Ibn Battuta's Travels: The Golden Horde and Constantinople

Sailing the Black Sea

After waiting more than a month for good weather, Ibn Battuta and his small party boarded a ship and began to cross the Black Sea. Severe storms hit and almost capsized the ship, but after several days of panic and near disaster, they arrived at the opposite coast. Then they reached Kaffa, a Genoese (Italian) colony which had about 200 ships in its harbor. Here lived traders from Genoa, Venice, Egypt, Russia, and elsewhere. There was only one mosque in the town since most of the Europeans were Christians. When the Church bell rang, Ibn Battuta and his friend were offended! They went up to the top of their lodging and out of anger started the call for Muslim prayer! Some other Muslims rushed to them and tried to stop what might cause a religious fight! The next day they continued on to a city with a much larger Muslim population.

At these Black Sea ports they could see the trade goods of the steppe: grains, timber, furs, salt, wax, and honey. There were also the trade goods that had come along the Silk Road from Persia or China. And there were slaves, too: war captives and the sad children of poor parents who sold their children in order to survive. They would be sold in the slave markets of Cairo; others would be sent to work in the sugar plantations of Cyprus or in the rich households of Italy. [Dunn, p.163 - 164]

When they arrived in al-Qiram, they heard some good news! They had arrived just in time to make the 700-mile trip to the Volga River under the protection of the King of the Golden Horde who was traveling only a few days ahead. So they bought three wagons and animals to pull them and rushed to catch up. (One wagon was for Ibn Battuta himself and a slave girl - with whom he would father another child! A second wagon was for his friend, and a third large one was for the rest of his companions and other slaves.) A prosperous steppe dweller might own one or two hundred wagons!

After reaching the land of the Golden Horde, Ibn Battuta was surprised at the treatment of the animals here.

"At every halt the Turks loose their horses, oxen and camels and drive them out to pasture at liberty, night or day, without shepherds or guardians. This is due to the severity of their laws against theft. Any person found in possession of a stolen horse is obliged to restore it with nine others; if he cannot do this, his sons are taken instead, and if he has no sons he is slaughtered like a sheep." 

Ibn Battuta also described the food of these Turks which included "dugi" (like a millet porridge). They poured curdled milk over this. The meat they ate most often was horse flesh and sheep's flesh. They also had "rishta" (a kind of macaroni cooked and eaten with milk). The Turks drank mares' milk (horse milk) and a fermented (alcoholic) drink called "buza" made from grain which they didn't consider wrong - but as a strict Muslim, Ibn Battuta was shocked! Once the great Khan even came drunk to a dinner with his surprised and embarrassed guest.

In 1332, Battuta agreed to escort one of the Khan's wives back to Constantinople to have her baby. She was the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor and a Christian. They set out with about 5,000 horsemen, 500 of her personal soldiers and servants, 200 slave girls, 20 Indian and Greek pages, 400 wagons, 2,000 horses and about 500 oxen and camels. (The unfortunate people who lived along the route were obligated to provide this huge caravan with food! This was part of their "tax" and required support for their rulers.)

After traveling about 75 days they arrived in Constantinople. Ibn Battuta noticed that as they got closer, the former Christian princ

ess stopped the calls to prayer; wines were brought to her and she even ate pork! [Her marriage to the Khan was a political arrangement made by her Christian father to gain advantages from the Muslim ruler.]

Ibn Battuta stayed in Constantinople for more than a month. He even got to meet the emperor, Andronicus III. He saw many of the sights of this capital city of the Christians - the new Rome. He even saw the great Christian cathedral of Hagia Sophia, though he did not go inside. But as Dunn says, "Byzantium in the 1330s was a minor Greek state of southeastern Europe and little more. Its international trade had been abandoned to the Italians, its currency was almost worthless, its landlords were grinding the peasantry unmercifully, its army was an assemblage of alien mercenaries, and its Asian territories had been all but lost to the triumphant Turks. It was a state living on borrowed time and past glories." 

About 120 years after Ibn Battuta visited Constantinople it was conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The city was converted to Islam and renamed Istanbul. The cathedral was redesigned as a mosque. Today Hagia Sophia is a museum.

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