Author in Qalma
Ibn Battuta
1304–1368
Biography
Ibn Battuta left his hometown of Tangier at twenty-one years old, intending only to perform the Hajj. He did not return for twenty-four years. By the time he came home he had covered roughly 75,000 miles across three continents, visiting the courts of sultans in Mali and India, crossing the steppes of the Golden Horde, and sailing the Swahili coast. His account, known as the Rihla, was dictated with a scholar named Ibn Juzayy and became one of the most vivid records of the medieval world. What makes him singular is not only the distance but the quality of his attention: he noticed how people ate, mourned, dressed, and governed.
Why Ibn Battuta belongs in Qalma
Ibn Battuta belongs in Qalma because his whole life was a case for paying close attention to the ordinary. That is what a daily canvas asks of you too, to notice one day well before it passes.
“The earth is vast, and life is short.”
Ibn Battuta · Rihla · 1325
A reflection
Ibn Battuta wrote this near the start of a journey that would last some thirty years. The scale of what he saw gave him a plain arithmetic: the world keeps going, a life does not. That arithmetic is yours too, in smaller terms. Pick one thing you have been postponing because there will supposedly be more time later, and do it this week, not as a grand gesture, but as a small correction.
Source: The Rihla (A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling), c. 1355.
Ibn Battuta is one of the voices behind Qalma's offline drawing app. Explore the daily reflection app, or return to the home page.
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