Respond paper to Ibn Battuta’s journey in Medieval Anatolia
Early on in Ibn Battuta’s account, the well-known Moroccan traveler in the fourteenth century, it is evident that the interplay of his self and social position within the multicultural society that was Medieval Anatolia framed his favourable experience. From the displays of generosity among the akhi brotherhood to the honourable encounters with ruling families, what can we understand from the code of morality in relation to his construction of status? In this essay, I would like to discuss the three layers of identities, namely personal, social and cultural, invoked through Ibn Battuta’s narrative space of nostalgia and disguise from his journey in the land of kindliness.
I met in this city the pious shaikh ‘Abdallah al-Misri, the traveller, and a man of saintly life. He journeyed through the earth, but he never went into China nor the island of Ceylon, nor the Maghrib, nor al-Andalus, nor the Negrolands, so that I have outdone him by visiting these regions.
There is an equal sense of pride and anxiety as a well-traveled Muslim jurist permeating in Ibn Battuta’s descriptions of his strengths and weaknesses. Apart from reinforcing his competence by the extent of his travels mentioned above, he often placed himself in the better sorts among the esteemed and the educated. For instance, he told off the Jewish physician in front of Sultan Muhammud b. Aydin when nobody else in the court dared to make a comment regarding his superiority over the Quran readers, asserting a sense of unyielding authority over the non-believer. On another occasion, he insisted on paying the Turkish woman in secret for her food and accommodation despite her brother, the pilgrim who knew Arabic, told him otherwise.
Similarly, when Amir Ala Al-din Artana set him up for criticisms of leaders from other lands, he took the high road to demonstrate his prudence and sophistication. By doing so, he was well-respected by the sultans and state representatives in most places he traveled to. At times, he was unable to communicate with his acquaintances because he didn’t understand Turkish and Persian, however, he claimed to have remembered how things were said and learnt the languages later in life to complete the story of his traveling days. The idea that reminiscence and selection of one’s past constitute a compartmentalised individuality that becomes part of the transmission of knowledge and testimony underpins certain debatable values related to the fluid ethical ideals around that period.
Underneath the patterns of spellbinding hospitality, in which food and ritualistic displays became edifying spectacles, Ibn Battuta painted with a distorted brush the burgeoning ethnic diversity of the region. In the city of Akridur, he was arranged to sit next to the jurist Muslih al-Din who sat next to Sultan Abu Ishaq Bak — a venerated setup that could also be observed when he reached the city of Birgi, Burlu, and Qastamuniya. His repeated presence at the sultans’ tables was a testament to the Turk’s respect for doctors of the law and his scholarly and invaluable insights that span the continent and beyond. Outside the ruling class, he experienced a crescendo of social configurations from the akhis, a social network rooted in brotherhood and chivalry, and culminated in the thirteenth century. The opulent banquets, Quran recitations, singing and dancing, baths and gifts, when compared to the hierarchical provisions assigned to pilgrims and sojourners from Holy Cities and the land of al-Rum respectively, marked a stark contrast between intellectuals and ‘poor brothers’ in spaces of piety and communal engagement in Anatolia.
There are many examples of how the prestigious traveler adopted cultural praxis to gain peer recognition when he should have adhered to and administered Islamic law as a judge. Bewildered at first by the blithe complicity that citizens in Lādhiq, even qādī, engaged in immoral doings such as prostitution with Greek slave-girls, Ibn Battuta subsequently purchased slave-girls for himself from two different places. Although it was not mentioned overtly in the text that such acquisition was made under the same arrangement, it was discernible from the remark of her lack of sexual experience. In the same vein, he was welcomed with a sumptuous sequence of receptions that included singing and dancing on many occasions. But while materialistic pleasure and luxury were not forbidden in Islamic traditions, music and dance were viewed as distractions from serving God.
Not only did he not denounce the said discourse of devotion, he described it as ‘a truly sublime night’. Such an equivocal attitude towards Islamic mysticism, according to Pancaroğlu, was derived from a shifting code of morality brought forward by the prevalent caliphal Futuwwa brotherhood and akhi movement. Their emphasis on generosity, benevolence and bravery heralded the multifunctionality of architectural patronage in the second half of the thirteenth century, many of which Ibn Battuta was welcomed in. More than just a source of awe, the luminous and ornamental venues, with lodges, bathhouses and other facilities, called for social responsibilities and ritualistic persuasions, enveloping visitors in ceremonial hospitality on the cusp of orthodox Islamic doctrines and spirituality.
Ibn Battuta’s travel memoir revisited the period in which migrations and active trade routes disrupted the local social orders and divinity pursuits in Anatolia, seeming to allow elements of heterogeneity to seep in. Since it’s not the Turk’s priority to unite the different demographics in the conquered land, their contiguity accelerated the transmission of knowledge and the development of cross-cultural virtues. In the course of his expedition, the akhi and Futuwwa rivaling hospitality and devotional spaces shape-shifted his identities, hence his manner of traveling. On a personal level, he saw himself as an elite. On a social level, the court and other scholars saw him as a rare intellectual. On a cultural level, he was fairly relaxed about his own moral conduct in exchange for acceptance and recognition.
In all his nostalgia, women were mostly powerless while the working class, children and the sick were virtually invisible. Did he not encounter them or not think they were worth mentioning or make a conscious choice to present Medieval Anatolia as a vibrant and affluent region in the history? The answer perhaps rests with his memory and his open-ended vision of the world.
