The Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited Constantinople towards the end of 1332, mentions in his memoirs having met Andronikos III.

* 1304 – Ibn Battuta, Arabian explorer ( d. c. 1368 )

Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta left vivid descriptions of the empire.

(, ), or simply Ibn Battuta (), also known as Shams ad-Din ( February 25, 1304 – 1368 or 1369 ), was a Berber Muslim Moroccan explorer, known for his extensive travels, accounts of which were published in the Rihla ( lit.

Ibn Battuta is considered one of the greatest travellers of all time.

Ibn Battuta was born into a Berber family of Islamic legal scholars in Tangier, Morocco, on 25 February 1304, during the reign of the Marinid dynasty.

In June 1325, at the age of twenty-one, Ibn Battuta set off from his hometown on a hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a journey that would take sixteen months.

For safety, Ibn Battuta usually joined a caravan to reduce the risk of an attack by wandering Arab Bedouin.

In the early spring of 1326, after a journey of over, Ibn Battuta arrived at the port of Alexandria, then part of the Bahri Mamluk empire.

Of the three usual routes to Mecca, Ibn Battuta chose the least-travelled, which involved a journey up the Nile valley, then east to the Red Sea port of Aydhab, Upon approaching the town however, a local rebellion forced him to turn back.

Ibn Battuta returned to Cairo and took a second side trip, this time to Mamluk-controlled Damascus.

Rather than return home, Ibn Battuta instead decided to continue on, choosing as his next destination the Ilkhanate, a Mongol Khanate, to the northeast.

An interactive display about Ibn Battuta in Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

On 17 November 1326, following a month spent in Mecca, Ibn Battuta joined a large caravan of pilgrims returning to Iraq across the Arabian Peninsula.

Then, instead of continuing on to Baghdad with the caravan, Ibn Battuta started a six-month detour that took him into Persia.

Ibn Battuta joined the royal caravan for a while, then turned north on the Silk Road to Tabriz, the first major city in the region to open its gates to the Mongols and by then an important trading centre as most of its nearby rivals had been razed by the Mongol invaders.

Ibn Battuta left again for Baghdad, probably in July, but first took an excursion northwards along the river Tigris, visiting Mosul, Cizre and Mardin, in modern day Iraq and Turkey.

Ibn Battuta remained in Mecca for some time ( the Rihla suggests about three years, from September 1327 until autumn 1330 ).

Ibn Battuta also mentions visiting Sana ' a, but whether he actually did so is doubtful.

From Aden, Ibn Battuta embarked on a ship heading for Zeila on the coast of Somalia.

Ibn Battuta described it as " an exceedingly large city " with many rich merchants, noted for its high quality fabric that was exported to other countries including Egypt.

After a journey along the coast, Ibn Battuta next arrived in the island town of Kilwa in present day Tanzania, which had become an important transit centre of the gold trade.

* For a new understanding of his early career, based on a newly discovered text, see also: Michot, Yahya, Ibn Sînâ: Lettre au vizir Abû Sa'd.

Invoking stories of the early life of the Prophet Muhammad, Ibn Yasin preached that conquest was a necessary addendum to Islamicization, that it was not enough to merely adhere to God's law, but necessary to also destroy opposition to it.

Tabari relates ( Suyuti also relates the same through Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi's report ) from Aisha her description of Abu Bakr:

The nature of " being " has also been debated and explored in Islamic philosophy, notably by Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra.

In the early 13th century, Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati, and Ibn al-Baitar ( d. 1248 ) also wrote on botany.

Mather also took inspiration from Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, a philosophical novel by Abu Bakr Ibn Tufail ( whom he refers to as " Abubekar "), a 12th-century Islamic philosopher.

He may have also been inspired by the Latin or English translation of a book by the Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath Ibn Tufail, who was known as " Abubacer " in Europe.

The madh ' hab he observed was Imam Al-Shafi ‘ i, with similar customs as he had seen in coastal India especially among the Mappila Muslim, who were also the followers of Imam Al-Shafi ‘ i. Ibn Battuta then sailed to Malacca, Vietnam, the Philippines and finally Quanzhou in Fujian province, China.

Ibn Battuta arrived in the Chinese port city of Quanzhou, also known as Zaytun ).

Ibn Battuta also mentions Chinese cuisine and its usage of animals such as frogs.

He also described traveling further north, through the Grand Canal to Beijing, but as he neared the capital an internal power struggle among the Yuan Mongols erupted, causing Ibn Battuta and his Hui guides to return to the south coast.

However Ibn Battuta also mentioned an ingenious trick used by locals that allowed them to hunt hippopotamus for both their meat and hides.

During most of his journey in the Mali Empire, Ibn Battuta travelled with a retinue that included slaves, most of whom carried goods for trade but would also be traded as slaves.

The information is also second hand, and not derived from Ibn al-Shaykh's personal experience.

His knowledge of optics was connected to the handed-down long-standing tradition of the Kitab al-manazir ( The Optics ; De aspectibus ) of the Arab polymath Alhazen ( Ibn al-Haytham, d. c. 1041 ), which was mediated by Franciscan optical workshops of the 13th-century Perspectivae traditions of scholars such as Roger Bacon, John Peckham and Witelo ( similar influences are also traceable in the third commentary of Lorenzo Ghiberti, Commentario terzo ).

Arab interest in Maldives also was reflected in the residence there in the 1340s of the well-known North African traveler Ibn Battutah.

According to biographies preserved by Ibn al-Nadim and the Persian polymath al-Biruni, he allegedly received a revelation as a youth from a spirit, whom he would later call his Twin ( Aramaic Tauma ( תאומא ), from which is also derived the name of the apostle Thomas, the " twin "), his Syzygos ( Greek for " partner ", in the Cologne Mani-Codex ), his Double, his Protective Angel or ' Divine Self '.

Parabolic mirrors were also described by the physicist Ibn Sahl in the 10th century, and Ibn al-Haytham discussed concave and convex mirrors in both cylindrical and spherical geometries, carried out a number of experiments with mirrors, and solved the problem of finding the point on a convex mirror at which a ray coming from one point is reflected to another point.

Ancient Romans such as Pliny ( N. H. 5. 10 ) thought that the river near Timbuktu was part of the Nile River, a belief also held by Ibn Battuta, while early European explorers thought that it flowed west and joined the Senegal River.

Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya also posited that human reason could discern between ' great sins ' and good deeds.