Ibn Battuta set off from Tangier on a hajj in 1325, and did not return home for another 30 years. He went on a 73,000 mile tour of the world, seeking to outline the Dar al-Islam, or World of Islam. During his thirty-year journey, he was able to visit most of the Islamic world. Ibn Battuta is often considered the world’s greatest traveler. When he finally returned home, he composed a Rihla, or story of a quest, which is consulted to this day as a picture of medieval Islamic civilization. This project allows you to explore Ibn Battuta’s travels.

‘Mapping Ibn Battuta’s Journey’ attempts to provide a narrative of Ibn Battuta’s journey, using StoryMap JS by Knight Labs.

StoryMap

Process

Source Material

The source material consulted was Ross E. Dunn’s The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century (University of California Press, 2012). All quotations in the Story Map come from this work.

Data

Through close reading of Ross E. Dunn’s book, I created a dataset of every single location that Ibn Battuta mentioned traveling to in the Rihla. This dataset was bolstered with relevant coordinates and date visited, in order to create a map demonstrating the trajectory of Ibn Battuta’s journey.

A similar, smaller, dataset was used to create the map of his wives and children, taking note of any mention of wives or children in the Rihla. These were compiled through close reading of the source material.

To craft a narrative, important locations highlighted by Ibn Battuta were chosen to create a list for the StoryMap, including helpful quotations for each location. This was determined through close reading of the book.

Tools

StoryMaps JS was used to create the story map.