You're Dead to Me - Ibn Battuta

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

Greg Jenner is joined by Prof Amira Bennison and Nabil Abdulrashid in medieval Morocco to meet the globetrotter Ibn Battuta. This 14th-century traveller covered a mind-boggling 73,000 miles and is the author of arguably one of the world’s most famous travel logs.You’re Dead To Me is a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. Research by Jon Mason Written by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner with Jon Mason Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Max Bower

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. All day long. Taxes extra at participating Wendy's until May 5th. Terms and conditions apply. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner. I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. I was the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. And today we are packing our bags and fixing our eyes on the horizon to follow in the footsteps of globetrotting medieval Moroccan traveller Ibn Batuta. And joining me on this epic journey are two very special guests. In History Corner, she's Professor in the History and Culture of the Maghrib in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the

University of Cambridge. She's written extensively on the Islamic Middle East, Africa and Spain. She's appeared in numerous teleprogrammes and is a regular contributor to BBC In Our Time. It's Professor Amira Benison. Welcome, Amira. Hello. It's a great pleasure to be here. Ibn Battuta is one of those heroes who I've studied for many years and followed in his footsteps from time to time so it's really great to be here to talk about him today. Amazing and in Comedy Corner he's an award-winning comedian, writer, presenter and actor. He shot to fame as finalist in the 2020 series of Britain's Got Talent and since then you'd have seen him all over the place on Live

at the Apollo, ITV's stand-up sketch show and even cooking a tasty treat on BBC's Celebrity Masterchef. It's the fantastic Nabil Abdul-Rashid. Welcome, Nabil. Marhaba. It's nice to be here. Yeah, looking forward to talking about, yeah, another African that travelled, was meant to come back quickly, and kind of went on a detour. So, yeah, very familiar story for me. so i look forward to discussing it i wanted to ask do you like history and also do you know this this subject clearly you do know a bit about ibn batuta no no i mean like not like a mirror i mean a mirror seems but i know a bit because um

you know i'm nigerian i'm a muslim and i follow the maliki school of thought, which is most likely, I believe, what Ibn Battuta was a Talib ul-Ilm in. He was a qualified judge under Islamic law, and I believe he would have followed the Maliki school of thought, because that's what's prevalent across North and West Africa. I'm sure our historian will correct me if I'm wrong. No, no, you're right, you're right. Ah, ex-master sport, ba-la-la-la. Sorry. But yeah, there's a lot of cultural similarities between North Africans and West Africans just because of the school of thought of Islam that we follow.

So yeah, that's Ibn Battuta and people like him and Mansa Musa, people are really, they're like tanned Marco Polos. Well, more tanned Marco Polos. I'm going to shut up now. That's amazing. I'm so glad to have, I've got it set up now. That's amazing. I'm so glad to have you. We've got two experts on the podcast today.

Fantastic. So, what do you know? All right, so now it's time for the first segment of the podcast. It's called the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a guess at what our lovely listeners will know about today's subject. This is why I have a guest. Our lovely listeners will know about today's subject. And I'm not sure you'll know as much as Nabil,

because Ibn Battuta doesn't really get taught on the UK curriculum. There was a lavish docudrama movie in 2009, narrated by Sir Ben Kingsley, called A Journey to Mecca. But he's not had the Hollywood sweeping epic treatment. And really, they're sort of missing out on that, because it's an extraordinary life. This is a man we're talking about who traveled well 73 000 miles in the 14th century which is just mind-boggling so um let's do a podcast and find out how he did this so amira firstly we can't we can't do all of his travels in this podcast so we're going to be focusing on just his sub-Saharan African journeys.

But where did he go to, just in terms of the checklist? Basically, he started off from Tangier, where he was born, travelled across North Africa on the caravan route. He went southwards through Egypt to get a ferry to Mecca and Medina. He took a quick tour around Syria, then he nipped off down the coast of East Africa. Then he came back to the Arabian Peninsula, wandered around a bit more, then he shot up into Syria again, headed off towards Iran and Iraq, ended up going through Asia Minor, what's now Turkey, Constantinople, through Central Asia by a somewhat circuitous route

to India. He was clearly exhausted by that time. So he stayed in India for 10 years. Then he was meant to go to China on behalf of an Indian ruler. Something went wrong, a shipwreck, if I recall rightly. So he didn't get that far in China, zipped off to the Maldives for a bit. Then he was back. I'm not even sure where he was after that, to be completely honest. But he probably went through Mecca a couple more times. Eventually, he was back in Morocco, nipped across the Strait of Gibraltar to Granada, and then made his final big African journey down to West Africa. And because no one else has really described these parts of Africa at this period, those parts of his travels are really, really valuable.

And those are the ones we're going to concentrate on today. I'm exhausted just hearing that. Lucky hell, man. That guy travels like my wife goes shopping. She just tells me she's going to one place then before I know it, yeah that's goodness. Can you imagine the carbon footprint he would have if he existed now? That guy probably put holes in the ozone layer then. That is a lot of traveling. Yeah it really is isn't it? I mean 73,000 miles is just astonishing.

OK, so today we're going to shimmy past an awful lot of that. I suppose before we do that, we do need to hear a bit about his youth, I suppose, his upbringing. Amira, what's his background? What's his childhood like? Is he wealthy? Is he well-educated? Yeah, he's kind of a middle class boy, basically. He's born in Tangier in 1304. He comes from a fairly ordinary, well-educated family of religious scholars. His actual name was Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Lawati. And the Lawati shows us that he came from a Berber tribe.

And so it was an Arabic-speaking family, but he's actually of indigenous North African ancestry. Was he an Amazigh? Yes and no. Yes and no? Yes and no, just to complicate things. I mean, Amazigh is a modern term for what used to be called Berber, the indigenous peoples of North Africa. But the problem is that in Ibn Battuta's time, the word Amazigh wasn't used. And all the peoples of North Africa didn't think they were one people.

He thinks he's from the Lawata tribe. He's Lawati. He's not Amazigh. I mean, that's the complicated thing in North Africa. In modern times, we think in terms of national groups. So basically, he was a little posh boy. Yeah, I don't think he was necessarily that posh. I mean, he could afford to travel around the world.

Let's just say he worked his way. He worked his way. On his gap year. His gap life, I think you'd have to call it. And so he is going to sort of grow up educated and a learned man. But is traveling normal? He's quite normal in that he wants to travel. He wants to go on pilgrimage.

So it's absolutely normal for a young scholar to go elsewhere to learn. They want to experience something else. And Moroccans in particular wanted to go to Central Islamic lands because they wanted to go to big intellectual centres like Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Mecca and Medina to study with famous scholars. And so how old is he when he goes on his first journey, Amira? Is his first sort of big trip when he's off on pilgrimage to Mecca? Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's a very, it's a justifiable reason to go.

You know, your parents aren't going to kick up a fuss if you say you're going on pilgrimage and question your intentions. So he was about 21, 13, 25, he sets off to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca. And that would take even the fastest person over a year maybe two years to complete when you're thinking about the distance and the fact that you're actually basically walking he didn't take a ship he went by the caravan route I mean you have to admire his persistence on occasion where he fell ill, there was a war, there was a storm. So, I mean, he was constantly delayed, but he still just kept on going and just visited other places when he couldn't actually get directly to Mecca and Medina. And Nabil, you've mentioned the fact

that he's cushy. How do you think he's supporting himself? Do you think he's got a job? I mean, you know, he's a learned man. And then the Islamic world of that time, and even now, you know, having knowledge, you know, actually, in contrast to now, back then, having knowledge was a good thing, you know. So, you know, I think he was a qualified qadi. So he probably would be able to teach, judge and do stuff in the countries where he would learn. And I'm sure he was educated in Arabic, which was like the lingua franca. Well, lingua arabia, lingua franca of the Muslim world at the time.

And also he was fascinated by other cultures from what I remember, because I'm not going to lie, I didn't do much preparing for this. But from what I remember because I'm not gonna lie I didn't do much preparing for this but from what I remember he studied a lot but then he probably also had some other manual skills because you know back then you weren't just a scholar you probably had some really physical stuff that you could do repairing cars fixing the wi-fi I feel like Nabil knows this story better than I do I was gonna say he might know as well as I do like maybe we should just hand over like Nabil knows the story better than I do. I was going to say he might know it as well as I do. Like maybe we should just hand over to Nabil. Oh, stop it. He's traveling for a long time and Nabil's absolutely right. You know, as an Islamic scholar, a legal scholar, he would have been able to find small jobs.

I would just say he's not a qualified Qadi, actually. He like acts as if he is. And he gets appointed as a qadi kind of fringe areas where they don't know any better but he is not very highly qualified so he was a posh boy lagging his way into positions of authority let's just say he made the most of the skill set he had i mean a lot of the people who've worked on Ibn Battuta have mentioned that he doesn't seem to have spent a lot of time in lectures. And he doesn't list his eminent teachers from Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad. I was picturing someone who's sort of wise and learned, interested in law,

interested in theology, and he is. But he's also, having read his book this week he's quite horny it's the word i'm gonna go with uh in a respectful way he's not he's not a perv but like he's quite he's quite sexual isn't he amira well yes i mean i'm trying to like conceptualize what horny in a respectful way actually might mean. I mean, he clearly... She was virile. Virile, that's a nice word for it. Very good. He liked women. But I mean, I think one has to separate learning from being ascetic.

You know, he's not a hermit. He's a religious scholar. Islamic religious scholars live full lives. They got married. So the fact that he enjoyed the company of women and married is it doesn't isn't necessarily contradictory i mean he did get married a lot and divorced a lot i mean he seems to have sort of had a woman in every port so to speak right and he had a lot of kids as well um so he had um concubines

so enslaved women at some stages of his journey as well as wives you get the impression he likes women one thing i would say though is you know we don't hear very much about them in the in the his travelogue but that was normal for the time muslim men didn't talk about their women it would have been disrespectful so maybe that's where the respect comes in because he was also an ardent feminist i am loving this guy well i don't think he was actually but i think he may have cared for them more than you realize from the pages of his book because that wouldn't have been his natural focus. Yeah he's got we think possibly 10 wives there's one point where he's got four wives simultaneously. I mean he also writes about

pregnancy he writes about aphrodisiac foods to get people in the mood when he goes to India he talks about the inhabitants of Dalat Abad the tribe of the Mahata whose women whose women God has endowed with special beauty, particularly in their noses and eyebrows. They have a deliciousness and a knowledge of erotic movements beyond that of other women. So he's definitely he's definitely a fan of the ladies. I think we can put it knowledge of erotic movements. I'm guessing that if he was on Instagram, he's probably following a lot of Russian models. That's what I'm thinking. I don't know. He's definitely, I mean, let's turn our attention to really what the focus of today's podcast is about.

So we're going to look at two major journeys he does through sub-Saharan Africa. But journey number one is when he's really young, Amira. It's only a year or so after his hajj to Mecca, when he's in his early 20s. Can you talk us through this journey? The chronology is a little bit vague. He may have well been in his late 20s. Scholars vary between 1328 and 1331 for the start date. He travels south by boat on the Red Sea, but then he ends up zigzagging backwards and forwards between the Arabian and African coasts of the Red Sea due to conflicts and storms.

As I've already mentioned, this is one of those phases where things aren't quite going according to plan. He eventually ended up in Aden in modern Yemen. It's on the tip of Arabia. And it's likely that he planned to go to India at that point. But the monsoon winds were against him. So he was speaking to people around the port. Somebody said, oh, there's a ship

going off to East Africa. So he's kind of like, why not? So he leaps on the boat and sails instead for East Africa. He's really spontaneous, isn't he? He's just like, yeah, I was going to India, but I and sails instead for East Africa. He's really spontaneous, isn't he? He's just like, yeah, I was going to India, but I'm just going to go to Africa. Yeah, that sounds fun.

Yeah, so he arrives in Zaila, I think in Somalia or what we'd now call Somalia. He's not too impressed on arrival. There's a fairly strong aroma that greets him, which is a combination of butchered camel and fish. Not quite your ideal glade plug-in. But where does he go next, Amira? I think one of the reasons he's so down on Zela is because the population of Shii, and he's Sunni, and, you know, they have fish and camel all the way down the coast. I mean, I can't really understand why this place is particularly smelly,

but he calls the population Rafidi uh which is a rude way of saying she so i think he put there were probably other things he didn't like about zayla as well so he quickly leaves i mean we can't make those assumptions if he never said so maybe he just didn't like camel i don't i mean I like fish and I've had camel, but fish and camel? That's like a stink medley. I mean, have you ever combined fish and camel? Okay.

So where next then? Yeah, he sails down the coast for about a fortnight to Mogadishu. It's a very big port. And he really likes the way visitors are welcomed there that all these small ships come out with boys on board with meals so these boys will go up to different merchants and give them the meal and then the merchant will stay with that family but it's not just generosity, actually, because the merchant, who's the host, then is kind of in charge of the dealings of the merchant, who's the visitor. So he gets involved in the buying and selling and he takes a cut. But Ibn Battuta is of course not a merchant. So when the boys realize he's not selling, they just yell that he's for the qadi,

that you know, the judge has to take care of him and the religious scholars have to take care of him because that's what he is. So he gets received by the judge of Mogadishu and introduced to the ruler. So he feels he's being treated properly. And he talks a lot about the food, too. He's quite a fan of the food. What's on the menu for the people of Mogadishu? They have got lots of rice and then they seem to make a sauce or a paste to go on top of it. Either it's from fish or it's from meat or vegetables. And then they have lots of nice condiments.

And he makes a point that, you know, they have their rice and meat, but then they like to have salty foods with it, which would make sense in the climate, because if you're sweating a lot, you need to replace the salt. So they have mango pickles and lemon in sour milk, and they're cooking their bananas. It says in milk, it may actually have been coconut milk. But anyway, so he thinks the menu's pretty tasty when he gets to Mogadishu I've had the coconut milk when I was in Tanzania so but it wasn't banana it was plantain which looks like a banana but it's much bigger and uh yeah it's good for you man and yeah see see all they had

they had one job don't combine the damn fish and camel. That's all they had to do. You can see the man clearly is a simple man. Very slight interruption. Question for Amira. Did he comment on any of the erotic movements of the women of Mogadishu? This is very important. I want to know.

No. In Mogadishu, he was focused on the food. He says nothing about the women of Mogadishu that's very disappointing maybe well he was too busy eating his rice and fish he was too stuffed for erotic movements yeah wasn't the time wasn't the time he does say that the people of Mogadishu are quite ample in size and that they eat as much as a group of Moroccans would eat at every meal. Ah, OK. So he's staying with Islamic scholars. He's been given this sort of the sultan's hospitality. He's given fresh Egyptian clothes, Egyptian cotton.

He's witnessing local judges you know judging local cases from local people but he doesn't stay long he's off two weeks later bye off he goes again so now he's off to uh is it mombasa uh yeah that's right uh he likes mombasa uh he says it's got lots of bananas other trees, but has to import everything else, even grain. A lot of commentators have thought this is probably not 100% correct. They probably did have a bit more agriculture on the island. And he also talks about their wood built mosques. And again, archaeology suggests that they weren't all built of wood, but perhaps what he's remembering is nicely carved facings of wood and decorative wood elements. And then he goes on to Kilwa, which is about 200 miles south of modern Dar es Salaam.

And it's small now, but back then it was a really thriving and important port town among the East African port cities. Yeah, and he loves it, doesn't he? He describes it as amongst the most beautiful of cities, the most elegantly built. All of it is wood. The ceilings of the houses are made of reeds. He's a fan of Kilwa. He's like, yeah, this place is nice. So what else is he up to when he's in Kilwa?

How is he paying his way, I suppose I'm asking? He's not actually in these East African cities for a very long time. so he kind of talks about himself as coming from arabia and presents himself as maybe a bit more of an arab than he actually is but i think he's mainly just given things while he's in these different east african towns he really likes kilwa um he also says it rains a lot there. I mean, he's in much more tropical regions now, which are much more different to the arid environment where he grew up. So this is probably one of the more different places for him that he's

encountering for the first time. And he talks about the very dark skin of many of the inhabitants of Kilwa. And he talks about facial scarring, which was probably a social or ritual or tribal mark. I mean, he doesn't really understand it. And he compares it to markings he sees later on his West African journey. But scarification is something that obviously anthropologists and sociologists know about. But for Ibn Battuta, he doesn't really understand what he's seeing. So he just sort of mentions it. Right. And he's also a big admirer of the sultan, the ruler in this particular province. He thinks he's a sort of really solid bloke.

He's, you know, looking after the poor. He says that the sultan's very committed to jihad, so raiding against non-Muslims of the interior. As you do. As one does. Well, I mean, they were also trading a lot with the interior, sometimes conflict and raiding, sometimes trading. But he is also very generous to this group called the Fakirs. And the word Fakir does mean poor. But in this context, we're talking here about those who choose to be poor, the mendicants, mystics. Sufis.

Sufis, exactly. So mystics who follow one of the various different paths of Islamic mysticism or Sufism. So they've chosen poverty as a way of life. And therefore, it's particularly meritorious if a ruler makes a donation so that the anecdote about this sultan giving a Yemeni fakir his outfit is not just about being nice to the homeless guy. So it's sort of a spiritual act, not simply an act of material generosity. Okay. Yeah, he writes about him very fondly. And he does some more traipsing around.

He goes back to the South Arabian coast, Safar, heads back to Mecca. That's sort of the end of his first sub-Saharan African journey. And that's him as a young man. Now we're going to do him doing his saga cruise, where he's a sort of middle-aged,

slightly older man in his 40s. The Esquire he is. Yeah. Yeah. He's reading Waitrose Food magazine. He's, you know, he's in a different stage of life. And so the second voyage, the second journey, is a lot later in his life.

He's seen a huge amount by this point. But this is really fascinating to us because now he's going to go towards West Africa, I believe, towards Mali. So can you talk us through this story, Amira? Yeah, sure. In some ways, this is a more predictable journey for a Moroccan. Moroccans went backwards and forwards over the Sahara quite regularly because it was a well-established trade route. And in 1352, he set off south along one of the caravan routes to West Africa. So he starts in Sijilmasa, which is in southern Morocco, and then goes across the desert, the Sahara. And then he moved on to the empire of West Africa at that time, which was the empire of Mali.

And Mali, of course, we've talked, we've done a podcast previously about Mansa Musa, who had been the previous king. So Mansa Musa has died by the time that Ibn Battuta has shown up. So it is the next Malian sultan who is ruling, who is Suleiman, I think. And yeah, he's going over land to get there, which, I mean, how long do you think it takes to cross the Sahara, Nabil, by camel in the 14th century? A few months. Yeah, yeah, it's two months at least.

It is terrifyingly dangerous. In my head, I'm thinking Timothee Chalamet and camels, but much more so. Amira, can you talk us through through how do you cross the Sahara? Can you talk us through the logistics of not dying in the desert? Yeah, it's not entirely straightforward. You have to have a guide. So the Sanharja tribes controlled the desert. And the critical thing was to have people with you who knew where the water holes were, and how much water water they had and where you should stop.

It was not entirely predictable, even for the tribesmen who knew the desert well, because of course, if you have a storm, the dunes can move. Chalamet! Yeah, sorry. And do like stargazing. And, you know, you had to be able to work out where you were in a number of different ways just to keep from dying in the desert so ibn batuta's caravan starts off from sigil masa and they have all these um sort of adventures i mean he says that he and his friends were sort of taking it easy and riding a little bit ahead of the caravan riding a little bit behind the caravan you know having a chat together until one guy went off in a sulk, got lost, and was never found.

Right. So that was that. They said, after that, we stayed with the rest of the caravan. Sure. And, you know, just to underline the point, they then found the body of someone only a mile from water, who had been a member of a separate caravan who'd got lost and dawdled and died. So, you know, the dangers were really underlined for them.

The last stage of the journey was particularly tricky. You got to somewhere called Tasarakhla, Bir al-Kasaib. And at that point, there really was no more water. So you had to get someone, a sort of a guide liaison chap called a tech chief to go to walata alert them to the caravan's arrival and get them to come out sort of four days journey from walata with food provisions so you could make the final bit of the journey and he notes that the tech chief they used half blind, but that he was actually the best tech sheaf. So it was just the man who knew the desert best.

So in a sense, he didn't operate purely by sight, by smell, by touch. He had his own GPS, basically. And he safely brought the caravan in to Wollata. Nabil, would you gamble your life on a tech chief who you hire, you've met for the first time, he's going to go in four days' time, hopefully bring you water and food? Nah, nah, man, nah, nah, no way. I mean, it sounds like something out of a film.

Nah, sorry, sorry. I mean, this guy had stuff to live for. Why would you? I mean, I guess if that person already had a reputation that preceded them, because like, oh, he's one with the desert and he knows like the back of his hand. I mean, if you think about it, well, what other options did he have? It's not like it was like he could cancel Uber and request another one. It's either that or you just stay in the desert and die so if you look at google maps now

and you look for el kaseb in fact we can show it to you right now nabil what can you see around it lots of nothing lots and lots and lots of of nothing yeah yeah that that's not somewhere anyone in their right mind want to get lost in that's There's nothing on a satellite photo. Literally the middle of nowhere. Okay, so he has crossed the desert, the terrifying Sahara Ibn Battuta and he arrives in

Walata, which is then in Mali. I think it's now in Mauritania. Surely he's thrilled to be there, Amira. Surely. After all that slog through the desert. Well, no. I think maybe he was feeling a bit tired a bit jaded after he's the riggers of the Sahara desert um right he seems a lot less forgiving than when he was a young man I mean you have to see him now as a middle-aged man maybe a bit more conservative um so he seems to make a lot more observations which suggest cultural misunderstanding in West Africa than he did in other places where he seems more like the young.

Wow, look at this. Look at that. Like excited. Here he seems a bit more. Oh, goodness. They have no idea how to do things properly. So he finds symbolic gestures like a gift of honeyed milk, simply poor hospitality. Symbolic gestures like a gift of honeyed milk, simply poor hospitality. He's like, you know, where's my rice and fish? You know, he expects more. And then he gets quite offended when he speaks to the representative of the emperor of Mali because he uses an intermediary. Right, a middleman. To do the speaking for the governor for the emperor himself but he probably took it in terms of um like in the iberian peninsula if you used a translator you were often just

kind of refusing to speak to someone directly and even though you understood okay so he takes offense at this and decides that it's it's contempt and that they have very bad manners and that they despise people from the North, the sort of the Mediterranean white population. Why do they always have to bring race into everything? Oh my god. The Marleyans didn't even

see colour. It sounds like Batuta here has a chip on his shoulder and maybe he should just pull himself up by the bootstraps instead of going up and pulling the race card. And yeah, you know, quite possibly his old age has caught up with him. And, you know, maybe he's just not as trending as he was before. You know, we've seen it happen to influencers

where they're not quite as popping as they used to be so they don't get the special treatment. I bet now he was wishing for some fish and camel. It's just one of those things. Didn't have the hype he used to have. That's all it was. To be fair, I've reached that age now where every morning when I wake up, I'm not sure what part of my body is going to hurt. Now, you add in the rigours of travel, of course, you're going to become a bit moody.

So he stays for 50 days before deciding to visit the capital city, which he calls Mali. There's also a really fun story. I love this story. So he's travelling by a river. Now, Bill, he calls it the Nile. It wasn't the Nile. It was probably the river Niger. He goes down to the bank to urinate.

And he realises there's a guy, one of the locals, standing weirdly close, just sort of hovering there in between him and the river and he's like, what are you doing? And he says, he's astonished at this man's bad manners and lack of shame. Nabil, do you want to guess what this man was actually doing standing so close? Was he checking if what they say is true? Was he... If you know what I meant, then you're just as messed up as me. I have absolutely no idea what you meant. There you go.

Integrity preserved, Amira. I've seen this happen at Comedy Club, you know, so many times. If you stand too close, what are you looking at? Clearly, Ibn Battuta is worried that the guy is, yeah, getting too close to sort of check out his junk, but actually what the guy was doing was protecting him from a crocodile

that was lurking in the water, and the guy was like, I'll just stand here then, because otherwise this guy's getting eaten. So it's a nice act. You know, he's protecting his buddy. So there we go. Safe from crocodile attacks and further embarrassment, Ibn Battuta arrives in the Malian capital, whatever it was called, in June 1352.

And just like Mogadishu, he's given hospitality amongst the visiting scholars. He's making a point of listing the names of the scholars, Amira we get a sort of checklist of who's in town which is quite nice I guess as historians it's exciting and he's really taken with the court of Mansa Suleiman the successor to Mansa Musa at no point has any sort of like cost-cutting measures come in they they've committed to the bling life haven't they they, Amira? Well, yes, they have. But if you've got a lot of something, then using a lot of it is not as blingy as if you didn't have so much, if you see what I mean.

I mean, they've got lots of gold. So yeah, I mean, it's a funny combination because the buildings are quite simple in one way, but then they're like very lavishly decorated so like the the Mansa of Mali Mansa Suleiman held his audiences in a you know this richly decorated porch outside his palace that had wooden arches but they were covered in silver and gold plate they've got embroidered flags and bugles and drums and all sorts. The mansar himself wears a fine red robe for these audiences, and it might tend towards purple. You know, the Roman emperors always

wore Tyrian purple. So he's wearing a sort of royal colour. It was meant to come from somewhere in the Mediterranean. It's called rumi or Roman cloth, which meant that it might have been made in the Byzantine Empire, in Northern Christian kingdoms, or even the Italian city states. But anyway, the point is there's trade going on. They can import this fine material from the Northern Mediterranean and the emperor wears it for his audiences. And then of course, you have all the people who crowd for the audience. So, you know, you have the Mansa himself, you have his griot, his bard, who speaks for him as a bard and a poet and an interpreter, but also preserves the history of the dynasty, which in this case is the

Keita dynasty of Mali. Then you have officials, military men, all of them with their entourages, everyone dressed up to the nines with silver and gold tips on their weapons. So it's all very lavish. And then lots of women as well. Sometimes Mansa Suleiman's wives and his concubines, maybe about 100, according to Ibn Battuta, turn up, sing the Mansa's praises. So it's a big party. So like they all turned up, dressed to the nines, showing off their bling.

That just sounds like a night out in Brixton or Croydon, man. The exact same thing. So he's in the lap of luxury. But Ibn Battuta, he's still got the grumps. He gets food poisoning. Nabil, he's ill for two months. He feels slightly ignored. And he's told, for example, that there's a gift waiting for him.

And he sort of rushes to go and open it. And what do you think he's expecting, Nabil? A PlayStation 5. That's what I would have wanted. He probably wanted like a cape or a robe or some perfume you know maybe a nice young malian lady that's well aware of the latest erotic movements by the way that's why i'm waiting for him here to tell us maybe a cloak yeah you're right yeah you're right now there's a quote he says. He says, I stood up thinking there were robes of honour, things of value.

But behold, instead were three circular pieces of bread, a beef fried in butter, a calabash of sour milk. And when I saw them, I laughed and I wondered at their weakness of mind and their magnifying of the insignificant. It's quite a scathing burn, isn't it? He's like, where's my cloak? This guy used to write for Chortle. He's doing gig reviews on a Friday night. Interrupt. Okay, so we've just heard Ibn Battuta

was expecting robes, glorious things. He was absolutely gutted. What do you think he does about this, Nabil? How do you think he reacts to this? Throws it to the floor and demands real gifts. He's not far off. He demands to speak to the manager. He says,

I'm going to go and talk to the emperor and I'm going to say this to his face. Where's my proper gifts? And how do you think Mansa Suleiman responds? Yeah, there's one thing you don't do as an African, you don't insult him in his house. So I'm guessing there was a dungeon somewhere. I'm guessing there was some pain-assisted attitude adjustment

followed by a brief stint in a dungeon somewhere. Luckily, that doesn't happen. The emperor, actually, in some ways it's worse the emperor just goes sorry who are you again just absolutely just oh dead brutal yeah this game that's how you put down the heckler that's how you yeah i've never heard of you what what are you doing here yeah so um that is a burn but suliman in fairness to him does sort of saying all right okay sorry you wanted something better he gives him a house gives him some money so ibn batuta is he cheers up because he gets his stuff that he wants but amira in in all seriousness

this this is an interesting moment because we see sort of more of a moralising element in Ibn Battuta's attitudes towards Malian culture. I don't know, he's got opinions, hasn't he? He kind of decides he's going to list the pros and cons of Malian society. So he thinks they're very pious. They adhere to Islamic law pretty well. But there are other ways in which he thinks they really contravene Islamic rules. He doesn't kind of get that there are lots of local customs, which are blended with Islam. So some of the things he really objects to are the fact that the Malians abase themselves before the Mansa. He feels that a Muslim should only abase before God. So he finds it really off-putting

that the Malians put on ripped clothes and grovel on the floor before the mansa and that they throw dust over themselves after they've spoken to him and he's responded. He also doesn't like the performances of the griots. He doesn't like them putting on animal costumes and he doesn't see the ritual significance of the recitation of dynastic genealogies and stories by griots he's also a bit put off by the fact that they eat some things that are not really considered halal they might have a a nibble of dog or donkey but on the other other hand, he thinks, you know, he's very impressed by the way they educate their children and insist that young men in particular learn the Quran and say their prayers properly. So it's kind of a bit mixed. The roles of women he also has quite strong

views on. I mean, we know he's a lover of the ladies, but he also feels like maybe they should not be behaving in the same way that he's seeing in front of him you know we've already heard that he likes women but he clearly thinks they have their place so he does talk about the fact that the malian queen has quite an important position and he doesn't seem to be too put off by that but he was very upset when he was with the Masufa judge of Walata. And he found his wife chatting with another man. And he sort of questioned the judge about this and said, you know, why are you allowing your wife to chat with this guy in your house? your house. And the judge said, well, we don't have the same issue with our women having male friends as you guys do. And Ibn Battuta was very, very offended and refused to ever visit the judge

again. Now, most people say that's because he was a bit of a prig. But I think it was actually the implication underlying that comment that West African women can be trusted to have a friendship with a man and North African women really can't. And must be chaperone. I mean, you can take it either way. You can take it in a number of different ways. How do you take it, Mira? How do you take it? How do I personally take it? Well, you know, I suppose I'm on the side of the Cardi of Wallata. Ibn Battus is very uncomfortable when he comes across women in environments where he doesn't expect to find women, even though he likes them. But I do think he sometimes reports these stories in a kind of slightly salacious titillating way. And this is like earlier geography writing as

well. When you recount another culture, you want to say a few titillating things about the ladies in that area, their exotic dance moves, for instance. So I think he's putting it in for that reason. But he can't appear to like it too much because he wants to maintain his own reputation as a decent chap. So in a way, he has to say he doesn't like all this kind of thing but he still puts it in so he spent eight months at the malian capital which is quite a long time by his standards they must have done something right if he stayed there for that long though yeah i mean that's quite good by you know it's usually he's in for two weeks and he's gone so that's pretty good isn't it but so he's off off to gao um at one point he describes seeing horses of the nile uh which we can

translate as hippopotamuses, which is quite nice. But he's getting homesick by this point, isn't he? He's associating sort of nostalgic feelings, feelings perhaps of death and mortality. And he encounters someone who has an Islamic text that he can read and he's overjoyed to be able to read Arabic. And so he's feeling a little bit like he's travelled too much, I think. So he heads home. But there is a final surprise in store, Amira, isn't there? It's more an opportunity, I'd say.

I mean, if you want to imagine his trip geographically, it's like a big circle. So he's beginning to loop back at this point. And then he says he got a message that the Sultan of Morocco, Abu Inan, had summoned him to come back to Morocco immediately. Was he on an official trip? How on earth would Abu Inan have known where on earth he was? How could he have got a message to him? So we don't really know whether this did or didn't happen or whether it was a more general message to Moroccan traders. Who knows? Anyway, he takes it as a personal invitation

to quickly go home. He goes to the oasis of Tourette and then he carries on to Soudjoumassa again and then crosses the Atlas Mountains in winter, which he describes as one of the most difficult journeys he's ever taken. I mean, it's snowing, it's freezing cold. I mean, it's bad enough on the bus these days. And just to walk over the snowy mountains with no proper roads or pathways, it must have been gruelling. But anyway, he got back to Fez in Morocco in what would equivalent to January 1354. Yeah. So, I mean, he's mountain climbing. He's been in the desert.

It's amazing he hasn't died. It's crocodiles and all sorts and hippos. And I mean, what a dude. So we've we've discussed his sub-Saharan African jaunts today, Nabil. But I just wanted to ask you quickly, if he had visited the countries today in terms of their modern territories, how many countries would Ibn Battuta have visited? What, in total? Or just based on what we discussed? No, in total in his entire life.

64? That's a good guess. We think it's a 40. Because a lot of African states that he would have crossed through have split. So like, for example, where the Somalis are. True. There's Somali, there's Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia, Somalipontland.

So they split. Zanzibar at one point was part of Tanzania. It was Komoro. So, you know, then you look at all the Guineas, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal splits to Gambia, Senegambia. Nigeria might be split by the end of this year. So then there's the Middle East, which, as we know, there's been a lot of division, thanks to you guys. So 40 countries is the current number we tend to use as historians, which is incredible. Yeah. 40 countries is the current number we tend to use as historians, which is incredible.

So 73,000 miles, 40 countries. And he gets back home and he's going to write his book. So he sets his adventures down in a book colloquially known as The Travels of Ibn Battuta. But the official title, I think, is A Gift to the Onlookers Concerning the Curiosities of the Cities and Wonders of the Journeys. Catchy. What's your memoir going to be called at the end of your career nabil i said what i said you stand by it nice but i mean i say he writes his book actually he's not going to do the typing here amira he's not even going to do the actual hard work really he's just going to sort of tell some stories and then someone else is going to do the actual hard work, really. He's just going to sort of tell some stories and then someone else is going to do it, right? Yeah, someone else had to sharpen their quill pen and dip it in the ink. And that was someone called Ibn Jizay, who was a younger scholar from Fars, who Ibn Battuta had probably met while he was in Granada. And he was part of the group of well-trained scribes. So Ibn Battuta's dictating all this from memory.

And Ibn Jazay gets it all down, tidies it up, puts it in nice Arabic literary form and makes it into Did he have a word cart back then? I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I mean, so it becomes what's called a rihla which is an account of a travel normally the pilgrimage but also these other journeys people did seeking knowledge which is kind of expanded in Ibn Battuta's case to this massive set of journeys over a lifetime when you consider this is being done in the 1350s, a couple of years after he got back from West Africa, you can see that there's quite a large chance that some elements may have been exaggerated, some of it may be a little bit made up. So he might have got a bit confused and muddled

if he's talking about something that happened like 30 years previously so yeah it's not a hundred percent accurate probably and some of his peers were a bit like yeah he's making it up haters yeah exactly hate i mean they you know he's been on the road for all those years i mean it's just incredible does he sort of go out in a blaze of glory this was the time of the Black Death when he came back. So we're talking 1347, 1348. So when he comes home, he's coming back to a different world, in a sense, than the one he left. And everybody's living through the epidemic,

where we all understand what pandemics are like now. And this was a much worse one. So a traumatic time. So I think he's probably quite pleased that he can just retire to a job in a small Moroccan town where he does finally become a Qadi. And spends, you know, a quiet retirement hearing legal cases in a nice rural area of Morocco where he eventually dies, probably around 1369. How many wives did he have at the time? Well, we don't know because, again, he was being very discreet about the number of wives he had at that moment.

Yeah, we think maybe 10 in total in his life, but at that point we're not sure. But, yeah, it's an extraordinary life, isn't it, Nabil? I mean, this is a guy who saw the world. Yeah, you know, if he had a passport, can you imagine how many stamps that would have? Yeah, absolutely terrifying number of stamps. The Nuance Window! Okay, well, it's time now for the Nuance Window. This is where Nabil and I sit back in the shade

and we let Amira talk uninterrupted for two minutes about something we need to know about Ibn Battuta. So I'm going to get my stopwatch up and Professor Amira, take it away, please. OK, well, I suppose the first thing I want to say about Ibn Battuta is that he is an exceptional man and that his travels are really amazing. But to travel a lot in this period was not that unusual he kept on meeting people he knew you know really bizarre like um he stays with somebody called al-bushri somewhere in west africa but he met his brother in china so that's a trading family which has siblings, you know, one in China, one in West Africa. And it's not a cause of great amazement. You know, everybody's like, Oh, yeah, I met so and so, who was a friend of so and so. And yeah, I saw so and so in Cairo, and then I saw his cousin in Delhi, and it's all completely

normal. So this idea of trading, traveling to learn, going on pilgrimage was really deeply embedded in the society of this time. And we haven't talked very much about mysticism, but there was also a lot of sort of smaller scale pilgrimage to go and visit the shrines of saints. And Ibn Battuta actually does quite a lot of that in his lifetime as well. The other thing I just wanted to briefly mention was that although we haven't heard much about women and their travel at this time, as I said Ibn Battuta sometimes has women with him but he also was in the caravan of an eminent woman from a prestigious family in Baghdad when she travelled from Mosul to Baghdad and he every now and then mentions a woman as one of the important people who are on pilgrimage in Mecca so although they're travelling

in lower numbers they are there and they are travelling too. Amazing two minutes on the dot perfect punctuality and Nabil you're applauding any thoughts on that? The fact that he had you know siblings and so on that were travelling too. But he's the one that's famous just shows nobody did it quite like him. You know what I mean? Often imitated, never duplicated, you know. Always player-headed. Man, like Ibn Battuta, bro.

Ibn B, fam. That's my guy. Do you know what I mean? If you can't help yourself but smile when you talk about someone's life it means they did something you know so his book is fascinating I've read parts of it

this week and it is genuinely really worth reading it's so interesting so what do you know now so it's time now for our quiz. This is the So What Do You Know Now? This is where Nabil will see how much he can remember. We've got ten questions for you. Are you feeling confident?

Are you a good quizzer? Not really. LAUGHTER All right, well, here we go. Question one. Where in North Africa was Ibn Battuta born in 1304? First? No, he wasn't.

He wasn't. He was... Further north. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Tangier. Tangier, yes, very good. Question two. Which religious pilgrimage was the purpose of his first excursion aged 21?

Hajj. Hajj is right. Question three. What smell does Ibn Battuta blame for why he doesn't like Zayla in modern Somalia? Yeah, fish and camel medley. Absolutely. Question four. In the Sahara Desert, who was a takshif and what was their job?

Takshif was supposed to be like your GPS. They take you to all the watering holes and help you not die. Exactly. Question five. Roughly how long would it have taken Ibn Battuta to cross the Sahara Desert? Two months. Yeah. Question six. What does Ibn Battuta describe as horses of the Nile? Hippos. It was hippos. Question seven. Ibn Battuta tried to go for a wee near the river, but he was weirded out by a man standing too close. What was that man doing? Following his grand-

I'm joking. He was protecting him from a crocodile. He was. Question eight. When Ibn Battuta arrived home to Morocco, his stories were recorded in which book? A book with a very, very long name. The Travels of Ibn Battuta

for the Benefits of Onlookers, which later got shortened to something else. Brilliantly done. Question nine. Do you remember who actually wrote the book? What was the name of the scholar who did the hard work? It was a young scholar he met

and his name was... Al-Jahis? Ibn Al-Jahis? Or J al-Jahis or Jaws. Really close. Ibn Jazai. Yeah. I'll give you half a mark for that. And question 10. Over 29 years, roughly how many miles did Ibn Battuta travel in his life? 72,000. It was. Yep. You've got nine and a half out of 10. Amazing score. Brilliantly done. Well done. I hope you've enjoyed that, Nabil. We really enjoyed hearing from you. It was a pleasure. It was a pleasure.

I learned loads. And listen, if you want to know more about Mali in the 1300s, you can listen to our episode on Mansa Musa, one of the richest men who ever lived. Extraordinary story, that one. If you want to hear about another famous author who did a spot of travel writing, you can check out our marvellous Mary Wollstonecraft episode.

You'll find them all on BBC Sounds. And remember, if you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with friends, subscribe on BBC Sounds to You're Dead to Me so you never miss an episode. But all that's left for me is to say a huge thank you to our guests. In History Corner from the University of Cambridge, we had the fantastic Professor Emira Bennison. Thank you, Emira.

Thank you very much. It's been lots of fun. It has been fun. And in Comedy Corner, we enjoyed the tremendous Nabil Abdul Rashid. Thank you, Nabil. Thanks, everybody. And lovely listener, join me next time as we embark on another journey across the far-flung deserts of historical comedy. But for now, I'm off to go and find someone else to do all the typing

while I dictate my memoirs. Bye! off to go and find someone else to do all the typing while I dictate my memoirs. Bye! You're Dead to Me was a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4. The research was by John Mason. This episode was written by Emma Neguse, John Mason and me, and produced by Emma Neguse and me. The assistant producer was Emmy Rose Price-Goodfellow, the project manager was Isla Matthews, and the audio producer was Max Bauer. The dumbest genre in entertainment, or the one that tells us the most about ourselves? Reality TV is not just a mirror of the world that we live in.

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