| Travels of Ibn Batuta in Asia and Africa |
Medieval Sourcebook Ibn Batuta (1307-1377
CE):
SELECTIONS
Kindly provided by Paul Halsall
Feb 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
Page 30 - On Slavery |
... There was consequently less stigma attached
to slavery, and in no other society has there
been anything resembling the system by which,
as has been shown in the preceding section,
the white slaves came to furnish the privileged
cadre whence the high officers of state,
commanders, governors, and at length even
Sultans, were exclusively drawn.
The following story, told by a theologian
of the third century, represents without
serious distortion the relation, as numerous
parallels in Arabic literature indicate,
often existed between master, wife and slave.
I saw a slave-boy being auctioned for thirty
dinars, and as he was worth three hundred
I bought him. I was building a house at the
time, and I gave him twenty dinars to lay
out on the workmen. He spent ten on them
and bought a garment for himself with the
other ten. I said to him "What's this?"
to which he replied "Don't be too hasty;
no gentleman scolds his slaves." I said
to myself "Here have I bought the Caliph's
tutor without knowing it." Later on
I wanted to marry a woman unknown to my cousin
(i. e. my first wife), so I swore him to
secrecy and gave him a dinar to buy somethings,
including some of the fish called haziba.
But he bought something else, and when I
was wroth with him he said "I find that
Hippocrates disapproves of haziba."
I said to him "You worthless fool, I
was not aware that I had bought a Galen,"
and gave him ten blows with the whip. But
he seized me and gave me seven back saying
"Sir, three blows is enough as a punishment,
and the seven I gave you are my rightful
retaliation." So I made at him and gave
him a cut on the head, whereupon he went
off to my cousin, and said to her "Sincerity
is a religious duty, and whoever deceives
us is not one of us. My master has married
and he swore me to silence, and when I said
to him that my lady must be told of it he
broke my head." So my cousin would neither
let me into her house nor let me have anything
out of it, until at last I had to divorce
the other woman. After that she used to call
the boy "The honest lad," and I
could not say a word to him, so I said to
myself "I shall set him free, and then
I shall have peace."
Page 123 - On Turks
Note that Ibn Batuta refers to today's Turks
as Turkmen. You'll see that when he crosses
into the Black Sea steppes he'll call the
Turkic peoples of that region "Turks".
At Ladhiqiya we embarked on a large galley
belonging to the Genoese, the master of which
was called Martalmin, and set out for the
country of the Turks known as Bilad ar-Rum
[Anatatolia], because it was in ancient times
their land. {1} Later on it was conquered
by the Muslims, but there are still large
numbers of Christians there under the government
of the Turkmen Muslims. We were ten nights
at sea, and the Christian treated us kindly
and took no passage money from us. On the
tenth we reached Alaya where the province
begins. This country is one of the best in
the world; in it God has united the good
features dispersed thorughout other lands.
Its people are the most comely of men, the
cleanest in their dress, the most exquisite
in their food, and the kindliest folk in
creation. Wherever we stopped in this land,
whether at a hospice or a private house,
our neighbors both men and women(these do
not veil themselves) came to ask after us.
When we left them they bade us farewell as
though they were our relatives and our own
folk, and you would see the women weeping.
They bake bread only once a week, and the
men used to bring us gifts of warm bread
on the day it was baked, along with delicious
viands saying "The women have sent this
to you and beg your prayers." All the
inhabitants are orthodox Sunnis; there are
no sectarians or heretics among them, but
they eat hashish [Indian hemp], and think
no harm of it.
The city of Alaya is a large town on the
seacoast.{2} It is inhabited by the Turkmens,
and is visited by the merchants of Cairo,
Alexandria, and Syria. The district is well-wooded,
and wood is exported from there to Alexandrietta
and Damietta, whence it is carried to the
other cities of Egypt. There is a magnificent
and formidable citadel, built Sultan Ala
ad-Din, at the upper end of town. The qadi
of the town rode out with me to meet the
king of Alaya, who is Yusuf Bek, son of Qaraman,
bek meaning king in their language. He lives
at a distance of ten miles from the city.
We found him sitting by himself on the top
of a hillock by the shore, with the amirs
and wazirs below him, and the troops on his
right and left. He has his hair dyed black.
I saluted him and answered his questions
regarding my visit to his town, and after
my withdrawal he sent me a present of money.
From Alaya I went to Antaliya [Adalia], a
most beautiful city {3}. It covers an immense
area, and though of vast bulk is one of the
most attractive towns to be seen anywhere,
besides being exceedingly populous and well
laid out. Each section of the inhabitants
lives in a separate quarter. The Christian
merchants live in a quarter of the town known
as the Mina[the Port], and are surrounded
by a wall, the gates of which are shut upon
them from without at night and during the
Friday service. {4}. The Greeks, who were
its former inhabitants, live by themselves
in another quarter, the Jews in another,
and the king and his court and mamluks in
another, each of these quarters being walled
off likewise. The rest of the Muslims live
in the main city. Round the whole town and
all the quarters mentioned there is another
great wall. The town contains orchards and
produces fine fruits, including an admirable
kind of apricot, called by them Qamar ad-Din,
which has a sweet almond in its kernel. This
fruit is dried and exported to Eqypt, where
it is regarded as a great luxury.
We stayed here at the college mosque of the
town, the principal of which was Shaykh Shihab
ad-Din al-Hamawi. Now in all the lands inhabited
by the Turkmens in Anatolia, in every district,
town and village, there are to be found members
of the organization known as the Akhiya or
Young Brotherhood. Nowhere in the world will
you find men so eager to welcome strangers,
so prompt to serve food and to satisfy the
wants of others, and so ready to suppress
injustice and to kill [tyrannical] agents
of police and the miscreants who join with
them. A Young Brother, or akhi in their language,
is one who is chosen by all members of his
trade [guild], or the other young unmarried
men, or those who live in ascetic retreat,
to be their leader. This organization is
known also as the Futuwa, or the Order of
Youth. The leader builds a hospice and furnishes
it with rugs, lamps, and other necessary
appliances. The members of his community
work during the day to gain their livelihood,
and bring him what they have earned in the
late afternoon. With this they buy fruit,
food, and the other things which the hospice
requires for their use. If a traveler comes
to town that day they lodge him in their
hospice; these provisions serve for his entertainment
as their guest, and he stays with them until
he goes away. If there are no travelers they
themselves assemble to partake of the food,
and having eaten it they sang and dance.
On the morrow they return to their occupations
and bring their earnings to their leader
in the late afternoon. The members are called
fityan (youths), and their leader, as we
have said, is the akhi. {5}
FOOTNOTES: 1-5
[The spelling "Seljuk" is now preferred
to the author's "Saljuq". Seljuks
of Rum are the Seljuk Turks of Anatolia.
The "Rum" reference is to the fact
that Anatolia at that time was known to the
MiddleEasterners as "Rome" i. e.
Eastern Roman Empire.]
1. Bilad ar-Rum, literally "the land
of the Greeks", though used of the Byzantine
territories generally, was applied more specially,
to the frontier province of Anatolia. After
some temporary conquests in earlier centuries,
it had been finally overrun by the Saljuq
Turks between 1071 and 1081. Down to the
end of the thirteenth century, the whole
peninsula, except those sections which were
held by the Christians (Byzantium, Trebizond,
and Armenia) or the ruler of Iraq, owed allegiance
to the Saljuq sultan of Konia, but from a
little before 1300 it was parceled out between
score of local chiefs, whose territories
were gradually absorbed into the Ottoman
Empire.
2. The port Alaya was constructed by one
of the greatest of the Saljuq sultans of
Rum, Ala ad-Din Kay-Qubad I (1219-37), and
was renamed after him. To the Western merchants
it was known as Candelor (from its Byzantine
name kalon oros). Egypt, being notoriously
deficient in wood, has always needed to import
large quantities of it for the building of
fleets, etc.
3. Adaliya, known to the Western merchants
as Satalia, was the most important trading
station on the south coast of Anatolia, the
Egyptian and Cypriote trade being most active.
The lemon is still called Addaliya in Egypt.
4. The closing of the city gates and exclusion
of Christians at night and during the hours
of Friday service was observed until quite
recently in a number of places on the Mediterranean
seaboard, such as Sfax, probably as a measure
of precaution against surprise attacks.
5. The history of the organizations called
by the name of Futuwa is still obscure. They
appear first in the twelfth century in several
divergent forms, which can probably all be
traced to the Sufis, or darwish orders. The
word futuwa, "manliness," had long
been applied amongst the latter in a moral
sense, defined as "to abstain from injury,
to give without stint, and to make no complaint,"
and the patched robe, mark of a Sufi, was
called by them libas al-futuwa, "the
garment of manliness." It was applied
in a more aggressive sense among the guilds
of "Warriors for the Faith," especially
as the latter degenerated into robber bands,
and it is in reference to the ceremony of
admission into one such band at Baghdad in
the middle of the twelfth century that trousers
are first mentioned as the symbolic libas
al-futuwa (Ibn al-Athir XI, 41). A few years
later Ibn Jubayr found in Damascus an organization
called the Nubuya, which was engaged in combatting
the fanatical Shi'ite sects in Syria. The
members of the warrior guild, whose rule
it was that no member should call for assistance
in any misfortune that might befall him,
elected suitable persons and similarly invested
them with trousers on their admission.
In 1182 the Caliph an-Nasir, having been
invested with the libas or trousers by a
Sufi shaykh, conceived the idea of organizing
the Futuwa on the lines of an order of Chivalry
(probably on the Frankish model), constituted
himself sovereign of the order, and bestowed
the libas as its insignia on the ruling princes
and other personages of his time. The ceremony
of installation included the solemn putting-on
of the trousers and drinking From the 'cup
of manhood'(ka's al-futuwa), which contained
not wine but salt and water. The order took
over from its Sufi progenitors a fictitious
geneology back to the Caliph Ali, and continued
to exist for some time after the reign of
nasir in a languishing state. The Brotherhood
which Ibn Batutta found in Konia, and which
was distinguished from the other guilds in
Anatolia by its special insignia of the trousers
and its claim to spiritual descent from Ali
was probablay a relic of the order founded
by the romantic Caliph. The remaining Anatolian
organizations seem to have been local trade-guilds
with a very strong infusion of Sufism, oddly
combined with a political tendency towards
local self-government and the keeping in
check of the tyranny of the Turkish sultans.
(See generally Thorning, Turkische Bibliothek,
Band XVI (Berlin, 1913), and Wacif Boutros
Ghali, La Tradition Chevaleresque des Arabes
(Paris, 1919), pp. 1-33).
Page 126 - In Anatolia
The day after our arrival at Antaliya one
of these youths came to Shaykh Shihab ad-Din
al-Hamawi and spoke to him in Turkish, which
I did not understand at that time. He was
wearing old clothes and had a felt bonnet
on his head. The shaykh said to me "Do
you know what he is saying?" "NO"
said I "I do not know." He answered
"He is inviting you and your company
to eat a m meal with him." I was astonished
but I said ""Very well," and
when the man had gone I said to the shaykh
"He is a poor man, and is not able to
entertain us, and we do not like to a be
a burden on him." The shaykh burst out
laughing and said "He is one of the
shaykhs of the Young Brotherhood. He is a
cobbler and a man of generous disposition.
His companions, about two hundred men belonging
to differetn trades, have made him their
leader and have built a hospice to entertain
their guests. All that they earn by day they
spend at night."
After I had prayed the sunset prayer the
same man came back for us and took us to
the hospice. WE found [ourselves in] a fine
building, carpeted with beautiful Turkish
rugs and lit by a large number of chandeliers
of Iraqi glass. A number of young men stood
in rows in the hall, wearing long mantles
and boots, and each had a knife about two
cubits long attached to a girdle around his
waist. On their heads were white woolen bonnets,
and attached to the peak of these bonnets
was a piece of stuff a cubit long and two
fingers breadth. When they took their seats,
every man removed his bonnet and set it donw
in front of him, and kept on his head another
ornamental bonnet of silk or other material.
In the centre of their hall was a a sort
of platform placed there for the visitors.
When we took our places, they served up a
great banquet followed by fruits and sweetmeats,
after which they began to sing and dance.
We were filled with admiration and were greatly
astonished at their openhandedness and generosity.
We took leave of them at the close of the
night at left them in their hospice....
From Burdur we went on to Sabarta [Isparta]
and then to Akridur [Egirdir], a great and
populous town with fine bazaars. There is
a lake with sweet water here on which boats
go in two days to Aqshahr and Baqshahr and
other towns and villages. The sultan of Akridur
is one of the principal rulers in this country.
He is a an of upright conduct.......
He sent some horsemen to escort us to the
town of Ladhiq [DEnizli], as the country
is infested by a troop of brigands called
Jarmiyan [Kermian] who possess a town called
Kutahiya......
As we entered the town we passed through
a bazaar. Some men got down from their booths
and took our horses bridles, then some others
objected to their action and the altercation
went on so long that some of them drew knives.
We of course did not know what they were
saying and were afraid of them, thinking
they were brigands and that this was their
town. At length God sent us a man who knew
Arabic and he explained that they were two
branches of the "Young Brotherhood",
each of whom wanted to lodge with them. We
were amazed at their generosity. It was decided
finally that they should cast lots, and that
we should lodge with the winner.......
After receiving the sultan's gift we left
for the city of Quniya [Konia]. It is a large
town with fine buildings and has many streams
an fruit gardens. The streets are exceedingly
broad adn the bazaars are admirably planned
with each craft in a bazaar of its own. It
is said that the city was built by Alexander.....
In this town is the mausoleum of the pious
shaykh Jalal ad-Din [ar-Rumi], known as Mawlana
["Our Master"] {see below}. He
was held in high esteem, and there is a brotherhood
in Anatolia who claim spiritual affiliation
with him and are called after him the Jalaliya.
The story goes that Jalal ad-Din was in early
life a theologian and a professor. One day
a sweetmeat seller caem into the college-mosque
with a tray of sweetmeats on his head and
having given him a piece went out again.
The shaykh left his lesson to follow him
and disappeared for some years. Then he came
back, but with a disordered mind, speaking
nothing but Persian verses which no one could
understand. His disciples wrote down his
productions, which they collected into a
book called The Mathnawi. This book is greatly
revered by the people of this country; they
meditate on it, teach it and read it in their
religious houses on Thursday nights. From
Quniya we traveled to Laranda [Karaman],
the capital of the sultan of Qaraman. I met
this sultan outside the town as he was coming
back from hunting, and on my dismounting
to him, he dismounted also. It is the custom
of the kings of this country to dismount
if a visitor dismounts to them. This action
on his part pleases them and they show him
greater honour; if on the other hand he greets
them while on horseback they are displeased
adn the visitor forfeits their goodwill in
consequence. This happened to me once with
one of these kings. After I had greeted the
sultan we rode back to the town together,
and he showed me the greatest hospitality....
The reference to "Mawlana" [or
"Mevlana" in Turkish] is to the
great poet and Sufi Rumi.
Page 131 - In Iraq
We then entered the territories of the king
of Iraq, visiting Aqsara [Akserai] where
they make sheeps wool carpets which are exported
as far as India, China, and the lands of
the Turks, and journeyed thence through Nakda
[Nigda] to Qaysariya, which is one of the
largest towns in the country. In this town
resides one of the Viceroys's khatuns, who
is related to the king of Iraq and like all
the sultna's relatives has the title of Agha
which means Great. We visited her and and
she treated us courteously, ordering a meal
to be served for us and when we withdrew
sent us a horse with a saddle and bridle
and a sum of money. At all these towns we
lodged in a convent belonging to the Young
Brotherhood. It is the custom in this country
that in towns that are n not theresidence
of a sultan one of hte Young Brothers acts
as governor, exercising the same authority
and appearing in public with the same retinue
as the king.....
We journeyed thence to Amasiya, a large and
beautiful town with broad streets, Kumish
[Gumush Khanah], a populous town which is
visted by merchants from Iraq and Syria and
has silver mines, Arzanjan where Armenians
form the greater part of the population and
Arz ar-Rum. This is a vast town but is mostly
in ruins as a result of civil war between
two Turkmen tribes. We lodged there at the
convent of the "Young Brother"
Tuman, who is said to be more than a hundred
and thirty years old.....
We journeyed next to Bursa [Brusa], a great
city with fine bazaars and broad streets,
surrounded by orchards and running springs.
Outside it are two thermal establishments,
one for men and the other for women, to which
patients come from the most distant parts.
They lodge there for three days at a hospice
which was built by one of the Turkmen kings.
In this town I met the pious Shaykh Abdullah
the Egyptian, a traveller, who went all round
the world, except that he never visited China,
Ceylon, the West or Spain or the Negrolands,
so that in visiting these countries I have
surpassed him. The sultan of Bursa is Orkhan
Bek, son of Othman Chuk. {Mine: It seems
that the founder of the Ottoman Empire was
a little guy!}..
He is the greatest of the Turkmen kings and
the richest in wealth, lands and military
forces, and posesses nearly a hundred fortresses
which he is continually visiting for inspection
and putting to rights. He fights with the
infidels and besieges them. It was his father
who captured Bursa from the Greeks and it
is said that he besieged Yaznik [Nicaea]
for about twenty years, but died before it
was taken.....
We set out next morning and reached Muturni
[Mudurlu] where we fell in with a pilgrim
who knew Arabic. We besought him to travel
with us to Qastamuniya which is ten days'
journey from there... He turned out to be
a wealthy man, but of base character....
We put up with him because of our difficulties
in not knowing Turkish, but things went so
far that we used to say to him in the evenings
"Well, Hajji, how much have you stolen
today ?" He would reply "So much"
and we would laugh and make the best of it.
We came next to the town of Buli, where we
stayed at the convent of the Young Brotherhood.
What an excellent body of men these are,
how nobleminded, how unselfish and full of
compassion for the stranger, how kindly and
affectionate they are to him, how warm their
welcome to him ! A stranger coming to them
is made to feel as though he were meeting
the dearest of his own folk. Next morning
we traveled on to Garadi Buli, a large and
fine town situated on a plain, with spacious
streets and bazaars, but one of the coldest
in the world. It is composed of several different
quarters, each inhabited by different communities,
none of which mixes with any of the others......
We sent on through a small town named Burlu
to Qatamuniya, a very large..... From Qastamuniya
we traveled to Sanub [Sinope], a populous
town combining strength with beauty.....
We stayed at Sanub about forty days waiting
for the weather to become favorable for sailing
to the town of Qiram.{Mine: Crimea} Then
we hired a vessel belonging to the Greeks.....
At length we did set sail.... We made for
a harbour called Karsh [Kerch], intending
to enter it....
The place was in the Qipchaq desert[steppe]
which is green and verdant, but flat and
treeless. There is no firewood so they make
fires of dung... The only method of travelling
in this desert is in waggons; it extends
for six months' journey, of which three are
in the territories of Sultan Muhammad Uzbeg.
The day after our arrival one of the merchants
in our company hired some waggons from the
Qipchaqs who inhabit this desert, and who
are Christians and we came to Kafa, a large
town extending along the sea-coast, inhabited
by Christians, mostly Genoese, whose governor
is called Damdir [Demetrio].....
We hired a waggon and traveled to the town
of Qiram, which forms part of the territories
of Sultan Uzbeg Khan and has a governor called
Tuluktumur...
He was on the point of setting out for the
town of Sara, the capital of the Khan, so
I prepared to travel along with him and hired
waggons for this purpose. These waggons have
four large wheels and..... on the waggon
is put a light tent made of wooden laths
.... and it has grilled windows so that the
person inside can see without being seen.
One can do anything one likes inside, sleep,
eat, read or write during the march...
At every halt the Turks loose their horses,
oxen and camels and drive them out to pasture
at liberty, night or day, without shepherds
or guardians. This is due to the severity
of their laws against theft. Any person found
in posession of a stolen horse is obliged
to restore in with nine others; if he cannot
do this, his sons are taken instead, and
if he has no sons he is slaughtered like
a sheep. They do not eat bread nor any solid
food, but prepare a soup with kind of millet,
and any meat they may have is cut into small
pieces and cooked in this soup. Everyone
is given his share in a plate with curdled
milk and they drink it, afterwards drinking
curdled mare's milk which they call qumizz.
They also have a fermented drink prepared
from the same grain, which they call buza
[beer] and regard it as lawful to drink....
The horses in this country are very numorous
and the price of them is negligible. A good
one costs a dinar of our money. The livelihood
of the people depends on them, and they are
as numerous as sheep in our country, or even
more so. A single Turk will posess thousands
of horses. They are exported to India in
droves of six thousand or so....
From Azaq {Azov} I went on to Majar, travelling
behind the amir Tuluktumur. It is one of
the finest of the Turkish cities and is situated
on a great river{22}.
... A remarkable thing which I saw in this
country was the respect shown to women by
the Turks, for they hold a more dignified
position than the men. The first time that
I saw a princess was when, on leaving Qiram,
I saw the wife of the amir in her waggon.
The entire waggon was covered with rich blue
woolen cloth, and the windows and doors of
the tent were open. With the princess were
four maidens, exquisitely beautiful and richly
dressed, and behind her were a number of
waggons with maidens belonging to her suite.
When she came near the amir's camp she alighted
with about thirty of the maidens who carried
her train.. When she reached the amir, he
rose before her and sat her beside him, with
the maidens standing around her. Skins of
qumizz were brought and she, pouring some
into a cup, knelt before him and gave it
to him, afterwards pouring out a cup for
her brother. Then the amir poured a cup for
her and food was brought in and she ate with
him. He then gave her a robe and she withdrew.
I saw also the wives of the merchants and
commonality. One of them will sit in a waggon
which is being drawn by horses, attended
by three or four maidens...
The windows of the tent are open and her
face is visible for the Turkish women do
not veil themselves. Sometimes a woman will
be accompanied by her husband and anyone
seeing him would take him for one oher servants;
he has no garment other than a sheep's woold
cloak and a high cap to match.
NOTES: 22. The ruins of Majar (now Burgomadzhari)
lie on the Kuma river S. W. of Astrakhan,
110 kilometeres N. E. of Georgiewsk, at 44.50
N., 44.27 E.
The Qipchaqs [Kipchaks] also known as Kumans/Cumans
in the West are known as the Polovtsy in
the Russian chroniclers and history. The
famous Russian myth The Tale of the Host
of Igor is about Igor's war against the Kipchaks.
He's now around the Caucasus in Russia. He
calls the people which are now called Tartars,
Turks, whereas before in Anatolia, he called
the people today called Turks, Turkomans!
Page 147
We then prepared for the journey to the sultan's
camp, which was four day's march from Majar
in a place called Bishdagh, which means "Five
mountains" {23}. In these mountains
there is a hot spring in which the Turks
bathe, claiming that it prevents illness....
Thereupon the mahalla approached (the name
they give to it is the ordu) {Ordu==Army}
and we saw a vast town on the move with all
its inhabitants, containing mosques and bazaars,
the smoke from the kitchens rising in the
air (for they cook while on the march), and
horse drawn waggons transporting them. On
reaching the encampment they took the tents
off the waggons and set them upon the ground,
for they were very light, and they did the
same with the mosques and shops......
I had heard of the city of Bulghar {25} and
desired to visit it, in order to see for
myself what they tell of the extreme shortness
of the night there...
I returned from Bulghar with the amir whom
the sultan had sent to accompany me... and
came to the town of Hajj Tarkhan [Astrakhan].
It is one of the finest cities, with great
bazaars, and is built on the river Itil [Volga],
which is one of the great rivers of the world.
In the winter it freezes over and the people
travel on it in sledges...
Ibn Batuta's account of travel to Constantinople
is skipped.
Page 165 - Astrakhan
On reaching Astrakhan where we had parted
from Sultan Uzbeg, we found that he had moved
and was living in the capital of his kingdom....
On the fourth day we reached the city of
Sara, which is the capital of the sultan{37}.
We visited him, and after we had answered
his questions about our journey and the king
of the Greeks and his city he gave orders
for our maintenance and lodging. Sara is
one of the finest of towns, of immense extend
and crammed with inhabitants, with fine bazaars
and wide streets. We rode out one day with
one of the principal men of the town, intending
to make a circuit of the place and find out
its size. We were living at one end of it
and we set out in the morning, and it was
after midday when we reached the other. One
day we walked across the breadth of the town,
and the double journey, going and returning,
took half a day, this too through a continuous
line of houses, with no ruins and no orchards.
It has thirteen cathedral and a large number
of other mosques. The inhabitants belong
to diverse nations; among them are the Mongols,
who are the inhabitants and rulers of the
country and are in part Muslims, As [Ossetes],
who are Muslims, and Qipchaqs[Turks], Circassians,
Russians, and Greeks, who are all Christians.
Each group lives in a separate quarterwith
its own bazaars. Merchants and strangers
from Iraq, Egypt, Syria and elsewhere, live
in a quarter surrounded by a wall, in order
to protect their property.
FOOTNOTES: 23. Beshtaw, one of the foothills
of the Caucasus, is a wooded hill rising
to a height of nearly 1,400 metres, just
north of Pyatigorsk, about 35 kilometres
S. W. of Georgiewsk.
[ The author makes a mistake here. Pyatigorsk
means exactly "Besh Tau" or "Besh
Dagh" i. e. Five Mountains]
25. Bulghar, the ruins of which lie on the
left bank of the Volga just below the junction
of Kama, was the capital of the medieval
kingdom of Great Bulgaria [Turkish], annexed
by the Mongols in the thirteenth century.
It possessed great commercial importance
as the distributing centre for Russian and
Siberian products. It is difficult to understand
however, how Ibn Battuta could have made
the journey from Majar to Bulghar, some 800
miles, in ten days!
37. There were two cities of "Sarray
in the land of Tartarye", which were
successively the capital of the Khans of
the Golden Horde; Old Sarai, situated near
the modern village of Selitrennnoe, 74 miles
above Astrakhan, and New Sarai, which embraced
the modern town of Tsarev, 225 miles above
Astrakhan. Sultan Muhammad Uzbeg moved the
capital from Old Sarai about this period,
most probably a few years before. Ibn Batuta's
description agrees best with New Sarai, ruins
of which extend over a distance of more than
forty miles, and cover an area of over twenty
square miles. (See F. Balodis, in Latvijas
Universitates Raksti (Acta Universitatis
Latviensis, XIII (Riga, 1926), pp.
3-82.
from Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa
1325-1354. Translated and selected by H.
A. R. Gibb. Edited by Sir E. Denison Ross
and Eileen Power. (New York: Robert M. McBride
& Company,)
[note: I saved this while browsing the net.
I am not sure who supplied the notes]
This text is part of the Internet Medieval
Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection
of public domain and copy-permitted texts
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Paul Halsall Feb 1996
halsall@murray.fordham.edu
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