throughout northern Africa, the Arabian neighborhood, ancient Turkey, Persia and India. Ross does a good job of qualifying the possible Chinese visit Ibn Battuta claims to have made. Later, near the end of his career, Ibn Battuta would penetrate the African heartland, ironically exploring his own continent last.

Highly recommended for students of Islam, world history of the Middle Ages, and travel adventures in general. Ross, in my opinion, exalts the material to five stars.
11 people found this helpful
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Larry N. Stout
5.0 out of 5 stars A great story (pinch of salt provided)...
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2013
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Ibn Battuta, like Marco Polo, was a great traveler who saw, described, and experienced far more than most people of his age (or any other). That in itself makes their respective travelogue-retrospectives worth reading. Unfortunately, neither of these prodigious wanderers had scruples about inclusion of gross exaggeration and invention in their writings: no one, quite obviously, had the means for checking their stories, and they well knew it! Fortunately, modern scholars have ways to distinguish what's almost certainly true, what's at least plausible, and what's patently false. Accordingly, this authoritatively annotated "rihla" of Ibn Battuta, providing a wealth of useful historical context, is must reading for anyone and everyone interested in world history.
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Top reviews from other countries

Rubaiat Hamid
4.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book that helps one to get some idea of ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2015
Verified Purchase
An excellent book that helps one to get some idea of what the geopolitical and social situation were like at the time.
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Antti
3.0 out of 5 stars Can get very tedious towards the middle of the book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 1, 2015
Verified Purchase
A very interesting view on the world of that time. Can get very tedious towards the middle of the book, however. It seems many of the adventures of Ibn Battuta involve the usual boredom of travelling overland.
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