Free The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveler of the Fourteenth Century by Ross E. Dunn

unusual break in their wars with the Marinids, had turned their full attention to their eastern marches where they were engaged in a protracted struggle with the Hafsids, notably over control of Bijaya (Bougie), a key Mediterranean port 450 miles west of Tunis. At the time Ibn Battuta arrived in Tlemcen, Abu Tashfin, the ’Abd al-Wadid sultan, was conspiring with a number of Ifriqiyan rebels and pretenders to unseat his Hafsid neighbor and satisfy his own expansionist ambitions. 4 It may be that the two envoys had come toTlemcen to try to negotiate peace with Abu Tashfin and were now going home, albeit empty-handed. 5 In any case, someone advised Ibn Battuta to catch up with them and their entourage and proceed on to Tunis in the safety of their company.
    The busiest commercial routes out of Tlemcen led northward to the ports of Oran and Honein. But Ibn Battuta took the lonelier pilgrimage trail running northeastward through a series of river valleys and arid plains flanked on one side or the other by the low, fragmented mountain chains that broke up the Mediterranean hinterland. This part of the Maghrib was sparsely populated in the fourteenth century. He might have ridden for several days at a time without encountering any towns, only Berber hamlets and bands of Arabic-speaking camel herders who ranged over the broad, green-brown valleys and depressions.
    After what must have been two or three weeks on the road, he caught up with the Ifriqiyans at Miliana, a small commercial center in the Zaccar hills overlooking the plain of the Chelif River. Eager scholar that he was, he could hardly have made better choices of his first traveling companions. One of them was Abu ’Abdallah al-Zubaydi, a prominent theologian, the other Abu ’Abdallah al-Nafzawi, a
qadi
of Tunis. Unfortunately, tragedy struck as soon as Ibn Battuta arrived. Both envoys fell ill owing to the hot weather (it was mid summer) and were forced to remain in Miliana for ten days. On the eleventh the little caravan resumed its journey, but just four miles from the town the
qadi
grew worse and died. Al-Zubaydi, in the company of the dead man’s son, whose name was Abu al-Tayyib, returned to Miliana for mourning and burial, leaving Ibn Battuta to continue on ahead with a party of Ifriqiyan merchants.
    Descending the steep slopes of the Zaccar, the travelers arrived at the port of Algiers, and Ibn Battuta and his first sight of the sea since leaving Tangier. Algiers was a place of minor importance in the fourteenth century, not the maritime capital it would come to be in another two hundred years. It had little to recommend it to a member of the educated class. Abu Muhammad al-’Abdari, an An-dalusian scholar who had traveled from Morocco to Arabia 36 years earlier and had subsequently returned home to write a
rihla
of his experiences, sized up the city’s literate establishment and quickly wrote the place off:
    In setting foot in this town, I wondered whether one would be able to meet any enlightened people or any persons whose eruditionwould offer some attraction; but I had the feeling of one looking for a horse that wasn’t hungry or the eggs of a camel. 6
    Ibn Battuta likely shared al-’Abdari’s opinion since he says nothing in his narrative about what Algiers was like. In any case, he and his merchant companions camped outside the walls of the city for several days, waiting for al-Zubaydi and Abu al-Tayyib to catch up.
    As soon as they did, the party set out for the port of Bijaya, the western frontier city of the Hafsid kingdom. The journey took them directly eastward through the heart of the Grand Kabylie Mountains, a region of immense oak and cedar forests, spectacular gorges, and summits reaching higher than 6,500 feet, rougher country than Ibn Battuta had seen since leaving home. Bijaya lay up against the slopes of the mountains near the mouth of the Souman River, which separates the Grand Kabylie range from the Little Kabylie to the east. It was a