At the Edge of the World of Islam: Ibn Baṭṭūṭa in the Malay Archipelago

The article focuses on Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s account of his journey through the Malay Archipelago in the 1340s, which is remarkable in so far as it captures the region at the early stages of Islamisation, when the first Muslim sultanates emerged in North Sumatra. It describes the Arab traveller’s encounters...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Iankovskaia, Aglaia (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Ruhr-Universität Bochum [2020]
In: Entangled Religions
Year: 2020, Volume: 11, Issue: 5
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Ibn-Baṭṭūṭa, Muḥammad Ibn-ʿAbdallāh 1304-1377 / Malaiischer Archipel / Report / Islamization / History 1340-1350
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
AF Geography of religion
AG Religious life; material religion
AX Inter-religious relations
BJ Islam
KBM Asia
TH Late Middle Ages
Further subjects:B Ibn Baṭṭūṭa
B medieval travel
B Islamisation
B Malay Archipelago
B Frontier
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Summary:The article focuses on Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s account of his journey through the Malay Archipelago in the 1340s, which is remarkable in so far as it captures the region at the early stages of Islamisation, when the first Muslim sultanates emerged in North Sumatra. It describes the Arab traveller’s encounters with both Muslim and still Hindu-Buddhist inhabitants of the region, drawing the image of a frontier of the world of Islam. The article discusses the narrative techniques used in the travelogue and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa’s perceptions of the cultural border between Muslim and non-Muslim parts of the archipelago. As the author tries to demonstrate, this barrier is represented in the text as the one between the cosmopolitan but familiar Islamic world and the exoticised space beyond, and it appears to be more imagined than actually experienced, since the account seems to be largely shaped by the general narrative paradigm of the travelogue.
ISSN:2363-6696
Contains:Enthalten in: Entangled Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.46586/er.11.2020.8673