Ibn Battuta: Voyages II. From Mecca to the Russian steppes and India

Ibn Battûta , a North African traveler from the early 14th century, is known as the “traveler of Islam”. He travels through all of the Islamic countries, from Mali to Sumatra and from Kenya to the Russian steppes. His thirty years of peregrinations through a fragmented, torn Islamic world converge towards a single goal: to prove that the community exists and that through its religious and social practice, through its solidarity, it remains indivisible.

This complete publication, in three volumes, includes the only existing French translation, that of C . Defremery and BR . Sanguinetti (1853-1858) . No extensively annotated complete edition having been published to date (the English edition by H . Gibb will only be completed in 1985) , this one, by the breadth of the introductions to each volume, by the richness notes and through its maps, aims to put this essential text of Islam within reach of a wide audience while providing the necessary elements for its understanding.

In this volume: From Mecca to the Russian steppes and India, Ibn Battûta leaves Mecca for a long voyage in the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. Then he visits Asia Minor and the Russian steppes before arriving in India through Central Asia. He begins a long description of India which will be continued in the third volume.