A manuscript preserving Ibn Battuta’s celebrated account of his travels through the Hejaz and the Gulf has sold at the 35th Abu Dhabi International Book Fair for close to Dh1 million.
Brought to the fair by London-based rare book dealer Peter Harrington, the manuscript preserves Ibn Battuta’s account of the Hejaz and the Gulf, part of the Rihla, the 14th-century travel account often described as the medieval world’s most ambitious record of a single life spent on the road.
One of the earliest eyewitness accounts of the region
The manuscript covers Ibn Battuta’s travels between 1325 and 1333, beginning with his departure from Tangier and continuing through Cairo, Damascus, Medina and Mecca, Iraq, Persia, the Red Sea, East Africa, the Gulf, Anatolia and into Central Asia. It breaks off with his account of Naysapur (Nishapur) in present-day Iran, corresponding to the first two volumes and the opening of the third volume of H.A.R. Gibb’s four-volume English translation.
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Among its most significant sections is one of only three major medieval firsthand accounts of the Hajj, preceded only by those of Nasir Khusraw and Ibn Jubayr. Ibn Battuta also provides what is considered the first description of the southern Gulf following the rise of New Hormuz in 1300, recording visits to Qalhat and Niswa in Oman, Kalba and Khor Fakkan in present-day Sharjah, and pearl fishing off the coasts of Bahrain and Qatif.
Only seven copies survive
Only seven complete or incomplete copies of the Rihla are known to survive worldwide, mostly in incomplete or abridged form. The earliest, an incomplete autograph manuscript by Ibn Battuta’s scribe Ibn Juzayy, is dated 757H (1356-7CE) and is held at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, with one further copy at Cambridge. This particular manuscript, a quarto measuring 250 x 190mm, is written on laid paper in Maghribi script, bound in black-brown calf with a blind-tooled panel design and gilt-stamped fleurons.
A regular at the UAE’s book fairs
Rare and important books from Peter Harrington regularly go on sale at book fairs across the UAE. The London-based dealer has exhibited at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair since 2016 and has also taken part in the Sharjah International Book Fair. It has previously brought landmark items to the region, including a First Folio of Shakespeare valued at Dh20.8 million, the Rothschild collection of explorer Richard Burton’s works worth Dh9.2 million and a manuscript of Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine priced at Dh464,550.
Source: Khaleej Times