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Landfalls
Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam from Zanzibar to the Alhambra | Tim Mackintosh-Smith
1 post | 2 read | 3 to read
For Ibn Batuttah of Tangier, being medieval didn't mean sitting at home waiting for renaissances, enlightenments and easyJet. It meant travelling the known world to its limits. Seven centuries on, Tim Mackintosh-Smith's passionate pursuit of the fourteenth-century traveller takes him to landfalls in remote tropical islands, torrid Indian Ocean ports and dusty towns on the shores of the Saharan sand-sea. His zigzag itinerary across time and space leads from Zanzibar to the Alhambra ( via the Maldives, Sri Lanka, China, Mauritania and Guinea ) and to a climactic conclusion to his quest for the man he calls 'IB' - a man who out-travelled Marco Polo by a factor of three, who spent his days with saints and sultans and his nights with an intercontinental string of slave-concubines. Tim's journey is a search for survivals from IB's world - material, human, spiritual, edible - however, w hen your fellow traveller has a 700-year head start, familiar notions don't always work.
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Third and final book in the Ibn Battuta series, in which Mackintosh-Smith follows the path of 13th century Islamic traveller, judge, Sufi who crossed pretty much the entire known world making it as far as China and as far south in Africa as Timbuktu. Part travel guide part enquiry into what is left from Battutas time, but mostly seeking a connection with the old traveller.

Cathythoughts Great picture ✨ 4y
umbrellagirl I just read the first one. Need to find the others. Love the pic! 4y
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