Ibn Battuta: the Man Who Walked Across the World - 1/3 Wanderlust

[dramatic music]

(as Ibn Battuta)
Travel,

set out and head for pastures new.

Life tastes richer when
you've rode worn feet.

No water that stagnates
is fit to drink,

for only that which flows
is truly sweet.

(male narrator) This is the story of one
of the greatest journeys of all time.

In 1325, shortly after the end
of the crusades

a young Moroccan Muslim
called Ibn Battuta

set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

It was to become an odyssey from one end
of the known world to the other.

In all, he traveled over 75,000 miles,

more than 3 times the distance
Marco Polo covered.

Along the way, he was to meet magicians,
dervishes, holy men, fire eaters,

and other travelers
from across three continents.

He was by turn scholar,
business man, mystic, warrior.

He was imprisoned by mad sultans,
who had married ten times

and had countless concubines.

And when he got home after 29 years
on the road, he wrote it all down.

Nearly 700 years later,

I discovered his travel log
and was blown away by it.

Here was a description
of the kaleidoscopic Muslim world

that I could still see around me.

But one the for most non-Muslims was hidden
behind a veil of misunderstanding,

ignorance, and even fear.

From that moment, I was determined
to take to the road,

to follow in Ibn Battuta's footsteps,

and discover if the exostic
and welcoming Muslim world

that he described remains to this day.

(crowd)
[chatter]

[music]

[singing in foreign language]

Sana'a, the capital of Yemen.

You might know this country
as the realm of the Queen of Sheeba.

You may even know it

as the ancestral land
of the Bin Laden family.

For me, it's home.

I came here to study Arabic
25 years ago and never left.

Now I'm more than half a Yemeni, myself.

Part of me misses good English ale
hard to get to get in the Muslim country

but my Yemeni side makes up for it.

Like almost all the men here,
I indulge in a drug,

perfectly legal here, by the way,
called khat.

Meet my dealer, Subri.

What I do when I buy it,

I-I tend not to buy by the look of it,

I sort of go- I go by sort of nose.

[chuckles]

You know, like a wine nose

cause I- I open a bit up like that,
and I... stick my nose in it

and I take a deep breath.

And everyone said-
foreign visitors who come they say,

"how can you chew that stuff
that looks like a privet hedge?"

It's a bit like beer,
uh, when you first drink it

it doesn't actually taste intrinsically very nice.

Uh, but you soon get really into it.

And then it's even more like beer.

If you like beer.

See, when he looks at me like that
I can't refuse him.

All this may seem a long way
from my very English roots

as an Oxford classicist,
conductor of the college choir,

and captain of croquet.

But so what?

I like it here.

Where else can you live
in an architectural masterpiece

next to donkey market?

Have scrambled brains for breakfast,

and while away your evenings
with virtuoso lutenist?

[lute music]

I'd be perfectly happy to do nothing
but sitting in my house chewing khat,

writing and reading,

but there is something
that's giving me itchy feet.

It's a book: The Travels of Ibn Battuta.

He was an Arab traveler

who made one
of the great journeys of exploration

and opened the world
for generations to come.

But you've probably never heard of him
because the world he explored

was the Islamic world.

I've devoted years of my life
to writing about him

and researching his epic journey,

and he deserves to be known
as history's greatest traveler.

[music]

Ibn Battuta's journey took him

crisscrossing 75,000 miles
across the globe.

His route appears random
and wildly eccentric.

When he was traveling,

Christendom was still dragging itself
out of the Dark Ages

and towards the Renaissance,

but Islam was at its glittering height.

About half the known world
was under Islamic rule,

and the trade routes lay wide open.

This was a golden age of Islamic travel

and Ibn Battuta seized
the unique opportunity to see the world.

[music]

For a Western today,

retracing his route remains a journey
into the unknown.

[music]

On this first stretch,
I'll trudge the ancient pilgrim roads

and explore that central tenet of Islam:
travel in pursuit of knowledge.

[music]

Then on the road
all the way from Turkey to India,

I'll encounter a world

where the clear lines between
the great religions have blurred

into mysticism.

[music]

And on the last leg of the odyssey

I'll meet the living relics

of the glorious but forgotten age
of Islamic trade,

along the maritime silk route to China.

[music]

The story begins 3000 miles
from my adopted homeland

on the far edge of Africa.

[music]

(as Ibn Battuta) The memory
of my homeland, Morroco, moved me.

Together with affection
for my people and friends,

and love for my country,
which for me is better than all others,

a land where charms were hung upon me,
whose earth my skin first touched.

(narrator) We just passed
the Straights of Gibraltar

arriving here in Tangier,
Ibn Battuta's birthplace.

This is the end of Africa,
it's the end of the Mediterrein World,

and in Ibn Battuta's time,
it was the end of the known world.

In the 14th century,
Tangier was a frontier city,

perched on the border
between continents and civilizations.

I'd always thought of it
as its 20th century incarnation,

as a hotbed of sex and drugs
and Rock 'n Roll,

a hangout for William Burrows
and Rolling Stones.

But nowadays the Tangierines
the people of Tangier, seem most genteel.

Fashions come and go,
but one name remains in Vogue:

Ibn Battuta is the ultimate local boy
made good.

I've come here because I can imagine
it's just the sort of place

where Ibn Battuta would have come
and sat as a small boy,

looking across the Straights of Gibraltar
and looking at Spain.

Thinking about far travel
and distant lands.

He visited something like
over 40 countries on the modern map.

But the important thing with Ibn Battuta

is that he came home,
and he wrote it all down.

You read about him getting the runs,

getting ripped off by guides.

He's very much a lady's man,
he gets married ten times.

He talks about all his concubines
he had on top of his wives.

And you can feel this character
jumping off the page.

But very little is known about the
early life of the city's favorite son.

And looking for clues in modern Tangier
was not going to be straight forward.

Salaam-Alaikum.

Hello.

How are you?

(narrator)
I'm very well.

You speak English?

[unintelligible] good enough.

[unintelligible]
you need any help?

Yeah, I'd like a room please,
but I want a really nice room

If you've got any-any relics
of Ibn Battuta's, you know-

Yeah, we have at least one room
with the suite, familyroom.

(narrator)
A family suite?

Yeah.

(narrator)
Okay.

Oh, can you just tell me is-

Who's this?

This is ah, a picture of uh,
Ibn Battuta.

Huh?!

I mean I always wondered
what he looked like.

And I never thought that he
would look like that.

I don't think that- it's real,
but it's uh-

Okay.

It's just uh, immi-immitate the picture.

(narrator)
And there was more.

This is Ibn Battuta.

(manager)
Yes.

(narrator)
But it's a photograph?

(manager)
Photograph, yeah.

Depends, if you look at it.

And he's smoking a water pipe,
a uh,

[unison]
Shisha.

I-I though Ibn Battuta lived
before tobacco came from America.

Yeah, yeah, sure yes,
before uh-

So do you think it's really Ibn Battuta?

Uh, really really?

Really really?

Really really?

I don't know,
I'm not sure.

[drumming and singing]

(narrator) My search for Ibn Battuta
begins in the casbah,

the oldest part of Tangier,
where the traveler lived as a small boy.

Even then it was a restless place
to grow up.

A meeting place of cultural currents
from around the world.

Several of these currents
crossing Gnawa music,

a mystical blend
of Islamic religious songs,

and African and Berber rhythms
which dates back over half a millennium.

[music continues]

I wanted to know if the travel bug

had affected all Tangierians
across the centuries.

Tangier people, they like-
they like to travel, naturally.

The Tangierian is multicultural.

You must have heard Ibn Battuta.

Sure, yes.

He's a very famous guy.

That's what the- behind me's
the store where he used to live.

And he started traveling from-

What he really lived here?

He lived here.

Seriously?

I'm talking seriously.

You didn't know this?

No.

[laughing]

Yes, behind me, if you look
there's a small door hinge.

You're really serious?

You're not kidding?

He was here.

He started his trip.

Yeah.

(musician)
He was prepared his ah, horse and his

uh, animal donkey here,
with is father.

(narrator)
Wait, wh-

I thought that [unintelligible]
just told me

that we're actually just sitting right
next to Ibn Battuta's house.

Sure just right here.

But I'm absolutely- I mean,

you could knock me down
with a feather, as they say.

[laughs]

We know that Ibn Battuta
lived in the casbah

but did he live in this very square?

There's not a wisp of evidence
for or against.

[music]

All these impugnables
were making me hungry for facts

and for a solid 14th century lunch.

[music]

Any lentil munchers,

and chicken nugget nibblers
might care to avert their gaze.

[twacking]

We've got some sheep's head

that are looking quite perky
and freshly killed

and so artistically arranged,

and we've got some little sheep's brain,
delicious ones I'm sure, some hearts.

[speaking Arabic]

He's just showing me the milk teeth
to prove that the lambs are-

are quite young.

Very Ibn Battuta thing to eat,
I'm sure.

The Koran says that you should eat food
for all the good things

that God has given you,

and so it's regarded
as sort of a bit off to refuse um,

these blessings
in whatever form they come.

[music]

Excellent.

This is absolutely magnificent.

We've each got a head here,
a sheep's head.

And they're cut Damien Hirst style.

Beautifully served
on-on-on a lettuce leaf.

Tongue.

It's hot, it's very hot.

Ah.

Ah, but it's hot when you get
into the middle.

[music]

(man)
Very tasty indeed.

(narrator)
I was joined for lunch by my guide,

Sa'id, a modern Tangierian
who sounded as if he learned his English

in Brooklyn.

Dervishes see this thing being sold
outside in the open,

and they go ahhhh!

(narrator)
He told me the Islamic tradition

of slaughtering sheep once a year,
reaches back across millenia,

all the way to Abraham.

(Sa'id)
We learn from our fathers,

and forefathers,
how to kill a sheep.

Killing a sheep is not a problem.

Anybody can kill a sheep.

You have to kill it properly,
then you have to skin it.

I hired a person who would
skin the sheep for me.

But I'll kill it in front of my kids.

So they learn.

It said he has been descended

from Abraham to kill a sheep.

Ibn Battuta must have done it that way.

So we-we-we just in fact had someting
that Ibn Battuta might himself had eaten

(Sa'id)
Yes, and other generations as well.

(narrator)
In the stories of his adventures,

Ibn Battua tells us nothing
of his early life,

and next to nothing of his life once
he finished his 30 years of traveling.

We know that he was born in 1304
and he was educated in Islamic law.

We know that he had a beard
and he was from a respectable family,

but that's about it.

[music]

I needed to search for his spirit, for his
reincarnation for glimpses of his face

among the crowds of faces
of today's Tangierians.

[singing]

But where to start?

At the beginning of course,
with those first lessons on the Koran,

the book that guides all Muslims
through life.

As a young boy in the 14th century

Ibn Battuta would have been taught
in just the same way as these children,

learning to recite the Koran by heart.

[singing]

Madrasas like this one

are often seen in the West as breeding
grounds for future Islamic extremists,

but holy war was not
on the curriculum here.

Today's lesson was about how travel
is an integral part of Islam.

The teacher has just asked them
about the five pillars of Islam.

And the last of these pillars
is pilgrimage.

Pilgrimage, of course,
is the reason

that Ibn Battuta left Tangier
to go to Mecca.

For these children, as for Ibn Battua,

Hajj Pilgrimage will be more
than just a trip to Mecca,

it's an opportunity to see the world.

In Ibn Battuta's case,

it was a gap year that will
turn into three decades of travel.

(as Ibn Battuta)
Saying of the Prophet,

seek knowledge even if the journey
takes you all the way to China.

[music]

(narrator)
Islam itself began with a journey.

Mohamed's migration
from Mecca to Medina

marks the year 0
in the Islamic calendar.

Travel is in the very fabric of Islam,

and although the physical relics

of Ibn Battuta
had proved illusive in Tangier,

his wanderlust remains as strong as ever.

[singing and clapping]

It was now time for me to move on,

chasing the traveler's shadow
across North Africa.

(as Ibn Battuta)
I set out alone.

Having neither fellow traveler
in whose companionship I might find cheer,

nor caravan whose party I might join,

but swayed by an over-mustering impulse
within me,

and a desire long cherished
in my bosom

to visit these illustrious sanctuaries.

So I braced my resolution
to quit all my dear ones,

female and male,

and forsook my home
as birds forsake their nests.

My age at that time was 22 lunar years.

[music]

(narrator) Ibn Battuta left Tangier
for Mecca in 1325

and headed east through
modern Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

His account of the journey is sparse

until he arrives in the city
he calls "a unique pearl," Alexandria.

[horns honking and people talking loudly]

[bells ringing and people talking]

[street vendors calling out]

Exactly 680 years,
2 months and 28 days ago,

Ibn Battuta came into Alexandria
on this very same street.

In those days it would have been
remarkably similar to what it's like now,

a sort of a busy market street
selling cloths,

kind of deconstructed
Marks and Spencers.

[chatter]

Salaam Ali.

[unintelligible]
Hello, hello, hello.

(narrator)
In the 14th century

Alexandria was buzzing with trade
of all the Mediterranean.

For Ibn Battuta, a young man from
the western fringe of the Muslim world,

it must have made Tangier
look provincial.

(as Ibn Battuta)
May God protect Alexandria.

She's a well guarded frontier citadel
and a friendly and hospital region,

but remarkable in appearance,
and solid in her structure.

Glorious in her surpassing beauty,
uniting in herself the excellences

that are shared by other cities

through her mitigating situation
between the East and the West.

Every fresh marvel has
there its unveiling.

Every novelty finds it's way hither.

[waves splashing]

[music]

(narrator)
Ibn Battuta absolutely raved

about Alexandria
in some of his most high-flown prose.

He said Alexandria has
all you could wish for

in the way of embellishment,
and embattlement.

He compared it to a secluded maiden
arrayed in her bridal finery.

And he said Alexandria is like
a pearl glowing in opalescence.

Of course, the city has changed a bit since 1326.

[loud music]

If Alexandria in the 14th century
was a secluded maiden,

I'm not sure what to call her today.

Perhaps a woman of a certain age?

[music]

Ibn Battuta had a way with the ladies.

He's already picked up his first wife
on the road to Alexandria,

divorced her after an argument
with his father in law,

and then married another woman.

But I had no one to keep me company,

and Alexandria is a rather sad place
to be alone in.

[applause]

Certain mix of the surreal
and the melancholy.

Wonderful key change in that last one.

Ibn Battuta didn't rest for long.

He soon took to the roads again,

and headed for an obscure village
in the Nile delta,

30 miles from Alexandria.

Where he was to have an experience
that would change his life forever.

[loud music]

[horn honking]

He wanted to meet Egypt's
greatest living holy man.

I headed off to the countryside
to see if any memories of the sage

had survived.

[motor running]

[music]

He seems worried about the-
his delicate, um, tuk-tuk,

um, about taking it over the bumpy roads,

so I think I'll have to walk
the rest of the way.

[music]

I was rescued by a man with a donkey.

Ibn Battuta came here
to Minyat Bani Murshid to see Murshidi.

The greatest living saint in Egypt.

Hey, slow up a bit.

[laughing]
Stop, wait-

greatest living saint in Egypt
at the time.

And he was supposed to have powers of, uh,
being able to foretell the future,

given him by God.

I'm just about to collide
with a gaggle of geese here.

[speaking Arabic]

Thank you.

Wonderful Louis Faruk sofa here,
sitting by the canal.

(as Ibn Battuta)
The retreat of this holy man,

whom I had come to visit,
lies close by a town,

and separated from it by a canal.

I arrived before the hour
of the afternoon prayer.

(narrator)
[unintelligible] Afternoon prayer being full.

I'm not sure Minyat Bani Murshid has seen
many foreigners since the 14th century.

Actually I can imagine [unintelligible]
this is how he rode from the city.

He would have had similar transport,
he was a foreigner, you know,

this weird Moroccan
from the other end of Africa.

I imagine he too was surrounded by a crowd
of children like this.

All saying, Oo,
this is a funny foreigner on a horse.

I mean, he was probably
surrounded by a crowd

of their great-great-great-great-great-
whatever-grandfathers.

[children talking in Arabic]

[children yelling]

Our camera man kept
the children entertained

while I tried to track down
the Imam of the Mosque.

When I found him,

he didn't seem very pleased
with the manner of our arrival.

Still, he took me under his wing,

and told me that the mystical saint had
a tomb which was attached to his mosque.

[drum music]

When Ibn Battuta met the man buried here,

he had one of the strangest experiences
of all his travels.

As the children closed in on us again,

the Imam commandeered my copy
of Ibn Battuta's book

and soldiered on with the story.

(as Ibn Battuta)
When I wanted to sleep, he said,

go to the roof and sleep there,
for this was during the summer heat.

And that night, as I was sleeping
on the roof of the cell,

I dreamt that I was on the wing
of a huge bird,

which flew me in the direction of Mecca,

then made towards Yeman,

and finally made the long flight
towards the East,

alighted on some dark and greenish country
and left me there.

I was astonished at my dream,
and said to myself,

If the holy man chose me,
then he knows of my dream,

he's all that they say he is.

[music]

Next day, he gets up,
and the saint interprets the dream

and he says,
it means you will go on the pilgrimage,

you will go to Yemen, you will go to Iraq,
to the land of the Turks, to central Asia,

and you'll end up in India,
where you'll fall into a great danger.

But don't worry because a brother,
a spiritual brother of a saint from here

will save Ibn Battuta from it.

And so it came to pass.

The prophesy reads like
a contents page to Ibn Battuta's travels.

Fifteen years later, he was even to have
the foreseen near death experience in India.

[music]

(as Ibn Battuta)
I was amazed at his prediction, and now,

the idea of going to these countries
had been cast into my mind,

my wanderings never ceased until I visited them.

[music]

(narrator)
Standing on the very roof

where Ibn Battuta had his prophetic dream,
I too felt time and space slipping away.

[upbeat music]

(as Ibn Battuta)
I bade him farewell and departed.

Never since leaving him, have I met
on my journeys aught but good fortune,

and his blessed powers
have stood me in good stead.

I traveled next to the Delta.

(narrator)
Ibn Battuta seems to be in no hurry

to get to Mecca.

The backpacker in him was beginning
to enjoy getting sidetracked.

Instead of taking the most direct
pilgrim route through the Sinai Desert,

he turned south.

He was heading up the Nile
to the most popular city

in the Muslim world,

and the center of Islamic civilization
and culture, to Cairo.

[music]

(as Ibn Battuta)
I arrived at length to the city of Cairo.

Mother of cities and seat of pharaoh,
the tyrant,

mistress of broad promises
and fruitful lands.

Boundless and multitude of buildings,
peerless in beauty and splendor,

the meeting place of comer and goer,
the stopping place of feeble and strong.

Therein is what you will of learned
and simple, grave and gay,

prudent and foolish, base and noble,
of high estate and low estate,

unknown and famous.

She surges as the waves of the sea
with her throngs of folk,

and can scarce contain them
for all the capacity of her situation

and sustaining power.

(narrator)
The population of Cairo

in the first half of the 14th century
was around half a million,

15 times larger than that of London
at the same period.

If Alexandria had seen metropolitan,
Cairo was megalopolitan.

It was the seat of Arab arts, letters,
and sciences,

and even had an eye hospital which offered
cataract operations.

Al-Azhar claims to be the oldest
functioning university in the world.

It was founded some three centuries
before the first Oxford college.

In the 14th century, it was home
to the greatest concentration

of scholars and jurists
in the Arabic speaking world.

Ibn Battuta took every opportunity
to study at the feet

of eminent Islamic professors,
brushing up his Qaranic recitation.

[singing in Arabic]

[speaking Arabic]

[singing in Arabic]

(narrator)
The university retains

its magnetic preeminence
to this day.

Students come from all over the world
to study here,

not least from Tangier,
Ibn Battuta's birthplace.

(narrator)
This is what I love about travel,

the incongruous encounters you have
along the way.

Here I was,
a travel writer and a Christian,

talking theology with a group
of Muslim students,

in what's effectively
the Vatican of Islam.

I may have been an outsider,
but I felt completely at home.

[music]

(narrator)
The Egypt Ibn Battuta traveld through

had a unique and strange political system.

Young Turkish slaves were bought wholesale
from the central Asian steppe

and taken to Egypt.

They were converted to Islam,
taught the art of warfare,

and finally freed from their bondage.

The top government commanders
and the Sultan himself

were then chosen from among their ranks.

This warrior caste were known
as the Mamluks,

which means slaves,
and they ruled with an iron fist.

When Ibn Battuta stayed in Cairo,

the Mamluk sultan was
Muhammed Al-Nasir ibn Qalawun.

There's this rather nice story, uh,
well actually it's quite a nasty story

that tells you exactly what
Muhammed Al-Nasir, the sultan, was like,

And it's that he was born with his fists
sort of clenched like that.

And when they opened them up,
blood poured out, and the midwife said,

"He's gonna be a bad one,
he's gonna have a bloody reign."

And she was right.

One of the things that he did
a-a-actually right here at Bab Zuweila,

there was some convicted criminal,
I forget what he'd stolen,

and he had the guy crucified on this gate
in drag.

Although, as far as I know,
the current Egyptian president

doesn't string people up in skirts,
he still runs a tight ship.

Democracy is theoretically encouraged,
but in practice,

all political opposition is stifled.

The week I arrived in Cairo,
the long running conflict

between the Israelis and Palestinians
had exploded again.

The Egyptian security services feared
demonstrations after Friday prayers,

and they were taking no chances.

[music]

I think there are probably
as many policemen as worshippers here,

and-and there's something rather medieval
about their appearance with, uh,

carbon fiber, Kevlar-whatever they are
shields and their helmets

with their visors and up here too,
we're sharing our little eerie with, uh,

some secret policemen, who are partly
looking down at the worshippers,

and partly keeping an eye on us
to make sure

that we don't film in the wrong direction.

It all sort of reminds me of-rather of
Mamuk rule-we're talking about

to lots of oligarchies
relying on military force,

relying on pressure, it's rather faceless,
rather battleship, gray, monumental,

oppressive.

Six hundred and seventy years ago and now,
you can make quite a strong parallel.

[unintelligible]

[music]

As long as you didn't fall foul
of the Mamuk despots,

14th century Cairo was brimming
with raucous and bawdy entertainments.

The souks were packed
with street storytellers,

shadow plays, dancing camels,
and even professional performing farters.

For Ibn Battuta, Egypt was one of
the culinary high points of his travels.

(as Ibn Battuta)
In this city, there are to be had

various preparations
of buffalo milk cheese,

which are unequaled for sweetness
and delicious taste.

(narrator)
I needed a good food guide to the city.

Habiba is an old friend of mine,
and a talented cook.

She took me off to the market
to introduce me

to the tastes Ibn Battuta enjoyed
when he was here.

(Habiba)
Would you like some old cheese?

Old cheese?

Yes.

I don't know if I like the sound of it,
heh-heh.

[man speaking Arabic]

Smells, um, pecan,
I think is the word.

[laughing]

It's got something sort of, uh,
restorative in it.

It's kind of got a d-d-do you know,
when I was in school, we had

these changing rooms that had, um,
they al-always smelled of socks.

[speaking Arabic]

This gentleman is saying that Beckham
and Rooney, uh, eat old cheese.

(as Ibn Battuta)
Sea fowl are sold in the city

in large quantities,
and are exceedingly fat,

and the fish called el bouri,
grey mullet.

(narrator)
This is an old Egyptian delicacy

called Fesikh.

Essentially, it's raw, rotten fish.

Okay, can I have a feel?

Oh god, it stays in, heh.

Each year, around a dozen people die
of Fesikh poisoning.

Being a gambling man, I was up
for this culinary Russian roulette.

Oh god, oh the smell.

You know when you drive past a-
a road kill.

[Habiba speaking]

You say it's better, heh.

[woman laughing]

You know, I could be converted to that.

(Ibn Battuta)
At old Cairo tomb, is the cemetry

called al-Karafa,
a place of vast repute for blessed power,

for it is part of the Mount of Mukattam,
of which God has promised that it shall be

one of the gardens of paradise.

(narrator)
The so-called City of the Dead

is supposed to be off-limits to foreigners.

This was once simply a cemetery,
but over the years,

the urban poor have moved into the tombs.

The government now regards it
as an embarrassment.

Habiba was born here,
and managed to sneak us in.

This is what Ibn Battuta wrote
about this very place,

the place that you're from.

"These people build in the Karafa
beautiful domes, chapels,

"and surround them by walls,
and they construct chambers in them

"and hire the services of Qaran readers
who recite night and day

"in the most beautiful voices.

"They go out every Thursday evening
to spend the night there

"with their children and their women folk,
and they make a circus

of the famous sanctuaries."

(Habiba)
Actually, we used to do that

until very recently,
but people stopped actual-

(narrator)
This-this-

We used to go yeah, yeah,
in the feast or in any, uh,

religious occasion, we would go
to the cemetery and spend the night there,

and ha-take the food
and all that sort-stuff.

(narrator)
Habiba's mother had died recently.

She told me that, although the traditions
Ibn Battuta described were disppearing,

Egyptians still have a special relationship
with their dead.

(Habiba)
I-I never found anywhere in the world-

how we-and we look after the dead
more than the live people.

Yeah, hah, it's an important part
of our life, the-the-the dead

and the cemetery and stuff.

It's very, very important.

Everybody want to be sure he has, uh,
his tomb, like the pharoah, you know,

and it's where it is and should be closer
to his family,

and we mourn for long time, and, uh,
you never stop, you never stop.

For me, if I pass here any time,
I say a prayer for the dead.

But, uh, from-

[both speaking in Arabic]

(in unison)
You are the ones who go before us,

and we're the ones who come after you.

(narrator)
Hospitality to travelers

is a religious duty in Islam.

Ibn Battuta was a pass master
at taking advantage of the kindness

of strangers.

Knowing I'm a fair trenchman myself,
Habiba rounded off my culinary adventures

in Cairo with one of her signature dishes.

This is a surprise for Tim,
I'm cooking him a-a testicle.

It's a lamb testicle.

I'm going to marinate it in onion
and black pepper and salt,

and then I'll do it in the-

[chuckles]

It's very painful actually to cut it,
I don't know.

[mumbles]

Maybe I should use a better knife
than this.

But anyway, this is, uh,
going to be delicious, okay?

Anyway, so like that, okay.

[mumbles]

(male speaker)
Are those some testicles

you prepared earlier?

Yes, yes.

And then, to be even more eventful,
yeah.

We'll do it outside, then everybody can enjoy,
yeah, okay.

That's enough.

Also, we are going to cook
this delicious stew with okra.

It's called bamia in Arabic,
and prepare some meat

and tomato sauce and garlic,
and cook it in it.

This is-the whole idea of this meal is
is something we would eat forever.

(male speaker)
Do you think Ibn Battuta

might have eaten this-

(Habiba)
I'm sure, and, uh,

I'm sure he ate some testicles too.

(Tim)
Mm.

This is, uh, my surprise for you tonight,
some barbecued-

Who-ho-ho-

Testicles.

Test-testicles,
ha-ha-ha.

(Habiba)
Enjoy.

Oh, they're beautiful, heh-heh.

And look, they're even in pairs.

[laughter]

(Tim)
Habiba, look you've-you've-

it looks like you've immasculated five-
what are they, rams,

just for my delectation.

Ibn Battuta was fascinated
by aphrodisiacs,

and in Egypt, testicles are generally held
to ginger up your sex life.

Neil, you'll-you'll-you'll go
for some bollocks, won't you?

[music]

(as Ibn Battuta)
Next came my journey from Cairo

by the root of upper Egypt,
with the object of crossing

to the noble city of Mecca.

(Tim)
From Cairo, Ibn Battuta headed south.

Rather than wait for the season
of the Hajj pilgrim caravan,

he wanted to explore the towns
and villages along the Nile.

Once again, his wanderlust had got
the better of him.

He planned eventually to get
to the Red Sea and sail to Arabia.

The Egyptian authorities had forbidden us
from filming in middle Egypt,

because of security concerns.

So I made straight for the city of Luxor,
and picked up the trail there.

In Ibn Battuta's time, the word tourism
meant spiritual, transcendental travel.

But for the millions of visitors
who come here each year,

it's something a bit more down to earth.

The wife wanted to come to Egypt,
the whole-we were supposed to bring her

last year but we couldn't,
so we came this year,

and this is his first trip abroad.

That's great.

An American friend of ours,
her husband's Egyptian,

and he said that, uh, we needed
to go to Luxor first, but he said that,

uh, all the artifacts are here,
so we flew in-flew into Luxor and, uh,

we've been going to the Luxor Temple,
the Karnak, Valley of the Kings, and, uh,

tomorrow we have the hot balloon ride.

(Tim)
Hot balloon ride?

Yes.

(Tim)
Wow.

Pyramids, sphinxes, and mummies barely get
a mention in Ibn Battuta's travels.

He showed a remarkable lack of interest
in what's now

the staple Egyptian tourist fare.

But perched on top of one of the pharaonic
temples in Luxor,

all but ignored by the tour groups below,
is a tomb hunter's treasure.

This is the resting place of a Muslim saint,
praised by Ibn Battuta for his piety,

and famed for never letting a year go by
without performing the Hajj.

Even today, devotees travel thousands
of miles to pay their respects.

One of the pilgrims assumed I was
a Muslim, and invited me into the mosque.

[speaking Arabic]

(Tim)
I'm British.

England?

(Tim)
Yes.

(male speaker)
Are you Muslim?

Muslim?

(Tim)
No actually I'm-I'm Christian.

I should have told you-yeah-yes,
I should have told you.

I'm always being mistaken for a Muslim.

It comes from speaking Arabic.

But the imam and the pilgrim
didn't want to convert me on the spot.

Instead, they gave me a history
of the site,

which for them, was an illustration
of Islam's superiority.

So this-this was-

Huh!

Under, Temple of Faraoni.

(Pilgrim)
Tell you, that is the last Islam.

(Tim)
I think I understood what he was saying.

This gentleman says that this is a-
a lovely metaphor for the way

that religions have followed one another,
and the last one and-and-and-

the seal of-of-of the religions
is Islam.

For many Muslims, tomb visiting
is something to be done regularly,

like changing the oil in a car.

It ensures the smooth running of history.

This old pilgrim is a veteran traveler
and collector of Muslim saints.

(Tim)
So I h-have an-an idea that, uh,

perhaps because God is impossible
to understand,

and we can only, um,
begin to understand him by...traveling.

Yeah.

[laughter]

Th-th-that's a beautiful analogy.

(Tim)
I had found my transcendental tourist.

It was time to get moving again.

[music]

(Tim)
From Luxor, Ibn Battuta

continued south up the Nile.

The Egyptian authorities judged this area
to be safe for foreigners,

so I hired a boat,
and set off in his wake.

[man singing in Arabic]

(as Ibn Battuta)
The Nile is one of the five great rivers

of the world.

There is no other river on Earth
that people call a sea.

[man singing in Arabic]

(as Ibn Battuta)
It is related

in an unimpeachable tradition
of the Prophet of God,

peace be upon him that the Nile,
the Euphrates, the Pishon and Gihon

are each rivers of paradise.

(Tim)
Our boathand, Mustafa,

had lived on the Nile all his life.

(Tim) While Ibn Battuta
was traveling up the Nile,

he met another holy man
blessed with the power of prophecy.

(as Ibn Battuta)
When he asked me what I proposed to do,

I told him that I intended to make
the pilgrimage to Mecca

by way of Jeddah.

He replied, "You will not succeed
in doing that on this occasion.

Go back, for you will make
your first pilgrimage by the Syrian road,

and no other."

(Tim)
I wanted a prophecy of my own

from Mustafa, would I succeed
in following Ibn Battuta all the way

across the world to China?

(Tim)
It's been said that you can never step

in the same river twice.

But I felt that Ibn Battuta's Nile
and mine were one and the same.

That we were borne by the same current,
propelled by the same wind.

And that he was only a swish of a robe
ahead of me.

But how would I get
to his next destination,

an insalubrious port on the Red Sea,
called Aidhab.

At the end of the Earth he said,
that's what I'm trying to get to,

the end of the Earth, actually,
I am trying to get to the end of the Earth

in many ways.

(Tim)
Alright, okay, now we're getting

some facts.

And there's nothing
for the [unintelligible]-

the-the beasts to eat,
their water-

it's all some, um, tiredness...
and the sun beats down on you

until you're dizzy, heh-heh.

Ibn Battuta did it in some comfort
on camels, so perhaps we should go looking

for camels.

For all the years I've lived in Arabia,
I've somehow managed to avoid camels.

I'd always thought of 'em as nasty beasts
that spit, bite, and kick.

I wasn't looking forward to this bit
of Ibn Battuta's trip at all.

When Ibn Battuta got to Edfu on the Nile,
he hired some Arab camel drivers

to take him across the Eastern Desert
to the port of Aidhab.

Now, Aidhab was a pretty funny place.

If you didn't pay your taxes, you-
you're in danger of getting strung up

by your testicles.

And like most places on the Red Sea,
it was bloody hot.

[camel groaning]
grrrr

Salaam-Alaikum

Ah, this is looking good.

(Tim)
In Ibn Battuta's day,

camel trains could be the height
of luxury travel.

I think he went across the desert
in a camel litter.

So, uh, I'm going to be
rather more adventurous, um,

you know, he went in a litter,
sort of reading books and playing chess

or something with his mate
who was sitting on the other side.

Um, it's actually quite comfortable
so far.

Yeah, heh-heh-heh.

Ah, now that's better.

Oo, now I can cope with this.

Off on the ship of the desert, heh.

(as Ibn Battuta)
We hired camels and set out for a desert

totally devoid of settlements.

This desert is luminous and radiant.

There is no road, no track,
only sand blown about by the wind.

You see mountains of sand in one place,
then you see they have moved to another.

(Tim)
I've spent so much of my time hunting

for Ibn Battuta that I sometimes
don't notice when he creeps up on me.

As we rode east towards Mecca,
the 670 years between us

seemed to fall away.

Ibn Battuta was not destined
to get to Arabia this way.

Just as the holy man
on the Nile predicted,

he had to turn back at the Red Sea,
and eventually made the Hajj pilgrimage

over land through Syria.

For most pilgrims, Mecca was the end
of the road.

But for Ibn Battuta, his journey
had only just begun.

They say travel broadens the mind.

But Ibn Battuta's journey wasn't
just mind-broadening,

it wad mind-blowing.

The next leg of his odyssey took him
to the new frontiers of the Islamic world,

the Hills of Anatolia-

it's breathtaking,
I can see why he'd like this-

the infidel cities of the Ukraine,
and the empire of the mad sultan of Delhi.

Probably the first time Ibn Battuta
saw this, he was thinking, what a nutcase.

On his travels, he encountered all
that was weird, wonderful,

and unexpected in the Muslim world.

To follow in his footsteps, we'll show
that Islam comes in a thousand

different guises:
the dancing dervishes of Turkey,

the mystics and madmen of India,
the magicians of the Maldives,

the sages and sorcerers of China.

All this lies just beyond the horizon.

[music]

(female speaker)
Tim MacIntosh Smith continues

the journey next Thursday at 9,
here on BBC FOUR.

[music]