Ibn E Battuta

Part 3

Once he was ready to leave Constantinople, Ibn Battuta set his sights on Sarai al-Jadid, followed by Bukhara and Samarkand, where he would meet yet another Mongol ruler in the latter before heading off now for Afghanistan along his way to India. Delhi would hold his first significant Indian adventure as he met the remarkably wealthy Sultan of Dehli, Muhammad bin Tughluq.

The sultan quickly took a liking to Ibn Battuta, and the now-seasoned explorer was given the job of qadi, essentially a judge, in Delhi. While this was a great honor, it was a bit difficult for Ibn Battuta to do much from his position to enforce Islamic law due to the general opinion of it in India outside of Delhi. Eventually, the adventurer would continue his journey into the rest of India nonetheless, although it appeared that his position in Delhi wouldn’t help him much outside of the sultan’s court.

At some point while in India, Ibn Battuta was kidnapped by a group of Hindu rebels and robbed. Luckily, he would eventually be freed to return to his travels, at which point he made his way to modern-day Pakistan, where he visited the shrine of Baba Farid and then found his way to Hansi and Sindh. After completing his exploration of India, the traveler wanted to leave for another pilgrimage to Mecca, but the Sultan of Delhi had other plans for his new judge.

It wasn’t until 1341 that Ibn Battuta would be allowed to leave, and only because he was tasked with joining a Chinese embassy that was hoping to rebuild a Himalayan Buddhist temple. While traveling with the embassy, he was once again kidnapped and robbed, and now separated from his fellow travelers. Nevertheless, the experienced adventurer would catch up with the others less than two weeks later, from which point they would make their way to Khambhat and then Calicut, where he would yet again become the guest of a local monarch.

Once he was ready to leave Calicut, Ibn Battuta faced even more bad luck as one of the ships he and his group had taken to reach the city had been destroyed by a storm while the other was taken by some of his companions without him on board. At this point, he was determined not to return to Delhi, although he was essentially stuck in southern India as he sought the protection of the contemporary Sultan of Nawayath.

But, when the sultan and his sultanate as a whole ultimately collapsed, the traveler now had to leave India altogether, and he eventually found himself on the Maldive Islands for the next 9 months after being convinced by the local leadership to become their chief judge. His later resignation was likely a product of growing political tension caused by his actions as chief judge in the newly Islamic realm, and he soon left the islands to reach Sri Lanka, where circumstances once again were not in his favor as his own ship was nearly totaled and another vessel trying to rescue him was overcome by pirates.

After wrapping up his trip in Quanzhou, Ibn Battuta continued his voyage through China, now reaching Guangzhou, at which he stayed for a couple of weeks before moving on to Fuzhou where he made a new friend and travel companion, Al-Bushri , who would join him on a visit to Hangzhou; which Ibn Battuta noted was one of the largest cities he had ever stepped foot in.

After then attending a banquet for a nearby Yuan Mongol leader, Ibn Battuta would finally arrive in Beijing where he styled himself as the long-lost ambassador from Dehli, earning him yet again more invitations from local authorities. He then backtracked until he reached Quanzhou once more and left now for Southeast Asia and his return home, at long last, to Morocco… It was now 1346 and Ibn Battuta was homebound.

Through all of this, Ibn Battuta was still hoping to reach China, as he had originally planned to do when released by the Sultan of Delhi, but he next had to take some detours first to the Madurai Kingdom, then back to the Maldives, and finally the port of Chittagong.

He subsequently made his way to Sylhet where he became a guest of Shah Jalal in 1345. From there, the journey continue to the Samudra Pasai Sultanate and then Malacca where he met the local ruler. Three days later, he departed and then finally landed in China. Arriving in Quanzhou in 1345, Ibn Battuta was given a theatrical welcome by the native Muslim merchants and enjoyed his stay by exploring the town and even visiting the Mount of the Hermit.