Pilgrimage from Granada to Mecca

Ibn Jubayr · 1183 CE – 1185 CE · Earth

Perform the hajj and record every stage of the road from al-Andalus to the Hejaz and back.

Historical context

In 1183 the Mediterranean was cut in two by the crusades, yet pilgrims, merchants and scholars crossed the line constantly: Ibn Jubayr sailed on Genoese ships, paid Frankish tolls in Acre and prayed in Saladin’s Cairo within the same journey. His Rihla records a world of Almohad Spain, Ayyubid Egypt, Abbasid Iraq and Norman Sicily held together by the pilgrim road. He wrote it as a practical guide and left the finest description we have of how that world actually worked.

The voyage, step by step

1. Leaving Granada

   3 February 1183

   On 3 February 1183 the secretary of the Almohad governor sets out for Ceuta and the sea.

2. Alexandria and the Pharos

   1183 CE

   After thirty days at sea he lands in Egypt and paces out the lighthouse still standing on its mole.

3. Saladin’s Cairo

   1183 CE

   He admires the new citadel, the hospitals and the free colleges of a sultan at the height of his power.

4. Crossing at ʿAydhab

   1183 CE

   From the Nile at Qus a desert march brings him to the Red Sea port where pilgrims embark for Jeddah.

5. Eight months in Mecca

   1184 CE

   He performs the hajj and stays through the seasons, describing the sanctuary month by month.

6. Baghdad of the caliphs

   1184 CE

   Travelling the Kufa pilgrim road, he finds the Abbasid capital shrunken and its people vain.

7. Damascus

   1184 CE

   He calls the Umayyad Mosque the most splendid building in Islam and copies its inscriptions.

8. Norman Palermo

   1185 CE

   Shipwrecked off Messina, he crosses Sicily and finds a Christian king who writes in Arabic.

Outcome

Returned to Granada in April 1185 with the Rihla, the first great eyewitness survey of the medieval Mediterranean and Near East.

Ibn Jubayr

Andalusi secretary and poet whose pilgrimage from Granada to Mecca and back produced the founding masterpiece of Arabic travel writing.

Read on Wikipedia

Sources

• Ibn Jubayr — Wikipedia
• The Travels of Ibn JubayrIbn Jubayr, translated by R. J. C. Broadhurst · Jonathan Cape, London · 1952

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