Anatolia Summary and Analysis

Chapter 7 opens in 1330 or 1332, when Ibn Battuta has decided to seek his fortune in India. The Muslim Sultan of Delhi is widely known to welcome foreign scholars and legal experts and to provide them with lucrative appointments. Still, Ibn Battuta needs to find a Persian-speaking guide familiar with India to help him. He does not find one in Mecca or nearby Jidda, Dunn explains, and so sets out traveling again toward the region of Anatolia in the hope of meeting someone who can help him.

Ibn Battuta first returns briefly to Cairo and Palestine before sailing from Syria to Anatolia in a European boat. Anatolia is the region between the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, the location of modern Turkey. At the time of Ibn Battuta's visit, Dunn explains, the region is still in a period of transformation between being largely...