Ibn Battuta and the Excitement of the Unfamiliar

Ibn Battuta arrived in Delhi in the fourteenth century, at a time when the Indian subcontinent was part of a vast global network of communication stretching from China in the east to north-west Africa and Europe in the west. He himself had travelled extensively through these lands, visiting sacred shrines, spending time with learned men and rulers, often serving as a qazi (judge), and enjoying the cosmopolitan culture of urban centres where people speaking Arabic, Persian, Turkish and other languages shared ideas, information and anecdotes. These stories included accounts of men noted for their piety, kings who could be both cruel and generous, and the lives of ordinary men and women. Anything unfamiliar was particularly highlighted to ensure the listener or reader was suitably impressed by accounts of distant yet accessible worlds.

The coconut and the paan

Some of the best examples of Ibn Battuta’s strategies of representation are evident in how he described the coconut and the paan — two kinds of plant produce completely unfamiliar to his audience.

The paan

Ibn Battuta described the betel as a tree cultivated in the same manner as the grape-vine. The betel has no fruit and is grown only for its leaves. The manner of its use is that before eating it, one takes areca nut, which is like a nutmeg but broken into small pellets, places these in the mouth and chews them. Then he takes the leaves of betel, puts a little chalk on them, and masticates them along with the betel.

The coconut

Ibn Battuta described the coconut tree as among the most peculiar trees in kind and most astonishing in habit. They look exactly like date-palms, except that one produces nuts as its fruits and the other produces dates. The nut of a coconut tree resembles a man’s head, for in it are what look like two eyes and a mouth, and the inside of it when it is green looks like the brain, and attached to it is a fibre which looks like hair. They make from this fibre cords with which they sew up ships instead of using iron nails, and they also make cables for vessels from it.

Ibn Battuta and Indian cities

Ibn Battuta found cities in the subcontinent full of exciting opportunities for those who had the necessary drive, resources and skills. They were densely populated and prosperous, except for occasional disruptions caused by wars and invasions. Most cities had crowded streets and bright, colourful markets stacked with a wide variety of goods.

Delhi

Ibn Battuta described Delhi as a vast city with a great population, the largest in India. He noted the following architectural features:

• The rampart round the city was without parallel, with a wall eleven cubits wide.
• Inside the rampart were houses for the night sentry and gate-keepers, as well as store-houses for edibles, magazines, ammunition, ballistas and siege machines.
• Grains stored in the ramparts could last for a long time without rotting.
• Horsemen and infantrymen could move from one end of the city to another inside the rampart.
• The rampart was pierced by windows that opened on the side of the city, through which light entered.
• The lower part of the rampart was built of stone; the upper part of bricks.
• It had many towers close to one another.
• There were twenty-eight gates (called darwaza), of which the Budaun darwaza was the greatest.
• Inside the Mandwi darwaza there was a grain market; adjacent to the Gul darwaza there was an orchard.
• The city had a fine cemetery with graves that had domes over them, or at least an arch. Flowers such as tuberose, jasmine and wild rose were sown there and blossomed in all seasons.

Daulatabad

Daulatabad (in Maharashtra) was no less than Delhi and easily rivalled it in size. Ibn Battuta described a market place for male and female singers, known as Tarababad, which was one of the greatest and most beautiful bazaars. It had numerous shops, each with a door leading into the house of the owner. The shops were decorated with carpets, and at the centre of a shop there was a swing on which sat the female singer, decked with all kinds of finery, with her female attendants swinging her. In the middle of the market place stood a large cupola, carpeted and decorated, where the chief of the musicians took his place every Thursday after dawn prayers, accompanied by his servants and slaves. Female singers came in successive crowds, sang before him and danced until dusk. In this bazaar there were mosques for offering prayers. Even some Hindu and Muslim rulers would alight at the cupola every time they passed by, and the female singers would sing before them.

Bazaars and prosperity

Bazaars were not only places of economic transactions but also the hub of social and cultural activities. Most bazaars had a mosque and a temple, and in some, spaces were marked for public performances by dancers, musicians and singers. While Ibn Battuta was not particularly concerned with explaining the prosperity of towns, historians have used his account to suggest that towns derived a significant portion of their wealth through the appropriation of surplus from villages.

Ibn Battuta found Indian agriculture very productive because of the fertility of the soil, which allowed farmers to cultivate two crops a year. He also noted that the subcontinent was well integrated with inter-Asian networks of trade and commerce, with Indian manufactures being in great demand in both West Asia and Southeast Asia, fetching huge profits for artisans and merchants. Indian textiles, particularly cotton cloth, fine muslins, silks, brocade and satin, were in great demand. Certain varieties of fine muslin were so expensive that they could be worn only by the nobles and the very rich.

A unique system of communication

The state evidently took special measures to encourage merchants. Almost all trade routes were well supplied with inns and guest houses. Ibn Battuta was amazed by the efficiency of the postal system, which allowed merchants to not only send information and remit credit across long distances, but also to dispatch goods required at short notice. The postal system was so efficient that while it took fifty days to reach Delhi from Sind, the news reports of spies would reach the Sultan through the postal system in just five days.

The two kinds of postal system

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