Ibn Battuta is one of my heroes. He is what Americans would call ‘badass’. He sits well on top of the list of people I have admired and loved – for their generosity of spirit, sense of adventure, or sheer bravery. What started as the journey of a 20 yr old man to go to Hajj or the annual pilgrimage, became a 29-year adventure, in which he traveled over 75,000 miles and an equivalent of over 44 countries. One of the significant achievements that Ibn Battuta has to his credit is the fact that he traveled the known world then – or most of it, anyway – almost twice over. And mind you, this was either on foot, by ship, or on a horse/ Camelback. An interesting talk by Prof. Paul Cobb on Ibn Battuta’s travels is here.

When she felt like teasing me, my (late) mother called me the future Ibn Battuta, the peripatetic traveler who traversed the world, in the 14^th century. She based her prediction on the fact that I had a mole on my foot (a family superstition) and also because I loved to learn about new places. Whether or not I will be a world-traveler and a scholar is something I would rather not speculate about, but I have certainly seen more of the world than many of my family members and friends. The spirit of travel that my mother alluded to, the thrill of discovering new places, of hearing different languages, trying different foods, listening to the sounds of music of different lands and experiencing different ways of organizing life has stayed with me and continues to inspire me – on a daily basis.  So, how does one travel like Ibn Battuta?

Traveling like Ibn Battuta means being curious. It means learning constantly as one travels. It also means that one observes, takes notes, and asks questions. It implies an open-mindedness – to the customs, traditions, values, and norms of the people that one visits – even if they are drastically different from that of ours. Traveling like Ibn Battuta means being flexible, being considerate, and being friendly. An authentic Hadith of the prophet says “If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, God will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise.” Islam also views human life as a journey, and the Prophet Muhammad is said to have told his followers to view life as such – and not to get too attached to anyone or anything – in the true spirit of being a traveler. One may travel the world, yet remain ignorant. It is possible to be impervious to the world outside if one is close-minded and generally indifferent to the world outside. What is needed, it seems, is a curiosity, borne out of the need to genuinely learn from the ‘other,’ without any prejudgment and biases.

With modern transport, travel may have lost some of its old-world charms, but it does form character and expands one’s mind.  As Bruce Chatwin, the British travel writer said, ”As you go along, you literally collect places.” My sense is that all great travelers including Ibn Battuta ‘collected places,’ and this informed their rich characters.

While the days of pre-passport travel have long gone past, what remains are the fragments of those days: memories and dreams of traveling unrestricted. Before I get ahead of myself and paint a romantic, idyllic picture of the 14^th century, let’s step back and recall that there was no mass-rapid transit back in the day. No trains, Airplanes, or Amtrack. One’s best bet was a Ship, Camel, or a Horse and yes, let’s remember that there were bandits and Highwaymen. But despite all this, travel represented something that it doesn’t today: A sense of expansion, deliverance from limitation, and a sense of belonging to the world outside of our own.

Travel is not an equal playing field. As someone with a ‘third-world’ passport, I have been made aware, more than once, that my mobility is not guaranteed. I have always, more than anything, wanted to be mobile – to pick my backpack and move. As a light-traveler, I usually like to just pack a small suitcase and carry my backpack. With this, I have traveled quite a bit. My adventures have involved arguing with visa officers in the American, Austrian and Dutch embassies involving health insurance, the amount of money I had in my bank account to why I want to visit their country. In each case, I won my case. But the fact that I, as a young brown male, from a former colony should have to justify why I have to travel, is something I (still) don’t quite understand. While impressionable teens from the U.K. or the U.S., can pack their bags, buy a ticket and just show up to (almost

) any country in Asia or Africa, and write what they want, create a discourse about these places – the gender relations, the food, the way they are treated – and a million things; I sense that something is not right in our world. A 16-year-old me could never do such a thing. Power relations between countries, visa treaties become all too real when one travels under those terms. Despite this, I have been lucky and have seen quite a bit of the world we live in.

All of this brings me back to my starting point: Ibn Battuta is dead. So is the mode of transport and the spirit of travel that he embodied. But to revive his sense of curiosity, scholarship, and genuine compassion for others, it is necessary to start with openness, humility, and curiosity.

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