Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
Mackintosh-Smith follows Ibn Battutah’s journey, retracing his steps from Morocco to Egypt, Syria to Oman, and Anatolia to Constantinople. He sails in a dhow across the Arabian Sea and travels to Delhi, then on to the Maldives and the fabled Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka. He describes his own experiences beautifully but also provides us with extracts from Ibn Battutah. The result: you see India from the 14th-century perspective of Ibn Battutah’s adventures overlaid with an account of an emerging 21st-century superpower. Brilliant juxtaposition.
Tell us about your next book, Travels with a Tangerine.
This book, written by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, is his account of retracing Ibn Battutah’s journey. He completed the trip in parts, and describes each stage in three separate books – Travels with a Tangerine is the first (the second one is called The Hall of a Thousand Columns, and the third one is called Worlds Beyond the Wind, which is due for release this year). If you want to get a contemporary look on Ibn Battutah, then Tim Mackintosh-Smith is an excellent guide. In this first book, he follows Ibn Battutah, going from Morocco to Eygpt, Syria to Oman, and Anatolia to Constantinople. He sails in a dhow across the Arabian sea and travels to Delhi, then on to the Maldives and the fabled Adam’s Peak in Sri Lanka. He describes his own experiences beautifully but also provides us with extracts from Ibn Battutah. The result: you see India from the 14th century perspective of Ibn Battutah’s adventures overlaid with an account of an emerging 21st-century superpower. Brilliant juxtaposition. The parallels between the two ages are often quite stark.
You too wanted to do something similar?
Yes, I have to say I am very jealous – I always wanted to retrace the travels of Ibn Battutah myself. In fact, I made very elaborate plans, and even started the journey around North Africa and some of the areas in the Middle East. What I actually wanted to do was to live like Ibn Battutah. But the journey took him 29 years and I just couldn’t do the same thing.
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Ziauddin Sardar is a journalist, author, documentary maker, cultural critic, scholar and travel writer. He comments on science, politics, Islam, philosophy, travel and the arts. He is currently editor of Futures, the monthly journal of policy, planning and futures studies, a commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission of Britain, and visiting Professor of Postcolonial Studies at City University, London. His explorations of the Muslim world are documented in one of his more recent books, Desperately Seeking Paradise.
