‘Ibn Battuta (d.1377), Tuhfat an-nuzzar fi ghara’ib al-amsar wa ‘aja’ib asfar, an abridgement of The Travels, copied by Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Muhammad al-Zizi, North Africa, dated middle of Ramadan 1068 AH/1657-58 AD

Brockelmann does not appear to list any other copies of this work in the usual libraries such as The British Library, The Chester Beatty Library, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, or the Bodleian, Oxford. However, Brockelmann mentions an abridgement of the work in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, that consists of only forty-six leaves: “The untitled abridgment is by Shams ad-Din Muhammad bin Fathallah bin Mahmud al-Bailuni (died about A.H. 1042 / A.D. 1632). The Arabic author describes the book as an abridgement of the edition prepared by al-Kalbi entitled tuhfat an-nuzzar finished in 756 / 1355 from the notes dictated by Ibn Batuta himself” (see A. Mingana, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, 1934, pp.500-1.

See Brockelmann, GAL, SIII, Leiden, 1996, GII, 2, 256, SII, 366. 

Shams al-Din Abu ‘Abdallah Muhammad ibn ‘Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Lawati at-Tangi, better known as Ibn Battuta, was a Moroccan scholar and explorer who is considered one of the greatest medieval Arab travellers. He was born into a Berber family in Tangier on 24 February 1304 AD. Ibn Battuta set off on his travels in June 1325 from Tangier, at the age of nineteen, and did not return to Morocco for twenty-nine years. What was initially intended to be a Hajj pilgrimage took him through most of the Islamic world and beyond. His travels gave new dimensions to the genre of travel books in the medieval Muslim world, as traditional travel centred on a visit to the Holy Sites of Mecca and Medina in Arabia.

On his return to Morocco, Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his travels to Ibn Juzayy, an Arab scholar from Al-Andalus. The writing of the text was commissioned by the Marinid ruler of the time, Abu ‘Inan Faris al-Mutawakkil (r.1348-58). The text was completed in December 1357 and the definitive text appeared a few months later as Tuhfat al-nuzzar fi ghara’ib al-amsar wa-ajai’b al-asfar (‘A gift for the curious, concerning the wonders of cities and marvels of the journeys thereto’), referred to simply as Rihla  or The Travels. Some of Ibn Battuta’s descriptive accounts are thought to have been inspired by the writings of earlier travellers, such as the twelfth century Andalusian traveller Ibn Jubayr. However, his journeys provide an invaluable source for the social, cultural and political history of the Muslim world in the fourteenth century. Ibn Battuta was a keen observer of life and his descriptions are marked by a human approach which is unusual for historical writing of the time. His accounts are recognised in particular for his descriptions of East and West Africa, Turkish principalities in Asia Minor and India. (B. Lewis et al (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Islam, New Edition, Vol. III, Leiden, 1986, pp.735-6).

A four-volume French translation of The Travels by C. Defrémery & B.R. Sanguinetti (Paris, 1853-59) is considered one of the best. For an English translation of the text, with important corrections, see H.A.R. Gibb, The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Cambridge, 1958-62, 2 volumes.