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The Travels of Ibn Batuta

Ibn Battuta

A LibriVox volunteer audio reading of Samuel Lee's English translation of Ibn Battuta's account of his travels across the Islamic world and beyond.

This is Ibn Battuta's own travel account, translated into English, read here by LibriVox volunteers rather than in his own voice.

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Ibn Battuta, The Travels of Ibn Batuta (trans. Samuel Lee). LibriVox volunteer audio reading, not the author's own voice.

About this source

What it is

This is a modern volunteer audio reading, published by LibriVox, of The Travels of Ibn Batuta, translated into English by Samuel Lee. The original text records the journeys of the Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who over about thirty years visited much of the Islamic world and many non-Muslim lands, including North Africa, West Africa, the Horn of Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China.

Why it matters

Ibn Battuta's account is one of the most detailed surviving records of the medieval Islamic world and its neighbours, written by a man widely considered one of history's greatest travellers. It reveals how far people could move and trade across cultures long before modern transport.

Look closer

  • Why might someone today choose to read this text aloud rather than translate it anew?
  • How might translation change the feel of Ibn Battuta's original words?
  • What kinds of places does the account describe, and what does that tell you about the world he lived in?

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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