Description
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Travels Of Ibn Batuta : With Notes Illustrative Of The History Geography Botany Antiquities Etc. Occurring Throughout The Work by Ibn Batuta , Edited and translated by Samuel Lee
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. Lees 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.show more