In 1325, young Ibn Battuta left his home in Morocco to make a pilgrimage to Mecca in Arabia, the holiest place of Islam. He did not see his homeland again for 25 years. Traveling in the Middle East and Asia through virtually the whole Islamic world, Battuta became perhaps the most-traveled person of the Middle Ages. After reaching India and China, he turned his eyes westward to explore Spain and West Africa. Today, Ibn Battuta's memoir stands as a remarkable source of information about the Islamic world in the medieval period. Book jacket.