Landfalls: On the Edge of Islam from Zanzibar to the Alhambra
by Tim Mackintosh-Smith
Following Ibn Battutah (3)
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Description
For Ibn Batuttah of Tangier, being medieval didn't mean sitting at home waiting for renaissances, enlightenments and easyJet. It meant travelling the known world to its limits. Seven centuries on, Tim Mackintosh-Smith's passionate pursuit of the fourteenth-century traveller takes him to landfalls in remote tropical islands, torrid Indian Ocean ports and dusty towns on the shores of the Saharan sand-sea. His zigzag itinerary across time and space leads from Zanzibar to the Alhambra (via the show more Maldives, Sri Lanka, China, Mauritania and Guinea) and to a climactic conclusion to his quest for the man he calls 'IB' - a man who out-travelled Marco Polo by a factor of three, who spent his days with saints and sultans and his nights with an intercontinental string of slave-concubines. Tim's journey is a search for survivals from IB's world - material, human, spiritual, edible - however, when your fellow traveller has a 700-year head start, familiar notions don't always work. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
The third in a trilogy of travel books in which the author follows the steps of the Mediaeval traveller Ibn Battutah - in this volume to East Africa, the Maldives Sri Lanka, China and the Sahel. He combines scholarly detective work with current travel narrative and cultural insight. Compelling description and imagery. Strongly recommend this.
Absorbing book. Final book in trilogy. I read first book but not second. Ibn Battutah is 14th century Moroccan lawyer who travelled in Islamic countries. In this vol. Sri Lanka, China, West Africa, Andalucia. Author tries to find evidence of Ibn B.'s visit. £4.99 via Kindle Amazon.
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Author Information
10+ Works 1,637 Members
Tim Mackintosh-Smith was born in 1961 and educated at Oxford, where he studied Arabic. Seduced at an early age by images of Yemen, he has lived there since 1982, earning the unofficial title "Shaykh of the Nazarenes." Steeped in the language and customs of his adopted land, he is both guest at the feast and fly on the wall
Series
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Ibn Battutah
- Important places
- Zanzibar, Tanzania; Indian Ocean; Sahara; North Africa; East Africa; Spain (show all 9); Maldives; Sri Lanka; China
Classifications
- Genres
- Travel, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 910.92 — History & geography Geography & travel modified standard subdivisions of Geography and travel Explorers & Travelers Geographers, travellers, explorers regardless of country of origin
- LCC
- G490 .M2948 — Geography, Anthropology and Recreation Geography (General) Special voyages and travels
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 80
- Popularity
- 395,657
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (4.13)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 2
- ASINs
- 4
