Ibn Battuta's Long Journeys
Written by Studio AM.
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In 1325, the young scholar Ibn Battuta left Tangier, in Morocco, on a pilgrimage to Mecca. That journey began a period of travel that lasted nearly thirty years, with visits to many parts of Africa and Asia.
He travelled through North Africa and Arabia, reached the East African coast and Central Asia, and worked as a judge in Delhi. Muslim trading communities, scholars and rulers helped him find hospitality and support. Shared religious and legal traditions offered connections across distant places, though travel still involved robbery, shipwreck and political danger.
Ibn Battuta returned to Morocco in 1349, but his travelling was not over. He later visited Muslim-ruled Spain and crossed the Sahara to Mali. After his final return, the sultan asked him to dictate an account of his journeys to the writer Ibn Juzayy.
The resulting book, usually called the Rihla, describes places, customs and people. It includes both personal observations and material drawn from other accounts. Historians compare it with other evidence rather than treating every episode as an eyewitness report. Read with care, it offers a detailed view of connections across the fourteenth-century world.
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Questions
Choose an answer. The explanation appears after you answer.
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Question 1 of 4
Which statement best states the main idea?
The answer is D: A pilgrimage led to decades of travel and an account of the connected societies he visited.
The passage follows his travels, the connections that supported them and the book produced afterwards.
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Question 2 of 4
What happened after Ibn Battuta returned to Morocco in 1349?
The answer is C: He made further journeys to Spain and Mali.
The third paragraph says he continued travelling after returning to Morocco, including visits to Spain and Mali.
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Question 3 of 4
Which source would best help a historian check one of the Rihla's descriptions of Delhi?
The answer is B: An independent account of Delhi from the same period.
An independent account from the same period offers separate evidence. A copy of the Rihla would only repeat its claims.
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Question 4 of 4
In the passage, 'hospitality' means:
The answer is A: welcoming guests and caring for them
The passage connects hospitality with support from people in places he visited. It means welcoming and caring for guests.
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