Makam Nihavent

Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI - Ibn Battuta, The Traveller of Islam, 1304-1377 (2019) {Alia Vox AVSA9930, SACD}
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© 2019 Alia Vox | AVSA 9930
Classical / Medieval / World Music

Ibn Battuta had the same significance in the Muslim world as Marco Polo in the Western countries. A relentless traveler, he deeply changed the perception of the Orient among his contemporaries and the following generations. Morocco, Mali, Egypt, Yemen, Zanzibar, India, The Maldives and China: this non-exhaustive list gives us a hint about the extraordinary journey Jordi Savall invites us on.

According to Islam’s earliest prophetic tradition, travel as training and a source of knowledge was advocated by the prophet Mohammed himself; he urged believers to travel far and wide in their search for wisdom and knowledge. One of the quotations attributed to him is “Seek knowledge even unto China.” The reader of Ibn Battuta’s fascinating travelogue discovers and experiences the full character of this literary genre, the “rihla”, which designates both the journey and the narrative of that journey. The genre can be traced back to the writings of Ibn Jubayr (1145-1217), the first great Muslim traveller from al-Andalus (Xativa, Valencia).

Ibn Battuta, dubbed the traveler of Islam, was a Moroccan scholar who at the age of 21 began a series of travels that eventually covered all of the Muslim world and several lands beyond. He traversed the Middle East, making the pilgrimage to Mecca and seeing the other great capitals of the region; traveled to what was then El Andalus in Spain and along the Mediterranean coast; recorded the glories of the Byzantine empire in its later stages; traveled to India, where he was appointed the Sultan's ambassador to China and described that culture as well…