“The Odyssey of Ibn Battuta: Uncommon Tales of a Medieval Adventurer” by David Waines
This is a secondary-account book about the travels of Ibn Battuta, an odyssey from his home country Morocco, to North Africa, the Middle East, East Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, China, and back home through the Iberian Peninsula and West Africa, which span in the period between 1325 and 1354.
The book is written by David Waines, an Emeritus Professor of Islamic Studies at Lancaster University, who selects some of the best passages from Battuta’s own travel journal, organize them under several different topics, and add further context and commentary along the way.
This is where the book fell short, however, as the single narration of the epic 29 years journey is re-organized and broken down into 5 categories, which kill off the flow of the story and turn the daring adventure into a somewhat academic discussion.
The 5 categories are: 1. Critics about the validity of the travel tale (a buzz kill right from the start) 2. The summary of the journey, which only describe things in generic way and leave out the interesting details such as the human interactions 3. Specific chapter on food and hospitality 4. A chapter focusing on sacred places, saints, miracles, and marvels 5. Tales of the “other”, which leave out some of the most interesting parts at the very back of the book.
Which is a shame. Because Ibn Battuta’s story is a tale of weird encounters with the strange and sacred, which shows us a rare glimpse of the world in the 14th century not through the point of view of the kings and sultans, not through the priests and imams, but through an ordinary traveler’s eyes. Hence, the number one appeal of his story is the epic journey in a form of medieval story-telling, which the book purposely breaks off.
It was also supposed to show all the details about food, dress code, hospitality, sexual customs, various employments and even his many marriages throughout the journey. And all mashed up chaotically together into one big narrative painted vividly alongside the pirates and the slaves, the cruelty and diseases, and the encounters with many different religions.
Having said that, in hindsight the book actually provides all of these information but the 5 chapters keep on overlapping each other. And in a non-linear way the book keeps on jumping from one place to another depending on the topics being discussed, so much so that I needed to constantly double check the actual route taken by Battuta.
Therefore it is perhaps best to read this book as a complementary note for the real travel account written by other books or the original Rihla by Battuta himself. With all the commentaries, further contexts, and fact-checking from this book can indeed be a great additional information for the epic story.
THE CHAOS THEORY 