Ibn Battuta

Many significant voyagers have visited India in the past and left anecdotes that tell us a lot about the historical aspects of contemporary times. Ibn Battuta, one such significant voyager who was also a geographer and explorer visited India during the time of Tughlaq’s reign. In this article, we will study and learn what this eminent explorer realized visiting India and included it in the notes. He was a Moroccan Muslim by birth and an avid jurist by occupation. Let us find out his significance in Indian history during the Tughlaq rule.

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Who was Ibn Battuta?

Muhammad Ibn Battuta was an avid explorer from the country of Morocco. He was a Muslim jurist and judge who visited India when Tughlaqs were ruling our country. He was born on 25th February 1304. It was during the medieval era when he was born in an Islamic family. He grew up with contemporary Islamic views and wanted to travel the world.

He maintained a series of anecdotes and travel logs describing the places he visited during his lifetime. As per his anecdotes, he traveled for more than 29 years and covered many countries at that time. He was very ambitious and always wanted to follow his dreams. In fact, his aspirations were not born to be tamed within boundaries. His journals suggest that he visited more than 44 countries if we consider the modern map of the contemporary world.

Let us find out more about Ibn Battuta and his exclusive journeys to the different countries. He was only 20 years old when he started his journey. By that time, he was a geographer, a judge, a jurist, and an explorer. Even though he was well-established in this career, he wanted to live a fascinating life of an explorer. He started traveling in the year 1325 and reached Mecca first as a pilgrim.

It was his first time in Mecca as a pious Muslim. His visit to Hajj made him realize his passion to explore even more. The explorer in him was triggered and he started his journey that ended after 29 years. As per his journals, he covered more than 75,000 miles and is considered to be one of the avid travelers in the world to this date. Despite the drawbacks and hurdles, he did not retrace from his journey and continued to learn about different cultures and traditions.

He was quite adventurous and traveled to different lands. He also imbibed the culture of the native people and even married several times and had children. He described in his autobiography that he faced extreme dangers while traveling from one location to the other. He almost drowned in a capsized ship. He was even attacked by bandits on his way.

His life is the epitome of adventures one can have as an explorer. The prime importance of his life stories depicted in his autobiography ‘Rihla – My Travels’ is the historical significance of the countries he visited and the dynasties ruling at that time. As we know Ibn Battuta came from which country, it was the Moroccan Sultan who encouraged him to write down all his experiences. He scripted his travel journals towards the end of his life under the patronization of the Sultan of Morocco. He visited the empires that are ruled by Muslims and wrote down the memories of staying there. According to his routes, the area he covered is termed, Dal-al Islam.

When did Ibn Battuta Came to India?

Ibn Battuta arrived in India in 1334, nine years after he started to travel the world. He crossed the mountains of Afghanistan and entered the Tughlaq dynasty. The contemporary sultan of India was Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. He sought information regarding the contemporary Sultan and learned that the supreme leader likes to receive gifts and to give as well.

Ibn presented Sultan Muhammad Bin Tughlaq horses, slaves, arrows, camels, etc. Tughlaq was very happy with what the stranger has brought for him. He, in exchange, gave him 2000 silver dinars, a well-furnished house to stay and the job of a judge. He was also awarded 5000 silver dinars as an annual package for the job.

During his stay in India, Ibn Battuta witnessed a lot of things that he wrote down in his travel journal. One of his famous entries is about the Qutb Complex, Quwat al-Islam Mosque, and the Qutb Minar.

His Anecdotes About India

He witnessed a lot of things that happened during the rule of Muhammad Bin Tughlaq. In 1335 AD, the regions in and around Delhi suffered from a prolonged famine that continued for 7 years killing most of the population. Tughlaq, at that time, was busy suppressing the rebellions in that area and did not pay any attention to the welfare of his subjects.

The Sultan was not at all philanthropic or sympathetic towards the common people. This caused a lot of unrest in his reign throughout North India. He did not differentiate people according to their religions and continued his tyranny on Hindus and Muslims. According to Ibn Battuta’s journals, not a single went by without bloodshed and gore in the main entrance of the royal palace. Almost every day, someone was executed publicly, hanged to scare people regarding the outcome of rebellions, and even skinned alive to create an example.

People were beheaded or tossed in front of the elephants to be mangled. Prisoners were treated very badly and were eventually killed without any warning. All these gruesome events were mentioned in his journals named ‘Travel memoirs of the year 1334 to 1341’. The place was mentioned to be Delhi, the capital of the Tughlaq dynasty in India.

The Sultan was always bloodthirsty and did not pay attention at all to the wellbeing of his subjects. Even small faults of the royal subjects and subordinates ended in gruesome punishments in front of all the people in the royal court. These cruel incidents are mentioned in Rihla Chapter XV. He did not show any bias during his oppressive rule over all religions and sects.

In the ‘Travel Memoirs’, he mentioned that a person named Sheikh Shinab al-Din, who was Muslim by origin, was a prisoner in Delhi. He was tortured every day as he was an alleged rebel. Later, Tughlaq sent food on the 14th day of his imprisonment but he denied eating. When the Sultan came to know about his denial, his torture started even more.

Ibn Battuta also mentioned in his journals that the royal officials asked for bribes and even went to deduct 10% of the gifts and annual sum the Sultan paid him. He described how the entire system was extremely corrupted during his rule.

Ibn mentioned that he befriended a pious Sufi Muslim at the end of his tenure in this dynasty. When the Sultan came to know about this, he arrested them both. Ibn was released after someday but the Sufi Muslim was killed. It is mentioned how the Sultan plucked each hair from the pious man’s beard and tortured him. When he was told to return to the royal court and he refused, the Sultan tortured him in the most horrible ways and beheaded him.

As we know Ibn Battuta came from which country, he left India and started his journey again to see the other dynasties. The travel memories of Ibn Battuta have become an important artifact that depicts the history of the Tughlaq dynasty and the condition of the people from 1334 to 1341. His depiction of the horrible incidents shows how cruel the Afghan ruler was to his subjects and how he just washed away the treasures and belongings of the people.

His anecdotes also shed light on the Indo-Afghan and Indo-Persian architecture of the mosques and minarets constructed before and at that time. His description of the devastation brought on the heritage and culture of India during the Tughlaq dynasty paint a picture of how cruel the ruler was. After a long journey of 29 years, he returned to Morocco and scripted his travel memories, and named it ‘Rihla – My Travels’.