The Steppe Summary and Analysis

The most likely route from the northern coast of Anatolia to India, Dun writes, would have been over land along the southern coast of the Black Sea to Tabriz and from there on to Hurmuz and to India by sea. Ibn Battuta instead chooses to cross the Black Sea to the Mongol city of al-Qiram and approach by way of the steppe of Central Asia. Dunn speculates that Ibn Battuta may be following a determination he mentions earlier in the Rihla never to take the same road twice, and since he had already been to Tabriz he chooses the longer, more difficult route. There is also the likelihood, Dunn writes, that he intends to meet more of the great leaders of his day by making his way through the territory of Ozbeg Khan toward his capital on the Volga...