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Primary sourceBook14th century text, this edition date unknown

The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Volume 2

Ibn Battuta · 14th century text, this edition date unknown

An English-language edition of Ibn Battuta's own travel account, covering part of his journeys across Asia and Africa.

This volume presents Ibn Battuta's own account of his travels, translated into English.

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Front cover of a blue cloth-bound book with a gold-stamped illustration of a medieval sailing ship with multiple masts and sails, centered on the cover. The cover has faint decorative rules along the edges and faded title lettering at the top.
Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Volume 2. Translated edition.

About this source

What it is

This is the second volume of an English edition of Ibn Battuta's travel account. The cover shows a gold-stamped illustration of a medieval sailing ship, reflecting the long sea voyages described in the text.

Why it matters

This volume preserves Ibn Battuta's firsthand descriptions of his travels, giving readers direct access to his observations of the medieval world he crossed by land and sea. It is part of a long tradition of translating his Rihla into other languages for wider readership.

Look closer

  • What does the ship on the cover suggest about the kind of travel described inside?
  • Why might publishers choose striking cover images for historical travel accounts?
  • How does reading a translation change our understanding of the original text?

This book is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Ibn Battuta on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Scanned manuscript page in Arabic calligraphy on aged cream paper. The top has a line of black script with a decorative heading, and a red-ink title block in larger calligraphy reading the opening of the work. Below are about two dozen lines of brown-ink handwritten text in dense Arabic script, with a marginal note at the bottom left.Book

Primary source

The Rihla

Ibn Battuta · 1354-1356

Two facing pages of a handwritten Arabic manuscript on aged paper. The right page is written in dark ink in neat, flowing script; the left page is faded and more worn, with lines of script partly obscured. The pages show the text of the travel account.Book

Primary source

Manuscript of the Rihla by Ibn Juzayy

Ibn Juzayy · 14th century

Ruins of a stone fort on a dry, hazy hillside under a pale sky. Massive sloping stone walls with crenellated battlements stand on the left, and a long arched stone gallery with a flat roof runs across the right. Scrubby bushes and dry earth surround the site, with a distant city skyline on the horizon.Artifact

Secondary source

Tughlaqabad Fort

Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq · 1321

Photograph of an open handwritten Arabic manuscript with dense black ink script on cream pages, with some red-ink headings visible. The left page is in focus and the right page is angled and partly blurred.Book

Secondary source

Manuscript copy of the Rihla (1484)

Ibn Juzayy · 1484

Eight vertical panels of the Catalan Atlas side by side, showing an illuminated medieval world map with colored seas, decorated landmasses, compass roses, flags, rulers on thrones, and figures and animals.Painting

Primary source

Catalan Atlas

Cresques Abraham · c. 1375

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