Why has everyone heard of Marco Polo but not of Ibn Battuta?
The easy answer is that education in the U.S. is centered on the study of Western civilization. Marco Polo was a European. He came to be seen as an icon of discovery, a precursor to Christopher Columbus, someone who opened up Asia to trade. Of course, that’s complete nonsense. Muslims started traveling and trading in Asia as early as the beginning of Islam in the 7th century. “The Rihla” is one of the most important and extensive documents about what happened in Afro-Eurasia during the second quarter of the 14th century. For a long time, it was only known to Orientalists, but now Ibn Battuta has begun to find his way into world history textbooks. What was Pax Mongolica and how did it affect Battuta’s travels? Pax Mongolica refers to the period between 1250 and 1350 when four large, stable Mongol kingdoms existed that stretched across the Eastern Hemisphere. That doesn’t mean there was peace everywhere, because Mongol states were always fighting each other. But in that period, there was
