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.

Persian poetry from Ibn Sina is recorded in various manuscripts and later anthologies such as Nozhat al-Majales.

The first recorded reference to the bowed lira was in the 9th century by the Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih ( d. 911 ); in his lexicographical discussion of instruments he cited the lira ( lūrā ) as a typical instrument of the Byzantines and equivalent to the rabāb played in the Islamic Empires.

Ibn Battuta recorded his visit to the Kilwa Sultanate in 1330, and commented favorably on the humility and religion of its ruler, Sultan al-Hasan ibn Sulaiman, a descendant of the legendary Ali ibn al-Hassan Shirazi.

The battle ended in a Zengid victory, and Saladin is credited to have helped Shirkuh in one of the " most remarkable victories in recorded history ", according to Ibn al-Athir, although more of Shirkuh's men were killed and the battle is considered by most sources as not a total victory.

The nature of this document as recorded by Ibn Ishaq and transmitted by Ibn Hisham is the subject of dispute among modern Western historians, many of whom maintain that this " treaty " is possibly a collage of different agreements, oral rather than written, of different dates, and that it is not clear exactly when they were made.

Some of the earliest recorded attempts with gliders were those by the 9th-century poet Abbas Ibn Firnas and the 11th-century monk Eilmer of Malmesbury ; both experiments injured their pilots.

The popular Muslim attitude towards Baldwin was recorded by the traveller Ibn Jubair, who wrote that he was called al-khinzir (" the pig ", regarded as an unclean animal ), and his mother Agnes al-khinzira (" the sow ").

The first recorded reference to fiddles in Europe was in the 9th century by the Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih ( d. 911 ) describing the lira ( lūrā ) as a typical instrument within the Byzantine Empire.

The first written evidence of spinach in the Mediterranean was recorded in three 10th-century works: the medical work by al-Razi ( known as Rhazes in the West ) and in two agricultural treatises, one by Ibn Wahshiya and the other by Qustus al-Rumi.

The Muslim commander at Burbia is named in Ibn al-Athir as Yūsuf ibn Bukht and the battle is likewise recorded in al-Maqqarī.

The earliest recorded attempt to build a dam near Aswan was in the 11th century, when the Arab polymath and engineer Ibn al-Haytham ( known as Alhazen in the West ) was summoned to Egypt by the Fatimid Caliph, Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to regulate the flooding of the Nile, a task requiring an early attempt at an Aswan Dam.

The earliest to appear were recorded by Ibn al-Faqih in the late 9th or earliest 10th century.

However, there were clearly many others who had some contact with Muhammad, and their names and biographies were recorded in religious reference texts such as Ibn Sa'd al-Baghdadi's ( Muḥammad ibn Sa'd ) early ( The book of The Major Classes ).

A tale recorded by Ibn Al-Kalbi has Muhammad's grandfather Abdul Mutallib vowing to sacrifice one of his ten children.

President Roosevelt's interpreter was U. S. Marine Corps Colonel Bill Eddy who recorded the men's conversation in his book FDR Meets Ibn Saud.

Imam Ahmad recorded from Zirr bin Hubaysh that Ubayy bin Ka ` b told him that Ibn Mas ` ud did not record the Mu ` awwidhatayn in his Mushaf ( copy of the Qur ' an ).

Al-Bukhari also recorded from Sa ` id bin Jubayr that Ibn ` Abbas said, " Al-Kawthar is the abundant goodness.

) This Hadith was recorded in this manner by Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Ibn Abi Hatim and Ibn Jarir.

Ibn Ishaq recorded many pre-Islamic Arabic poems in the Sira, including a poem about Dhul-Qarnayn that he claims was composed by a pre-Islamic king of ancient Yemen named Tub ' a Abu Kariba As ' ad ( Tub ' a is commonly cited as the first of several kings of Arabia to convert to Judaism ):

Umar's expedition was recorded by the renowned exegetes of the Qur ' an, Al-Tabarani ( 873-970 AD ) and Ibn Kathir ( 1301 – 1373 AD ), and by the Muslim geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi ( 1179-1229 AD ):

The expedition was led by Sallam-ul-Tarjuman, whose observations have were recorded by Yaqut al-Hamawi and by Ibn Kathir:

As an elderly man, Abu ' Afak Arwan wrote a politically charged poem against Muhammad and his followers that is preserved in the Sira. The affair was recorded by Ibn Ishaq in " Sirat Rasul Allah " ( The Life of the Prophet of God ), the oldest biography of Muhammad.