Tangier Summary and Analysis

Tangier is located near the Strait of Gibralter, which connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic, one of five major cities located in the region, including Ceuta, also on the African coast, and Tarifa, Algeciras and Gibralter, located on the Iberian Peninsula. It is an important area strategically, and over the centuries is the location of several struggles for power.

At the time of Ibn Battuta's birth in Tangier, Morocco is under the rule of a group of Musilms known as the Marinids. It is not as important a port as those cities that lie along the Mediterranean, Dunn explains, but begins to grow in importance as Mediterranean trade begins to extend into the Atlantic. It is something of a "frontier town," he writes (p. 18).

Ibn Battuta does not write much about his early life in Tangier, Dunn explains, and only...