IBN ATHIR, the family name of three brothers, all famous in Arabian literature, born at Jazirat ibn `Umar in Kurdistan. The eldest brother, MAJD UD-DIN (1149-1210), was long in the service of the amir of Mosul. His dictionary of traditions (Kitdb un-Nihaya) was published at Cairo (1893), and his dictionary of family names (Kitab ul-Murassa`) has been edited by Seybold (Weimar, 1896). The youngest brother, DIVA UD-DIN (1163 1239), served Saladin from 1191 on, then his son, al-Malik ul Afdal, and was afterwards in Egypt, Samosata, Aleppo, Mosul and Baghdad. He was one of the most famous aesthetic and stylistic critics in Arabian literature. His Kitab ul-Mathal, published in Bulaq in 1865 (cf. Journal of the German Oriental Society, xxxv., and Goldziher's Abhandlungen, i.), contains some very independ ent criticism. Some of his letters have been published by D. S. Margoliouth "On the Royal Correspondence of Diya ed-Din el-Jazari" in the Actes du dixieme congres international des orientalistes, sect. 3.
The brother best known by the simple name of Ibn Athir was ABU-L-HASAN IZZUDDIN MAHOMMED IBN UL-ATHIR who devoted himself to history. At the age of one he settled in Mosul. In the service of the amir for many years, he visited Baghdad and Jerusalem and later Aleppo and Damascus. His great history, the which extends to 1231, was edited by C. J. Tornberg, Ibn al-Athiri Clironicon quod fectissimum inscribitur (14 vols., Leiden, 1851-76), and has been published in 12 vols. in Cairo (1873 and 1886). The first part of this work up to A.H. 310 (A.D. 923) is an abbreviation of the work of Tabari (q.v.) with additions. Ibn Athir also wrote a history of the Atabegs of Mosul, published in the Recueil des toriens des croisades (vol. ii., Paris) ; a work (Usd ul-Ghaba), ing an account of 7,500 companions of Mohammed (5 vols., Cairo, 1863), and a compendium (the Lubab) of Sam`ani's Kitdb Ansab. (Cf. F. Wustenfeld's Specimen el-Lobabi, Gottingen, IBN BATUTA, i.e., Abu Abdullah Mohammed, surnamed Ibn Batuta (1304-1378), the greatest of Moslem travellers, was born at Tangier in 1304. He entered on his travels in 1325 and closed them in 1355. He began by traversing the Mediterranean coast from Tangier to Alexandria, marrying twice on the road. After some stay at Cairo, and an unsuccessful attempt to reach Mecca from Aidhab on the west coast of the Red Sea, he visited Palestine, Aleppo and Damascus. He then made the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, and visited the shrine of Ali at Nejef (Mashhad-Ali), travelling to Basra, and across the mountains of Khuzistan to Isfahan, thence to Shiraz and back to Kufa and Baghdad. After an excursion to Mosul and Diarbekr, he made the ha j a second time, staying at Mecca three years. He next sailed down the Red Sea to Aden (then a place of great trade), the singular position of which he describes, noticing its dependence for water-supply upon the great cisterns restored in modern times. He continued his voyage down the African coast, visiting, among other places, Mombasa and Quiloa (Kilwa). Returning north he passed by the chief cities of Oman to New Ormuz (Hurmuz), which about 1315 had been transferred to its famous island-site from the mainland (Old Ormuz). After visiting other parts of the gulf he crossed Arabia to Mecca, making the haj for the third time. Crossing the Red Sea, he made a journey to Aswan (Syene) and along the Nile to Cairo. After this, travelling through Syria, he made a circuit among the petty Turkish states. He now crossed the Black Sea to Kaffa, then mainly occupied by the Genoese, and apparently the first Christian city he had seen, for he was much perturbed by the bell-ringing. He next travelled into Kipchak (the Mongol khanate of Russia), and joined the camp of the reigning khan Mohammed Uzbeg, from whom the Uzbeg race is perhaps named. Among other places in this empire he travelled to Bolghar 54' N.) in order to witness the shortness of the summer night, and desired to continue his travels north into the "Land of Darkness" (in the extreme north of Russia), but was obliged to forego this.
Returning to the khan's camp he joined the cortege of one of the Khatuns, who was a Greek princess and in her train travelled to Constantinople, where he had an interview with the emperor Andronikos III. the Younger (1328-1341). He tells how, as he passed the city gates, he heard the guards muttering Sarakinu. Returning to the court of Uzbeg, at Sarai on the Volga, he crossed the steppes to Khwarizm and Bokhara; thence through Khorasan and Kabul, and over the Hindu Kush (to which he gives that name, its first occurrence). He reached the Indus in Sojourn in the East.—From Sind, which he traversed to the sea and back again, he went to Multan, and eventually, on the invitation of Mahommed Tughlak, the reigning sovereign, to Delhi. He appointed the traveller to be kazi of Delhi. In the sultan's service Ibn Batuta remained eight years; but his good fortune stimulated his natural extravagance, and his debts soon amounted to four or five times his salary. He fell into disfavour and retired from court, only to be summoned again to accompany an embassy to the emperor of China, last of the Mongol dynasty. The party travelled through central India to Cambay and thence sailed to Calicut, classed by the traveller with the neighbouring Kaulam (Quilon), Alexandria, Sudak in the Crimea, and Zayton (Amoy harbour) in China, as one of the greatest trading havens in the world. The party was to embark in Chinese junks (the word used) and smaller vessels, but that carrying the other en voys and the presents, which started before Ibn Batuta was ready, was totally wrecked ; the vessel that he had engaged went off with his property, and he was left at Calicut. Not daring to return to Delhi, he remained about Honore and other cities of the western coast, taking part in various adventures, among others the capture of Sindabur (Goa), and visiting the Maldive islands, where he became kazi, and married four wives. In 1344 he left the Mal dives for Ceylon ; here he made the pilgrimage to the "Footmark of our Father Adam." Thence he went to Malabar (the Coro mandel coast), where he joined a Mussulman adventurer of Madura. After again visiting Malabar, Canara and the Maldives, he left for Bengal, a voyage of 43 days, landing at Sadkawan (Chittagong). In Bengal he visited the Moslem saint Shaykh Jalaluddin, whose shrine (Shah Jalal at Silhet) is still maintained. Returning to the delta, he took a junk at Sunarganw (near Dacca) bound for Java (i.e., Java Minor of Marco Polo, or Su matra). He reached Sumatra in 4o days, and was provided with a junk for China by Malik al Dhahir, disciple of Islam. Calling (apparently) at Cambodia on his way, Ibn Batuta reached China at Zayton (Amoy harbour), famous from Marco Polo; he also visited Sin Kalan or Canton, and professes to have been in Khansa (Kinsay of Marco Polo, i.e., Hangchau), and Khanbalik (Cam baluc or Peking).
The Return Journey.—On his way home he saw the great bird Rukh (evidently, from his description, an island lifted by refraction) ; revisited Sumatra, Malabar, Oman, Persia, Baghdad, and crossed the great desert to Palmyra and Damascus, where he got his first news of home, and heard of his father's death 15 years before. Diverging to Hamath and Aleppo, on his return to Damascus, he found the Black Death raging. Revisiting Jeru salem and Cairo he made the haj a fourth time, and finally re appeared at Fez (visiting Sardinia en route) on Nov. 8, after 24 years' absence. Morocco, he felt, was, after all, the best of countries. "The dirhems of the West are but little ; but then you get more for them." After going home to Tangier, Ibn Batuta crossed into Spain and toured Andalusia, including Gibral tar, following a siege from the "Roman tyrant Adfunus" (Al phonso XI. of Castile, 1312-135o). In 1352 he started for Central Africa, passing by the oases of the Sahara (where the houses were built of rock-salt, as Herodotus tells, and roofed with camel skins), to Timbuktu and Gogo on the Niger, a river which he called the Nile, believing it to flow down into Egypt. Being then recalled by his own king, he returned to Fez (early in via Takadda, Haggar anti Tuat. Thus ended his 28 years' wander ings which easily exceeded 7 5,00o miles. By royal order he dic tated his narrative to Mohammed Ibn Juzai, who concluded the work (1355), with the declaration: "This Shaykh is the traveller of our age; and he who should call him the traveller of the whole body of Islam would not exceed the truth." Ibn Batuta died in 1378, aged 73.
Ibn Batuta's travels have only been known in Europe during the 19th century ; at first merely by Arabic abridgments in the Gotha and Cambridge libraries. Notices or extracts had been published by Seetzen (c. i8o8), Kosegarten (1818), Apetz 0819) and Burckhardt (i8I9), when in 1829 Dr. S. Lee published for the Oriental Translation Fund a version from the abridged mss. at Cambridge, which attracted interest. The French capture of Constantina (Spain, 4o m. N. of Seville) afforded mss. of the complete work, one of them the autograph of Ibn Juzai. And from these, after versions of fragments by various French scholars, was derived at last (1858-59) the standard edition and translation of the whole by M. Def remery and Dr. Sanguinetti, in 4 vols. See also Sir Henry Yule, Cathay, ii. 397-526; C. Raymond Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 535-538; and a volume of Selections (Broadway Travellers series, 1927).