Oriental Journeys

In this episode we will explore how the Travels of Ibn Battuta has been written and why the Travels is an important historic source with Tim Mackintosh-Smith who has dedicated his life tracing Ibn Battuta.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a British, Oxford-educated Arabist, writer, traveller, translator and lecturer, based in Yemen for many decades but currently nomadic. He is one of the foremost scholars of the Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta. Mackintosh-Smith has published a trilogy recounting his journeys in the footnotes of Ibn Battuta: Travels with A Tangerine (2001), The Hall of a Thousand Columns (2005) and Landfalls (2010). In 2007, Mackintosh-Smith presented a major BBC documentary series, Travels with a Tangerine, recounting his experiences tracing Ibn Battuta's fourteenth-century travels in the present day. In 2016 he published an edited abridgement of The Travels of Ibn Battuta with Macmillan Collector's Library.

What we cover in this episode

• Some of the Ibn Battuta’s observations on Yemen
• How the Travels of Ibn Battuta has been written
• What makes Ibn Battuta and his travels special
• Why the Travels of Ibn Battuta is an important historic source
• Rihla genre in the Islamic literature 
• Ibn Battuta’s profile and character

Conversation key insights

• ‘As a historical observer Ibn Battuta can be every exact.’ 
• ‘The travelogue is a witness to history, politics, architecture and believes. Ibn Battuta Travels is like a slice through time. Ibn Battuta was a historian despite himself, he was a geographer despite himself. You can get a history by chance in his Travels. We would not know a lot about the history of that time if not for Ibn Battuta Travels.’

A Passage from the book

‘My departure from Tangier, my birthplace, took place on Thursday the second of the month of God, Rajab the Unique, in the year seven hundred and twenty-five, with the object of making the Pilgrimage to the Holy House [at Mecca] and of visiting the tomb of the Prophet, God's richest blessing and peace be on him [at Medina]. I set out alone, having neither fellow-traveller in whose companionship I might find cheer, nor caravan whose party I might join, but swayed by an overmastering impulse within me and a desire long-cherished in my bosom to visit these illustrious sanctuaries. So I braced my resolution to quit all my dear ones, female and male, and forsook my home as birds forsake their nests. My parents being yet in the bonds of life, it weighed sorely upon me to part from them, and both they and I were afflicted with sorrow at this separation. My age at that time was twenty-two [lunar] years.’

[The Travel of Ibn Battuta, translated by H. A. R Gibb, The Hakluyt Society, volume 1, page 8, paragraph 13]

Recommended reading

• The Travels of Ibn Battuta, edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Macmillan Collector's Library, 2016.
• The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, translated by Ronald Broadhurst, Good word Books, 2007. 

Thanks to the episode contributors:

• Kate O’Connell | Editor, Creative Consultant
• Aydogan Kars | Academic Advisor
• Ashkan Bahrani | Academic Advisor 
• Frank Youakim | Narrator 
• Ali Gorgin | Music
• Tia Goodwin | Cover art designer

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We acknowledge the Aboriginal peoples as the enduring Custodians of the land from where this podcast is produced. 

In the first episode we will explore Ibn Battuta's travelogue, and search to find out more about him and his travels with a guest who has dedicated his life tracing Ibn Battuta.

Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a British, Oxford-educated Arabist, writer, traveller, translator and lecturer, based in Yemen for many decades but currently nomadic. He is one of the foremost scholars of the Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta. Mackintosh-Smith has published a trilogy recounting his journeys in the footnotes of Ibn Battuta: Travels with A Tangerine (2001), The Hall of a Thousand Columns (2005) and Landfalls (2010). In 2007, Mackintosh-Smith presented a major BBC documentary series, Travels with a Tangerine, recounting his experiences tracing Ibn Battuta's fourteenth-century travels in the present day. In 2016 he published an edited abridgement of The Travels of Ibn Battuta with Macmillan Collector's Library.

What we cover in this episode

• Some of the most mind blowing experiences Tim has encountered in his journey tracing Ibn Battuta travel route.
• Some fascinating layers of Ibn Battuta character.
• Why Tim decided to retrace Ibn Battuta travel path with the space of 700 years. 

Conversation key insights

• ‘Marco Polo is a bit of stick figure... Ibn Battuta in comparison is a fully rounded character' [Ross E. Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century, University of California Press, 2012].
• ‘Literature is what collapses time…. Get inside this book and you can cross time'.
• ‘Ibn Battuta seeing a widow woman jumping into the fire, he has reported the horror of the scene which has been horrific to a Muslim observer or to most people, I saw the traces of the fire, it was like seeing a ghost but ghost didn’t go away, I was almost overcome by myself, it was a very creepy place, you can get inside the book and cross time, like a time travel, but that’s only one from many places, that was the most striking.’

A passage from the book

‘We came to a little island in that archipelago in which there was but one house, | occupied by a weaver. He had a wife and family, a few coco-palms and a small boat, with which he used to fish and to cross over to any of the islands he wished to visit. His island contained also banana bushes, but we saw no land birds on it except two crows, which came out to us on our arrival and circled above our vessel. And I swear I envied that man, and wished that the island had been mine, that I might have made it my retreat until the inevitable hour should befall me.’

[The Travels of Ibn Battuta, translated by H. A. R Gibbs, The Hakluyt Society, volume 3, page 845, paragraph 163]

Recommended reading

The Travels of Ibn Battuta, edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Macmillan Collector's Library, 2016.

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century, with a New Preface, Ross E. Dunn, University of California Press. 2012. 

Thanks to the episode contributors:

• Kate O’Connell | Editor, Creative Consultant
• Aydogan Kars | Academic Advisor
• Ashkan Bahrani | Academic Advisor 
• Frank Youakim | Narrator 
• Ali Gorgin | Music
• Tia Goodwin | Cover art designer

We acknowledge the Aboriginal peoples as the enduring Custodians of the land from where this podcast is produced.