The Islamic world in the fourteenth century differed, in extent and outward splendour, but little from the magnificent empire ruled by the Caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad in the eighth. If in the West it had been shorn of its outposts in Spain and Sicily, it could justly claim to have more than balanced the loss of its extension in India and Malaysia. When in 1325 Ibn Battuta set out on his journeys, the political conditions in the Islamic lands were relatively stable and unusually favourable for travel.

In the present selections, which have been translated from the Arabic original, Ibn Batuta is treated as a traveller, and not as a writer of geography. Sufficient indications have been added in the text and the notes to enable the course of his journeys to be followed in detail on any large-scale atlas.

This classic translation by H.A.R. Gibb, first published in 1929, introduced to the wider circle of English readers one of the most remarkable Islamic travellers of his own or any age.