"The numerous translations of the Rihla, together with the extensive corpus of encyclopedic articles, popular summaries, and critical commentaries on Ibn Battuta and his career that have accumulated since the eighteenth century, are a tribute to the extraordinary value of the narrative as a historical source on much of the inhabited Eastern Hemisphere in the second quarter of the fourteenth century." (Introduction, p. 5)

"Although we have no idea what Ibn Battuta's early experience with Sufism may have been, his behavior during his travels is itself evidence that he grew up in a social climate rich in mystical beliefs and that these ideas were tightly interwoven with his formal, scriptural education." (Chapter 1, p. 24)

"Islam obliged every Muslim who was not impoverished, enslaved, insane, or endangered by war or epidemic to go to Mecca at least once in his lifetime and to perform there the set of collective ceremonies prescribed...