Ibn Battuta - Maldives and China

Maldives and China

En route to the coast at the start of his journey to China, Ibn Battuta and his party were attacked by a group of bandits. Separated from his companions, he was robbed and nearly lost his life. Despite this setback, within ten days he had caught up with his group and continued on to Khambhat in the Indian state of Gujarat. From there, they sailed to Kozhikode (Calicut), where Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama would land two centuries later. While Ibn Battuta visited a mosque on shore, a storm arose and one of the ships of his expedition sank. The other ship then sailed without him only to be seized by a local Sumatran king a few months later .

Afraid to return to Delhi and be seen as a failure, he stayed for a time in southern India under the protection of Jamal-ud-Din, ruler of the small but powerful Nawayath sultanate on the banks of the Sharavathi river next to the Arabian Sea. This area is today known as Hosapattana and lies in the Honavar administrative district of Uttara Kannada. Following the overthrow of the sultanate, Ibn Battuta had no choice but to leave India. Although determined to continue his journey to China, he first took a detour to visit the Maldive Islands.

He spent nine months on the islands, much longer than he had intended. As a Chief Qadi, his skills were highly desirable in the formerly Buddhist nation that had recently converted to Islam. Half-kidnapped into staying, he became chief judge and married into the royal family of Omar I. He became embroiled in local politics and left when his strict judgments in the laissez-faire island kingdom began to chafe with its rulers. In the Rihla he mentions his dismay at the local women going about with no clothing above the waist, and the locals taking no notice when he complained. From the Maldives, he carried on to Sri Lanka and visited Sri Pada and Tenavaram temple.

Ibn Battuta's ship almost sank on embarking from Sri Lanka, only for the vessel that came to his rescue to suffer an attack by pirates. Stranded on shore, he worked his way back to Kozhikode, from where he returned to the Maldives and boarded a Chinese junk, still intending to reach China and take up his ambassadorial post.

He reached the port of Chittagong in modern-day Bangladesh intending to travel to Sylhet. Ibn Battuta went further north into Assam, then turned around and continued with his original plan.

In the year 1345 Ibn Battuta travelled on to Sumatra where he notes in his travel log that the ruler of Samudera Pasai was a Muslim, who performed his religious duties in utmost zeal. The madh'hab he observed was Imam Al-Shafi‘i, with similar customs as he had seen in coastal India especially among the Mappila Muslim, who were also the followers of Imam Al-Shafi‘i. Ibn Battuta then sailed to Malacca, Vietnam, the Philippines and finally Quanzhou in Fujian province, China.

On arriving in China in the year 1345, one of the first things he noted were the local artists and their mastery in making portraits of newly arrived foreigners. Ibn Battuta also mentions Chinese cuisine and its usage of animals such as frogs. While in Quanzhou he ascended the "Mount of the Hermit" and briefly visited a well-known Taoist monk. From there he went north to Hangzhou, which he described as one of the largest cities he had ever seen, and he noted its charm, describing that the city sat on a beautiful lake and was surrounded by gentle green hills. During his stay at Hangzhou he was particularly impressed by the large number of well-crafted and well-painted Chinese wooden ships, with colored sails and silk awnings, assembling in the canals. Later he attended a banquet of the Yuan Mongol administrator of the city named Qurtai, who according to Ibn Battuta, was very fond of the skills of local Chinese conjurers. He also described traveling further north, through the Grand Canal to Beijing, but as he neared the capital an internal power struggle among the Yuan Mongols erupted, causing Ibn Battuta and his Hui guides to return to the south coast. On boarding a Chinese junk heading for Southeast Asia, Ibn Battuta was unfairly charged a hefty sum by the crew and lost much of what he had collected during his stay in China. Ibn Battuta also reported "the rampart of Yajuj and Majuj" was "sixty days' travel" from the city of Zeitun (Quanzhou); Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb notes that Ibn Battuta believed that Great Wall of China was built by Dhul-Qarnayn to contain Gog and Magog as mentioned in the Quran.