The Rehla of IBN Battuta - India, Maldive Island And Ceylon (An Old & Rare Book)

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The Rehla of Ibn Battuta was first published in the Gaekwad's Oriental Series as No. CXXII in 1953 by the then Director, the Late Professor G. H. Bhatt. It should not be necessary to justify this reprint of an imported work of Muslim Cultural History, which has been in demand for a long time. I hope this reprint will fill a long-felt desideratum. I thanks the University Grants Commission, the Government of Gujarat and the M. S. University of Baroda whose financial assistance has made the publication of this volume possible.

Of all the Arab geographers and historians, I have had from my school days a special liking for Ibn Battuta, partly because of his extremely interesting personality and versatile talents as a scholar, theologian, adventurer, warrior, sailor, swimmer, traveller, explorer, pilgrim, botanist, politician, poet, journalist, historian, geographer, jurist, ascetic, devotee and pleasure-seeker, and partly because of his promoting historical researches and making remarkable contributions to the history of medieval India. It was Maulvi Muhammad Husain's Urdu translation of the Second Part of the Rehla 1 which first attracted my attention. I was able to obtain a copy of it from the library of St. Stephen's College, Delhi, at which I was a student. As soon as I learnt that the whole of the Reḥla in original Arabic had been printed and published at Cairo I obtained a copy of it. Later, I came across Samuel Lee's Travels of Ibn Battuta-an English translation of an epitome of the Rehla based on incomplete manuscripts. It is, however, a scholarly work and contains many useful notes. I was delighted to read in it the learned author's opinion on Ibn Battuta: 'My principal object', says Samuel Lee explaining the notes he has added to the text, 'was to ascertain the accuracy and fidelity of my author; and in this point of view I have succeeded to my own satisfaction at least, having no doubt that he is worthy of all credit.. It is for his historical, geographical and botanical notices that he is principally valuable; and I concur with his Epitomator Mr. Burckhardt, and Mr. Kosegarten, in believing, that in these he is truly valuable'.2 Meanwhile, a copy of Yule's Cathay And The Way Thither came into my hands and I heard of a translation of the Rehla brought out by Prof. H. A. R. Gibb. I found it very interesting and enlightening. But this, too, was incomplete, for it contained only 'Selections From the Travels of Ibn Battuta'.3 In 1933, I went to London. There I found in the libraries of the School of Oriental Studies, of the India Office, and of the Royal Asiatic Society four volumes of 'Voyagesd' Ibn Batoutah by Defremery et Sanguinetti'. On reading through the first few pages of the first volume, I learnt definitely that there existed an autograph of Ibn Juzayy, the famous editor of the Rehla in the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, a fact referred to by Prof. Gibb in his introduction. This made me anxious to go to Paris and see the autograph. I seized the earliest opportunity to do so and was able to see also the other manuscripts of Ibn Battuta's Reḥla in the Bibliotheque Nationale recalling what in his Die Reise des Arabers Ibn Batuta durch Indien und China, Dr. Hans von Mzik the German translator of the Rehla had said, 'This translation of Ibn Batuta's work is based on the Arabic text of Defremery and Sanguinetti.

The translator often had grave doubts regarding certain passages which would have required reference to at present inaccessible original manuscripts and of which the readings were only very rarely adequate.'1 The result is given under a special heading 2 in the Introduction that follows.

**Contents and Sample Pages**