The character arc of Ibn Battuta

A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record

Born 24 February 1304 in Tangier. Died in either 1368 or 1369, at sixty four or sixty five; the year is not settled. Between the two sit a departure on 14 June 1325, the hajj in November 1326, six years as a judge in Delhi, a shipwreck in 1341, nine months judging in the Maldives, China, a return home in 1349, a journey to Mali from 1352, and a book dictated in 1355. The line below draws that whole life in order.

Tap the line to pluck it. Hover or tap any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.

Who was Ibn Battuta?

He left for a pilgrimage and was gone for decades.

He left Tangier on 14 June 1325, twenty one years old, meaning to go to Mecca and come back. He went overland across North Africa through Tlemcen, Bejaia and Tunis, reached Alexandria in early 1326, visited Cairo and took a detour through Syria, and completed his first pilgrimage in November 1326. Anybody else would then have gone home. He kept going east.

Six months in Iran, Baghdad in June 1327, the Silk Road to Tabriz, a detour north to Mosul and Mardin, a second pilgrimage, the Red Sea to Yemen, then Somalia and down the Swahili coast to Mombasa and Kilwa. In autumn 1332 he turned towards India through Anatolia, reached the Golden Horde, and got as far as Constantinople in late 1332, where he met the emperor Andronikos III and saw the Hagia Sophia.

He reached the Indus on 12 September 1333. The Sultan of Delhi made him a qadi, a judge, and he held it about six years through alternating favour and suspicion. In 1341 he was put in charge of an embassy to China, was attacked by bandits, and then lost his ship in a storm at Calicut while the remaining vessel sailed without him. Unable to go back to Delhi, he went to the Maldives and spent nine months as chief judge, then Sri Lanka, Bengal, Sumatra, Java and China. He started home in 1349. Then, instead of stopping, he crossed the Sahara to Mali and Timbuktu between 1352 and 1354. About 117,000 kilometres in thirty years, more than Marco Polo or Zheng He. In 1355 he dictated the Rihla to Ibn Juzayy. His line is worth reading because he kept not turning back.

The moments

Ibn Battuta's timeline.

The 1320s

14 Jun 1325

He left Tangier at twenty one

Milestone, and it changed everything. One young man, one road, and an intention to be back within the year.

Nov 1326

He reached Mecca

Milestone, and it changed his direction. Seventeen months to get there. The journey was already the longest of most lives.

1 Dec 1326

Go home from Mecca, or go on

Crossroads, decided.

The paths laid out: keep going east, taken, or return to Tangier. He did not see Tangier again for twenty four years, and covered about 117,000 kilometres before he stopped.

The 1330s

Nov 1332

Constantinople

Milestone, and it changed his direction. A Moroccan judge in the Hagia Sophia, received by a Byzantine emperor.

12 Sep 1333

The Indus

Milestone, and it changed everything. Eight years from home, and given a judge's seat in Delhi.

The 1340s

~1341

Bandits, then a shipwreck

Setback, and it changed everything. Robbed, then shipwrecked, then left behind by his own fleet.

Jun 1342

Chief judge in the Maldives

Milestone, and it changed his direction. Unable to go back, so he took a post at the far end of the ocean instead.

~1346

Sumatra, Java, China

Milestone, and it changed his direction. The far end of the known world, and he wrote down what was in it.

~1349

Home after twenty four years

Milestone, and it changed everything. He left at twenty one meaning to be back within the year. He was forty five.

The 1350s

Feb 1352

Across the Sahara to Mali

Milestone, and it changed everything. Home at last, and then straight back out across the Sahara.

~1355

He dictated the Rihla

Milestone, and it changed everything. A hundred and seventeen thousand kilometres, and then he sat down and said it all out loud.

The line ends about 1369, in Morocco, at sixty four or sixty five; the record does not settle the year. The record gives 1368 or 1369 and no more than that. What it set moving is a single book: without the Rihla, dictated at the end, almost none of the fourteenth century world he crossed would be described to us at all.

What he wrote

Books by Ibn Battuta

1355
The Rihla

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Ibn Battuta: frequently asked questions

What people ask about his line.

What was Ibn Battuta's character arc?

A young man who left Tangier at twenty one for a pilgrimage he expected to take a year, reached Mecca, and then kept going for three decades, serving as a judge in Delhi and the Maldives and reaching China and Mali.

How far did Ibn Battuta travel?

About 117,000 kilometres over roughly thirty years, from 1325 to 1354. That is further than Marco Polo or Zheng He covered, and it took in Africa, Arabia, Persia, Anatolia, India, the Maldives, Southeast Asia and China.

What did Ibn Battuta do in India?

He served as a qadi, a judge, for about six years. He reached the Indus on 12 September 1333, and Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq of Delhi appointed him. His tenure alternated between periods of favour and of suspicion.

What was Ibn Battuta's biggest setback?

The failed embassy of 1341. Put in charge of a mission to the Yuan court, he was attacked by bandits on the way to the coast, then lost a ship in a storm at Calicut while the remaining vessel sailed without him.

What is the Rihla of Ibn Battuta?

The account of his travels, dictated to Ibn Juzayy in 1355 near the end of his life. Without it, almost nothing of the fourteenth century world he crossed would be described to us at all. It is the reason any of this is known.

When did Ibn Battuta die?

The record does not settle it. He died in either 1368 or 1369, aged sixty four or sixty five. His birth is given as definite, on 24 February 1304, but the year of his death is genuinely uncertain and this page says so.

Did Ibn Battuta ever go home?

Yes, in 1349, twenty four years after leaving. He had been twenty one when he set out and was in his forties when he returned. He then travelled again, crossing the Sahara to Mali and Timbuktu between 1352 and 1354.

Where does this timeline of Ibn Battuta's life come from?

From the public record. Character Arc drew every moment on this line from the sources listed at the foot of the page, and the kind and weight of each moment are our editorial reading. Ibn Battuta isn't a Member of Character Arc and has no connection with it, and no feeling is attributed to him.

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Sources

Ibn Battuta, English Wikipedia biography.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ibn Battuta.
The Rihla, dictated to Ibn Juzayy, 1355.