Depictions of the Mediterranean through the writings of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta : a comparative analysis

Abstract

The twelfth and fourteenth centuries were a time of great change in the Mediterranean, as many prominent dynasties rose to power and others collapsed or were showing signs of weakness and decline. The twelfth-century leading up to the Third Crusade was a time with the focus usually being the efforts of the Christian kings against the united Muslim front of Saladin. Meanwhile during the fourteenth-century many looked into the travelogue of the Venetian Marco Polo. However, this dissertation seeks a different approach, as these periods in history shall be viewed through the narratives of prominent Arab-Muslim travellers, Ibn Jubayr who travelled during the twelfth century, and Ibn Battuta who travelled during the fourteenth century. Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta provided a great deal of information in their travelogues which were used as the main primary sources for this work. However, it should be noted that these primary sources suffered from a series of discrepancies since both travelogues were written after the conclusion of their journeys, with the writings of Ibn Jubayr being more consistent than that of Ibn Battuta since Ibn Jubayr is thought to have carried with him a journal, whilst Ibn Battuta had his entire journey documented from memory. The main use of these travelogues was to follow the travels of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta to understand how the Mediterranean world of their time was depicted by Muslim travellers. This included their writings on major cities, nature, land and sea-based travel. During this time many, people feared travelling by sea and Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta were no exception, and they provided great detail of what it felt to travel during this period of time, including the intense fear of getting caught in storms and shipwrecks. This dissertation, hence, aims to provide a comparative analysis of these findings to show how both Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta individually depicted the Mediterranean world and to create a picture of the Mediterranean during the time of their travels.