Rihla
Genre of Arabic travel literature
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Related on Lably
Through Middle Ages and Pilgrimage
As travel
The Rihla travel practice originated in Middle Ages Morocco and served to connect Muslims of Morocco to the collective consciousness of the ummah across the Islamic world, thereby generating a larger sense of community. Rihla consists of three types:
- Rihla — journey within Morocco, typically to meet with other pilgrims before traveling beyond the local area.
- Rihla hijaziyya - journey to the Hejaz which would be transmitted via an oral or written report.
- Rihla sifariyya — journey to foreign lands including to embassies and missions in territories in Dar al-Harb. Events on these journeys would be the basis of the extant travel literature.
The performance of Rihla was considered in Moorish al-Andalus as a qualifier for teachers and political leaders. These journeys also coincided with the end of the Mongol invasions and a new opportunity for Islamic expansion.
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As literature
The travel narratives of Ibn Jubayr and Ibn Battuta are perceived as "archetypical exponents of the flowering of [the riḥla] genre," but should not be perceived as its founders. Concerning Ibn Jubayr's voyage to Mecca in 1183, one writer claimed that "...his two-year journey made a considerable impact on literary history. His account of his travels and tribulations in the East served as the foundational work of a new genre of writing, the rihla, or the creative travelogue: a mix of personal narrative, description, opinion and anecdote. In following centuries, countless people emulated and even plagiarized him." Travel narratives were written prior to Ibn Jubayr's; for example, the 12th–century riḥla of Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi, and accounts of foreign lands visited by merchants and diplomats (such as the 9th century accounts of India and China by Abu Zayd al-Sirafi, and the 10th–century riḥla by Ibn Fadlan with the Abbasid mission to the Volga) long predate Ibn Jubayr's travelogue.
The best-known rihla narrative is Ibn Battuta's Masterpiece to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling (تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار, or Tuḥfat an-Nuẓẓār fī Gharāʾib al-Amṣār wa ʿAjāʾib al-Asfār), often referred to as the Travels of Ibn Battuta (رحلة ابن بطوطة, or Riḥlat Ibn Baṭūṭah). The Travels was dictated to Ibn Juzayy on orders from the Marinid Sultan Abu Inan Faris, who was impressed by the story of Ibn Battuta. Although Ibn Battuta was an accomplished and well-documented explorer, his travels had been unknown outside the Islamic world for many years.
The Rihla of Abdallah al-Tijani describes his 970-day round trip from Tunis to Tripoli between 1306 and 1309.