Oriental Journeys
Guided and inspired by Ibn Battuta’s (d.1369) footsteps, in a series of conversations with international scholars and prominent practitioners, the Oriental Journeys Podcast aims to deliver intriguing, historically accurate, relatable, curiosity-provoking and well-researched episodes that open a portal into the world of the East for people who are curious about the past, contemplate the wonders of cities and hunger for the marvels of travelling.
Oriental Journeys
The Call of Caravan III: In Search of Ibn Battuta with Tim Mackintosh-Smith
In this episode we will explore Ibn Battuta's multiple motivations for stepping into 29 years of traveling and search to find out more about his multifaceted personality with Tim Mackintosh-Smith who has dedicated his life tracing Ibn Battuta.
Tim Mackintosh-Smith is a British, Oxford-educated Arabist, writer, traveller, translator and lecturer, based in Yemen for many decades but currently nomadic. He is one of the foremost scholars of the Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta. Mackintosh-Smith has published a trilogy recounting his journeys in the footnotes of Ibn Battuta: Travels with A Tangerine (2001), The Hall of a Thousand Columns (2005) and Landfalls (2010). In 2007, Mackintosh-Smith presented a major BBC documentary series, Travels with a Tangerine, recounting his experiences tracing Ibn Battuta's fourteenth-century travels in the present day. In 2016 he published an edited abridgement of The Travels of Ibn Battuta with Macmillan Collector's Library.
What we cover in this episode
- Ibn Battuta multiple motivations for stepping into 29 years of traveling.
- Ibn Battuta’s dream in Munyat and its interpretation.
- Multilayered personality of Ibn Battuta.
Conversation key insights
- 'Never so far as possible to cover a second time any road’ [A quote by Ibn Battuta in his Travels].
- ‘Ibn Battuta is a very attractive character: fun to meet, he has a big head but also a big heart.’
- 'Most travelers follow a path…When you look at Ibn Battuta's path, it is like a crazy spider or something running across the world. It is only when you look into his motivations does it begin to have its own logic. He was always in search of something.’
- ‘Ibn Battuta saw humanity in everyone.’
Recommended reading
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, edited by Tim Mackintosh-Smith, Macmillan Collector's Library, 2016.
Thanks to the episode contributors:
- Kate O’Connell | Editor, Creative Consultant
- Aydogan Kars | Academic Advisor
- Ashkan Bahrani | Academic Advisor
- Frank Youakim | Narrator
- Ali Gorgin | Music
- Tia Goodwin | Cover art designer
We acknowledge the Aboriginal peoples as the enduring Custodians of the land from where this podcast is produced.