Ibn Battuta

I was born in the year 1304 in the country of Morocco where I studied Islamic law. In the year of 1325, I left Morocco for a pilgrimage to Mecca, traveling by caravan through the countries of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. After completing my hajj, instead of heading home, I decided to spend the next year visiting the great empires of Mesopotamia and Persia. After that I traveled through the Red Sea and down the African coast. By the year 1330 I decided to return to Mecca, but quickly set off for Delhi, since I learned that the sultanate offered rewards to foreign legal scholars such as me, where I arrived in 1333. I remained there for 8 years, learnt much of their culture, as I served as a qadi (judge). In the year of 1341, Muhammad ibn Tughluq, the sultan of Delhi, appointed me to head an embassy to China, but the ship along with the goods and diplomats present, which I had missed because I was on shore at a mosque praying. Over the next years I went around southern India, Ceylon, and the Maldive Islands, where I once again served as qadi. Then I went to China on my own in the year 1345, where I visited the port cities of Quanzhou and Guangzhou. I returned to my home country in 1349. Then in 1350, I visited the kingdom of Granada, then the Mali empire in 1353.