SEVEN HUNDRED YEARS FROM THE BIRTH OF THE GREAT WORLD EXPLORER IBN BATTUTA

Abstract

Muhammad ibn Battuta (Ibn Battuta) is one of the most famous individuals of the rich Islamic history. He was born in northern Morocco, in the most beautiful Mediterranean coastal city of Tanja, in 1304. His childhood was marked by his inquisitive instinct, love for the new and the unknown. He was barely twenty when he first sailed out of Tanja to the unknown and unexplored areas of the East and the West. He returned to Tanja thirty years later, which is how long his seven hundred and fifty thousand miles long journey took. He returned to a heroic welcome. With the help of the sultan of Marakesh, Ibn Battuta completed his famous travelogue, titled “Tuhfetu el-nizar fi agaibi-laktar”, in two years time. In this travel-record he described all the rare and the unusual things he was between Constantinople and China. It was translated into many European languages and this is still considered the longest, the most important and the most beautiful exploratory journey in the history of the humankind. The whole world marked the seven hundredth anniversary of his birth during the 2004.