This has always been the case, although few knew it because world travelers were rare in the past. But Ibn Battuta, the famous 14th century Muslim jurist and world traveler, who visited many Muslim countries and observed many local customs, relates a good example of local custom: “Each of these Khanqahs is set apart for a separate school of Darwishes, mostly Persians, who are men of good education and adepts in mystical doctrines.

“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.”

This custom mentioned by Ibn Battuta is a local custom meaning that it was, and still might be, practiced in one local area, and/or by one select group of men.

Immigrant Jews also have been surprised to learn that many customs that had great religious significance in the “old country” are not practiced in the “new country” by other Jews from other lands.

In Israel, the differences between Orthodox Jews from Christian Europe and Orthodox Jews from Muslim North Africa and the Middle East, are great, although Jewish law and prayer are basically the same for both groups.

In both Islam and Judaism local folk customs, and even folk beliefs, are often examples of the common people’s desire to be better Muslims or Jews. But sometimes these beliefs and customs are the result of local superstitions and are rejected by the Ulama or the rabbis.

Sometimes local religious leaders support modest innovations in practice or belief that are not deemed unIslamic or unJewish, and sometimes religious scholars oppose them as unsupported by scripture.

For example, in both Islam and Judaism, a folk belief grew up in the Middle East, unsupported by religious scholars, that if it were not for a small number of very righteous people, the whole corrupt society we live in would collapse.

Neither the Torah nor the Qur’an support such a belief, but the concept does support the ideal that a few people who continue to live in righteous purity when everyone else has become corrupt, can really make a big difference.

After all, even today the whole earth seems to be filled with violence, cruelty, oppression and injustice. This is made worse by the corrupt and oppressive behavior of many high and low government officials; as well as the immoral activities many economic, intellectual, political, and even religious leaders, which are constantly being exposed.

Of course, our generation is not the first to suffer from these universal social, political, cultural and national maladies; and religious people know that God is merciful and compassionate as well as just.

God’s patience and forbearance with widespread human inequity and sin can be understood in many ways.

One explanation, that developed within some parts of both the Jewish and Muslim communities, is that in every generation there are a small number of very special hidden saints (60 or 40 Abdal in Islam and 36 or 30 Tsadikim in Judaism), whose souls are so kind, honest, trusting and righteous, that for their sake alone, the rest of the society of sinful human beings avoids collapse.

Thus, the idea of the hidden saints emphasizes the importance God gives to a small number of very kind and righteous people who serve as the supporting foundations of the civilized world, and in some way known only to God, support human civilization against total collapse.

Thus, Abu Darda’ said: “When Prophethood ended – and they were the supports (Awtad) of the world – Allah substituted their places with 40 men from the nation of Muhammad called “Abdal” (Substitutes). Not one of them dies except that Allah replaces him with another one, and they are now the supports of this world. The hearts of 30 of them contain the same firm certainty (yaqin) which Prophet Ibrahim had.”

“They did not succeed or rise above other people due to much fasting or prayer … but rather through being honest, having noble intentions, having sound wholesome hearts … They do not curse anyone, or harm anyone, nor do they see themselves as being higher or nobler than anyone under them, or envy those above them. They do not fake their humility… nor are they ostentatiously impressed with themselves.”

Most Islamic scholars think the ahadith relating to the Abdal are weak. And since acquiring religious knowledge is highly valued in both Islam and Judaism, most Jewish and Muslim scholars have rejected this elevation of religiously ignorant yet pious individuals.

However, I am a Reform Rabbi who thinks of himself as a Muslim Jew, because I faithfully submit to the one and only God of Abraham; and I am faithful to the Torah of Prophet Musa which I study continually, and to the covenant that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai.

Yet in my heart, I see the need for religious scholars to increase the respect people in general, and the religious and educated elite in particular, should have for the many simple, poor, good hearted, righteous believers within their own community. This is especially true in our generation.

I also see many parallels between this Islamic and Jewish revolutionary concept that society is supported and sustained, not by the high and mighty, not by the rich and famous, and surely not by the media celebrities of sports and entertainment, but rather by a small number of poor, hidden and rarely acknowledged saints.

As Abu Hurayra said: “I entered the mosque, and the Prophet said to me, ‘Abu Hurayra, in this hour, a man will walk through this door, who is one of the seven people of the world through whom Allah diverts punishment from the Earth’s inhabitants.”

“Just then an Ethiopian entered through that door. He was bald, maimed, and carrying a container of water on his head. So he said, ‘O Abu Hurayra, that’s him,’ and then said to the man three times, ‘Welcome.’ This man used to sweep and clean the Mosque.”

Perhaps a weak Hadith, but certainly one with a strong message to respect every human being regardless of class, status or appearance.

Even more revolutionary, is that within the Muslim tradition some people explicitly included Christians and Jews within the Abdal: Hudhayfa ibn Yaman said: “The Abdal in my community in Syria include 30 men on the path of Ibrahim (Jews)… And the group (of righteous Awliya’) in Iraq are 40 men… 20 of them are on the path of ‘Isa (Christians) and 20 of them have been given some of the instruments which Khalifa Da’ud (King David) was given.”

According to Jewish folklore the hidden saints number at least 36 in each generation. Called in Yiddish lamedvovniks (36ers), they are responsible for sustaining and supporting the civilized world. At times of great peril, a 36ercould make a dramatic appearance to defeat the enemies of Israel, and then return to humble obscurity.

The 36+ people are unnoticed by other people because of their humble nature, status, education and vocation. The 36+figured in Kabbalistic folk legends of the 16–17th centuries, and in Hassidic folklore from the end of the 18th century.

Yiddish proletarian writers in the 19th and 20th centuries expanded the folk tradition of the 36+ righteous people whose simple role in life justifies the value of all mankind in God’s eyes; by adding that if even one of them was missing from the minimum 36, society would come to a bad end.

For the sake of these 36+ hidden saints, God preserves our world even if the rest of humanity degenerates to the level of total barbarism. This idea is based on the story of Sodom and Gomorra in the Torah, where God told Abraham that he would spare the town of Sodom if there were at least 10 righteous people in it.

Since nobody knows who the 36+ are, not even they themselves, every Jew should honor and respect all the simple, honest, unselfish, hard working and long suffering people around us, for one of them may be one of the 36+. I think this lesson rings true for all religions.

Unlike the rich, the famous, the pious, the scholars, the powerful, the beautiful or the successful, who everyone else thinks are very important, according to this concept, the 36+ are the really important people, because without a few of them society could destroy itself.

The tradition of the 36ers, others say 30, is found in the Talmud where RabbiAbbaye says: “There are not less than 36 righteous people in the world who receive the Sakina – Divine Presence” (Sanhedrin 97b and Sukkot 45b). “Not less” is not a fixed number, and there may be many more than 36 (40 or 60) in some generations.

These righteous people are usually and incorrectly called men because in Hebrew grammar a mixed group of males and females always uses a male noun and verb. It is much more likely that the 36ers are 18 men and 18 women, since in Hebrew the number 18 is the numerical equivalent of the letters in the word life.

Ibn ‘Asakir (1105–1175) and Ibn Abi Khaythama narrate that Uthman ibn ‘Ata was having a conversation with his father, who told him, “The Abdal are forty Insan (humans).” So Uthman ibn ‘Ata said to his father, “Forty men?” and his father replied, “Do not say men, but rather say humans, for there could be women among them.”

The number 36 is not the only number offered in this connection. Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai believed, “the world never lacks 30 righteous people” (Genesis Rabbah 35:2) while Rabbi Simeon ibn Yehozadak says (Ḥullin 92a. and Midrash Psalms 5:5) “the world exists by the merit of 45 righteous people”; perhaps 30 in the land of Israel and 15 in Iraq/Babylonia where Rabbi Simeon ibn Yehozadak lived.

According to Rav Judah, the number 30 represents the number of “righteous gentiles among the nations of the world” (Ḥullin 92a). Thus, some Rabbis felt that women and non-Jews should be counted among the hidden saints, just as some Islamic sages have taught.

All of these statements about the 30 or 36+ Tsadekim (saints) are the views of individual rabbis. Their views did not become part of Jewish law or general belief, just as the Abdal did not become part of general Muslim belief.

The power of the prayers and the tears of a 36er to bring rain from God was rarely mentioned in accounts from Europe about the 36+, because droughts are very rare in Europe. But both the 36+ Tsadekim and the Abdal 40 (or 60) share this trait.

As ‘Ali said: “The Abdal are in Syria, and they are 40 men. Whenever one of them dies, Allah substitutes another in his place. By means of them, Allah brings down the rain, gives victory over enemies, and diverts punishment from the people of Syria.”

A Jewish folktale from Syria illustrates the theme of the power of a pure hearted simple man’s righteous plea. Once, in the land of Syria, there was a great drought. A rabbi called all the Jews of his village to the synagogue. They prayed day and night, but still no rain fell. Then the rabbi declared a fast, and asked God to answer their prayers.

That night he heard a voice from heaven, saying, “God will send rain only if Rahamim, who always sits in the back corner of the synagogue, prays for it.” “But he’s an ignoramus,” protested the rabbi. “And I am not sure how kosher his home is.” Silence was the response.

When Rahamim came to the synagogue the rabbi said, “Tomorrow you will lead the congregation in prayers for rain,” “But I do not know how to pray,” said Rahamim. “There are so many others who know more than I.” “Nevertheless,” said the rabbi, “it is you who must lead the prayers.”

The next day the rabbi called all the people together to pray. The synagogue was filled to bursting. All eyes were on the placewhere everyone expected to see the rabbi leading them in prayer. How great was their amazement to see poor Rahamim standing up there before the Holy Ark, holding a clay jar with two spouts in his hands. “Now I ask that you pray with all your heart,” he told the congregation.

So they opened the Ark, where the Torah scroll was kept, and the people poured out their hearts to heaven, wailing bitterly and beating their breasts. Then Rahamim lifted up his jar, first placing one spout to his eye and then the other to his ear. Instantly there was a rumble of thunder and then the sky opened up, drenching the earth with rain.

The rabbi later asked Rahamim, “Why did you bring that jar to the synagogue? What did you do with it?” “Rabbi, I’m a poor, ignorant man,” Rahamim replied. “What I earn as a shoemaker barely feeds my many children. Every day they cry for bread and I have little to give them. When I hear their cries my heart breaks, and I too cry. So I collect my tears in this jar.

“When you asked me to come here to pray, I looked into the jar and said, ‘Master of the Universe, if you do not send rain, I will break this jar in front of the whole congregation.’

“Then I heard a voice that said, “Ask again when you stand before the congregation. So I did and I heard a voice say: ‘Do not break the jar’.” And then it began to rain.

With this multilingual welcome I hope to get you in the mood for the subject of my essay: the first documented globetrotters in human history. But before we hurl ourselves into this adventure and follow the trails of Messere Marco Polo and Seyyid Ibn Battuta, I would like to share an observation with you. As for myself, it prompted me to write this article and so I hope that it will arouse your curiosity in these explorers, too.

With the flood of new information offered by social media and the internet, the portrait of the world and its people is constantly changing. The light of cultures that stood in the shadow yesterday may shine brighter tomorrow. The respect and the admiration of certain nations wane or grow strong, dependent on the source that describes these nations. What conventional historical sources have in common is that they represent the everyday life of people and their interactions with one another in a rather dry manner.

In this respect, travelogues, diaries, and the like are much more intimate and personal, but in turn also more subjective in their perceptions. As an example, we might cite here the description of the city of Shiraz (in present-day Iran) and its inhabitants: While Ibn Battuta focused on the boldness and courage of the local population, Marco Polo talked about the beauty of the women. So when we read their reports, there emerges an interesting landscape, which allows us to meet certain cultures and nations and learn to know them.

But what makes such reports even more attractive is the fact that they send us on an adventure. We are not only told about different cultures, but also take an active part in the experiences of these travelers. However, be prepared; everything is to be savored with a pinch of salt!

In this way, history appears as sunlight being refracted through a prism: it reveals nuances that you could not perceive before. And that’s exactly what sparks the enthusiasm for the works of the globetrotters: Thanks to them, history is going through a metamorphosis, transforming itself from a wasteland into a Garden of Eden.

But enough for the advocacy: let’s turn to our two globetrotters now.

Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta were no ordinary travelers. Their travels lasted 30 years and led them from the West to the Far East. They met not only the most diverse languages ​​and cultures, but also occasionally took employment and settled in some places for longer periods of time.

First, I would like to introduce you to Messere Marco Polo, who was born into a merchant family in Venice in 1254. At the time of Marco’s birth his parents were already highly respected figures in Venetian society. Originally coming from Dalmatia, they quickly achieved success in Venice and it didn’t take long until they were included in the “Homo Nobilis”-register. The Polos, in fact, were noblemen. When Marco was five years old, his father Nicolo set out with his brother Maffeo on a journey from which they were to return 10 years later. In the meantime, Marco befriended the port children and even spent some time in prison. Luckily for him, his father and uncle returned just in time to save him and convert his death penalty into banishment from Venice.

Under these circumstances, his father decided to take Marco with him on his next trip to the east, as far as Khanbalik (today’s Beijing), the capital of the Mongol Empire of the Yuan, to visit Kublai Khan, the Khan of all Khans. This is how Marco Polo’s world tour began, and it would take him about 28 years before he saw Venice again.

In his travelogues, he shared interesting facts about the city of Venice. For example, he mentioned the feast of Sensa, the annual marriage of Venice with the sea. On this occasion, the Venetians celebrated with a ceremonial ring toss into the lagoon in the port of San Nicolo, which was understood as a seal between the lagoon and the city.

Marco Polo also described the Venetian law stating that all fish caught during the day must be thrown on the ground in the evening:

They [the harbor children] lived almost exclusively on fish; because if they couldn’t manage to steal other things, they could rush to the fish market at the end of each day, since the Venetian law had the fishmongers at a certain hour throwing all their goods on the ground; this should prevent them from selling fish not really fresh.

Marco Polo has provided us with many interesting insights into the world of his time. We learn that the lingua franca, or Sabir as Marco Polo called it, was the trade language of Europe, up to the Levant. From the Levant to Central Asia, the traders spoke Farsi, and even further east it was Mongolian or the Han language.

The most impressive passages of Marco Polo’s travelogues are definitely his detailed descriptions of towns and places of interest. The bazaar of Baghdad took Polo nearly three pages to describe. What follows is only a brief excerpt:

The cloth merchants proudly stood under reels of thread and rolls of silk and wool and goat hair angora, of cotton and linen, fine camel hair and rough camlet. There were also more exotic fabrics such as muslin from the city of Mosul in Mesopotamia, calico from India, Buckram from Bukhara, and damask from Damascus. The booksellers offered cheap volumes of fine vellum, parchment and paper, delightfully written and decorated with gold leaf…

Marco Polo’s travel reports teem with descriptions, impressions, and experiences, and are thus truly a pleasure to read – if you are ready to overlook the occasional digressions in anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and arrogance towards other cultures and religions.

About a year after Marco Polo’s death, in 1324, Ibn Battuta embarked upon a similar trip to China at the age of 21. But Ibn Battuta’s route was presumably the most chaotic of any traveler at that time. It took him back and forth across the whole world map.

Not much can be said about Ibn Battuta’s life before his departure, because the only source is his own work. His story began with a pilgrimage to Mecca. He mentioned that he was born in 1304 in Tangier, Morocco, and that his parents were still alive when he left, but that’s it. What we know beyond this is that he was not specialized in a certain contemporary science, but well-versed in many areas.

Thus, Ibn Battuta headed out for Mecca at the young age of 21. On his way, he crossed almost the entire Islamic world, but his curiosity was far from satisfied.

Ibn Battuta’s travel reports are characterized by a very precise description of places, traditions, and cultures. What is striking is the fact that he sometimes presented towns or attractions using poems. If possible, he let several poets come to the fore and used them to speak about the same city. This method can be very amusing at times, as one poet often praises what the other accurses.

Ibn Battuta opened doors to cultures that had remained closed for Marco Polo, in particular doors to the Islamic world, which the globetrotter from Venice had shunned. From today’s perspective, the two globetrotters are close in time, but covered very different routes.

Ibn Battuta described one impressive experience in Damascus as follows:

One day, walking the streets of Damascus I saw a young slave. He carried a porcelain plate in his hands specified by the local people as “Sahan” and dropped it accidentally, and it broke. People gathered around the child and a man said to him, “Brother! Collect the broken pieces and bring it to the principal of the foundation that deals with this work!” The slave gathered the shards up and accompanied the man to the principal. When the principal saw the broken pieces, he estimated the value of the plate and gave the slave a sum of money that compensated for it. What a praiseworthy behavior! Otherwise the owner of the slave boy would have either beaten him or had his heart broken because of the broken plate. […] This foundation has made it its mission to please people and to protect them from blame. May Allah reward those who donate money to such noble purposes!

He also mentioned the funeral rituals of certain groups:

The burial rites of the Indians are also very strange. After the Indians have buried the corpse, on the third morning after the burial they cover the ground around the grave with expensive fabrics. […] In addition, they bring lemon or orange trees and put them on the grave, even if they do not bear any more fruit. They build tents, so that visitors can relax in the shade. Then, one after the other the emirs and the high-ranking officials come […] and sit down. Opposite of them the Huffaz¹ take place followed by the Cüz²-castes. Then the Koran is read by the Huffaz, and prayers are spoken for the soul of the deceased.

Ibn Battuta’s travelogues are full of many such insights, and it is extremely amusing to learn about a rich variety of practices and traditions of the peoples he encountered. On the other hand, he also described very trivial details. Once, for example, he noticed numerous grammatical errors in a Friday prayer’s Hutbe³. So he asked a judge called Hüccetüddin about it and received the following reply:

“In this city (Basra) all the institutions that dealt with linguistics in the past have been shut down, so there’s nobody left now who cares for it or let alone knows how these words are to be read.”

Ibn Battuta commented with regret, “What a pity that here of all places grammar experiences such decline. In this city, foundations of linguistics were once laid!”

On another occasion, Ibn Battuta was astonished about the Turks owning so many horses:

“What with us are the sheep, here are the horses.”

But more than anything else, the situation of Turkish women left him in amazement:

“A strange behavior here is that the men pay their deepest respect to their women. In this country the woman is higher regarded than the man.”

Later on he added another observation:

“Sometimes it turns out that the women accompany their husbands and you catch yourself saying, ‘That man must be a subordinate of this woman!’, because a sheepskin coat and his Küla hat is all he is wearing!”

But now I’d like to leave it to you, dear reader, to discover the worlds of these wonderful globetrotters. I certainly don’t want to reveal too much. Messere Marco Polo and Seyyid Ibn Battuta are eager to tell you their stories and sharpen your view of the people of the Middle Ages!

Thus, it’s my turn now to dismiss you in my mother tongue.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Notes

1. Used here in its general sense: a scholar who knows to recite the Qur’an by heart is called Hafiz. Huffaz is the plural form.
2. A Cüz is a booklet with a 20-page section of the Qur’an, which makes it possible to divide the Qur’an reading between several people.
3. A Hutbe is a lecture given by the imam during Friday prayers with mostly or exclusively religious content.

Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo traveled through many of the same lands less than 50 years apart. They were able to do so, in part, due to some of the same conditions: the Pax Mongolia had united (and devastated) much of Central Asia, and China and India were relatively stable. Marco Polo traveled during the height of the Pax Mongolia, while Ibn Battutas travels occurred while the first effects of the Plague were being felt. In many of his descriptions, especially of older cities located in the vicinity of Persia and Central Asia, the destruction wrought by the Mongol conquest was still evident. Although Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta did not travel exactly the same path, a reader of both books nonetheless gets a sense of the changes occurring in those areas during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Unfortunately for historians, Marco Polo does not always notice the same things, or simply chooses not to mention them. As he is concerned almost exclusively with what the land and its inhabitants produce, he rarely notices or comments on the destruction and decay that pepper many parts of Ibn Battutas travel narrative.

Travels in a Stricken Land

Ibn Battuta finds the first signs of decay after he leaves Makkah for Iraq. He leaves the main caravan to travel to Basra, which had been a main center of Islamic learning. He notes that he has to travel in the company of a large group of native Arabs, for it is impossible to travel in those regions except in their company. At least one danger he faces is that of Arabs inhabiting a waterlogged jungle of reeds in the area, who in fact did attack and plunder a party traveling behind his. Ibn Battuta does not comment on this, but the necessity of traveling with an armed escort and the constant threat of highway robbery would seem to indicate a weak central state.

Upon his arrival in Basra, Ibn Battuta is told that a large building located some distance outside of the city, the Mosque of Ali, used to be in the middle of the city. However, Basra has shrunk so much that it now stands alone. Another indication of Basras diminished status is the fact that during the Friday congregational prayer, the preachers sermon contains grammatical mistakes. He is also told that no one in the city speaks or writes grammatically correct Arabic”and this in the very city where Arabic grammar was devised and established! So it appears that this area has slipped from the control of whatever centralized government once controlled it, that the population has left, and that it is no longer a center of learning.

Reporting on his trip to Kufa, the other historically great garrison city in Persia, he writes that it also has diminished in size and prestige: Though it was once the abode of the Companions of the Prophet and of scholars and theologians, as well as the capital of Ali, Kufa has now fallen into ruins as a result of the attacks which it has suffered from the nomad Arab brigands in the neighborhood. That such a formerly important city has been left so vulnerable that even a band of brigands can attack it at will again indicates the central governments increasing weakness.

Even the western part of Baghdad is found to be partially in ruins: The hospital is a vast ruined edifice, of which only vestiges remain. Traveling near the Tigris river, he finds yet another city in ruins, as well as Jazirat ibn Umar and Nisibin. He observes a similar swath of destruction in Central Asia and in areas located to the north of India.

Marco Polo notes that some cities have been destroyed, but Ibn Battuta goes into much more detail. Bukhara, once the capital of the lands beyond the Oxus river, is mostly destroyed; Samarkand is likewise mostly in ruins, as is Balkh, where Genghis Khan partially destroyed a mosque in his search for treasure; Banj Hir (Panjshir) city has been destroyed, and the surrounding country uninhabited since that time.

Fondness for Miracles

Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta resemble one another in their fondness for miracles, especially those that validate their own religion or sect. Marco Polo tends to be more enthusiastic and narrates many miracles (second-hand) at great length, while Ibn Battuta is generally more skeptical. In addition, his miraculous happenings, if usually not very miraculous in nature, are easier to believe.

For example, he relates how the Caliph Walid I wish to expand the Umayyad mosque in Damascus into the area occupied by a church. The Greek Christians refused to sell the land, for they believed that anyone who destroyed the church would be stricken with madness. The caliph decided to set an example and thus began to tear down the church with his own hands. According to Ibn Battuta: The Muslims on seeing that followed his example, and God proved that the assertion of the Christians was false. Although Ibn Battuta does not exactly claim miraculous status for this event, the tone is very similar to the one used by Marco Polo to describe miracles performed by Christians in Muslim lands.

Many of Marco Polos miracles are a sort of polemic against Muslims, and many of Ibn Battutas miracles, as well, are polemical. He does not direct them against Christians, however, but rather against the Shiah, whom he dislikes intensely. He writes of a man who told the Shiah that he was the mahdi (the awaited messiah) and convinced people that he was going to perform many miracles. Of course none were actually performed.

He mentions the place in Mashhad Ali, located in the city of Najaf, that supposedly holds Ali’s tomb. The townspeople, all Shi, regard the miraculous healing of the sick that is said to occur there as proof that the place is, in fact, Ali’s final resting place. Ibn Battuta comments that the fact is widely known among them, and I heard it from trustworthy authorities, but I was not actually present on any such night. He also says that he saw some cripples there who were waiting for that night. Although he does not refute these events, he appears to be very hesitant to actually believe and confirm them. One might simply attribute this to his reluctance to give credence to supposed miracles that he did not actually witness. However, he is not so cautious about believing such stories in other places. For instance, during his stay in Shiraz, he visits the illustrious Shaykh Majd al-Din Ismail, the marvel of the age [who] is held in the highest esteem by the sultan of Iraq, for reasons which the following story will show.

He then relates how this shaykh was the judge of an Iraqi province that refused to turn Shiah. The sultan was infuriated and had him brought to his summer residence to be thrown to the large, fierce, man-eating dogs that he kept there. However, when the dogs were loosed on the judge Majd al-Din, they would not attack him but wagged their tails in the friendliest manner. The sultan thereupon rejected the Shiah doctrine. This incident is treated as something of a miracle and related in rather strong language, although Ibn Battuta did not actually witness it. Therefore, it does not seem that he is overly reluctant to accept miracles when it suits his purpose.

Views of Other Peoples

Although, as the translator points out, Ibn Battuta is quite tolerant of Christians (despite his frequent derogatory references to them), Marco Polo’s hostile attitude toward Muslims is mirrored very accurately in Ibn Battuta’s attitude toward the Shiah. He describes them as abominable people who hate the Ten Companions and every person whose name is Umar, and as revilers who hate the ten. He claims that in Sarmin, one cannot even mention the word ten. At one place, he refuses to enter the city because the inhabitants are fanatical Shiah. All of this is no doubt due in large part to his strict Maliki views. Another similarity between the two traveler’s work lies in what they choose to include and describe. One of the most striking elements is the character and appearance of the people they encounter. Generally, Ibn Battuta has good things to say about the people he meets, such as his assertions that the inhabitants of Makkah are very kind to strangers and the poor, the people of Shiraz are very pious and upright, and the women of Sana are virtuous and have many fine qualities. He also writes: I have never seen anywhere in the world more excellent people than the Khwarizmians, or more generous or more friendly to strangers. In Hinawr, the women are beautiful and virtuous. When he meets people he does not like, he is not slow to explain why. In Taizz, for example, the people are overbearing, insolent, and rude, as is generally the case in towns where kings reside. And the inhabitants of Bukhara are looked down upon and their evidence is not accepted in Kharizm and elsewhere, because of their reputation for fanaticism, falsehood, and denial of the truth.

Conclusion

Although Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo wrote their travelogues for somewhat different reasons, as they were of different religions and backgrounds and faced different circumstances, the two authors show a remarkable similarity in their approaches to their subject matter, that which interests them, and their reaction to the places they visit. Their works of course differ in some ways, but the similarities argue rather forcefully that the cosmopolitan, unified world to which they both seem to have felt they belonged did, in fact, exist

References

• Ibn Battuta. The Travels of Ibn Battuta (trans.) London: 1829.
• Marco Polo. The Travels. Translated by Ronald Latham. England: Penguin Books, 1958.