SOURCE: Allouch, Adel. “A Study of Ibn Battūtah's Account of His 726/1326 Journey through Syria and Arabia.” Journal of Semitic Studies 35, no. 2 (autumn 1990): 283-99.

In the following essay, Allouche evaluates the narrative credibility of Ibn Battuta's travel accounts, especially with regard to chronology.

The Riḥlah of Ibn Baṭṭūṭah (d. 770/1368-9) encompasses a wide spectrum of information regarding the lands this famed traveller visited in almost thirty years of continuous travel, from 725/1325 to 754/1354. The commonly accepted view, since the Riḥlah's first edition by C. Defrémery and B. R. Sanguinetti,¹ has been that Ibn Baṭṭūṭah dictated his account from memory to Ibn Juzayy and that the degree of accuracy or inaccuracy of this work reflects the clarity of the author's recollections. The chronology of the Riḥlah is inconsistant regarding the arrangement of narration of contemporary events. In a lengthy article published in 1962, the Czech...