Author Description

This English edition of the work of the Arab traveller usually known as Ibn Battuta (1304-68/9) was translated by Rev. Samuel Lee (1783-1852), Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge, from 'the abridged Arabic manuscript copies, preserved in the Public Library of Cambridge', and published in 1829. Lee's work sparked widespread European interest in Ibn Battuta, who had set off from his native Morocco on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1325, and kept travelling for the next twenty-four years, reaching as far east as China and as far south as Zanzibar, as well as visiting parts of Spain and the Byzantine Empire. On his return, he dictated an account of his travels; Lee translated an abridged version, but fuller versions were later discovered. There is doubt as to whether Ibn Battuta actually saw everything he described, but this account gives a fascinating world-view from the medieval period.