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Ibn Battuta was born in 1304 in Tangier, Morocco.
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At 21 years of age, he began the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca)
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In 1326, Ibn finally reached the city of Alexandria. This was 9 months after the start of his journey.
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After Alexandria, Ibn explored the Nile River. From there he traveled up the Nile towards Cairo, and eventually made his way to Damascus, which is the Syria capital of Mamluks.
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This trip took 55 days. The pilgrimage was to both Medina and Mecca. This part in his narritive only took a little bit of time. After he left Medina (the first stop) he headed to Iraq who were returning to Bagdad.
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Ibn visits the city of Mecca, which is after visiting the city of Medina, and the tomb of Muhammad.
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Battuta left the caravan, after he went to Najaf, and made multiple side trips alone. He went to: Najaf in southern Iraq, the cities of Shiraz and Isfahan in Persia, back to Bagdad. He was caught in Bagdad because the Mongols sacked the city. He had to wait for the next hajj caravan to pick him up.
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After his travels in Mecca, he made his way to Baghdad. This took almost a year.
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From Baghdad, he went to back to the city of Mecca in the fall of 1327.
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Ibn studied Islamic law. He used his new knowledge to save up for future trips.
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This is the third time he wanted to visit Mecca. From Mecca, he went to India, but took a roundabout way. He went from Jeddah to Egypt, up to Anatolia. He traveled along an Anatolian plateau to the trading city of Konya. Then he went from Sinope to Genoese. From Genoese, he went to Crimea to the domains of Mongol Ozbeg Khan. He went then back to the city of Constantinople.
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After Mecca, Ibn Battuta decided to seek employment in India. He took a very unlikely route. He travled throguh Asia Minor, the steppe lands north of the Black Sea, and the region of the Caspain Sea to get there. In the spring of 1334, he finally arrived in Delhi. There he met with the sultan who appointed Ibn Battuta to be qadi, or judge.
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This came after a long trip (by now he had aquired a lot of slaves and wealth). During his journey, he had many firsts; he was the first person to name the Hindu Kush Mountains.
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Muhammad ibn Tughluq asked well-traveled Ibn Battuta to be his envoy and carry expensive gifts back to the emperor of China. Ibn Battuta agreed and departed Delhi in August 1341.
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After wandering around the Malabar Coast of India for about two years, Ibn Battuta reached the Maldive Islands off the southwest coast of India in December 1343. He became the qadi of the Maldivians.
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bn Battuta made his last great journey to visit the empire of Mail, a Muslim state on the other side of the Sahara Desert, the only major Islamic land he had not visited.
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After leaving the Malian capital he traveled along the Niger River to visit the important cities of Timbuktu and Gao.
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After his many years of travel, he returned back to Fez, Morocco. He is estimated to have travelled about 75,000 miles - much farther than Marco Polo and other travelers of his time.
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Ibn Battuta died: 1377 in Fez, Morocco
