Ibn Battuta in India (1334-1342): Qadi at Tughluq's Court

Ibn Battuta, the Moroccan traveller, spent about eight years in the Delhi Sultanate, from 1334 to 1342, serving as a qadi (judge) at the court of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq. His account of these years is the longest section of his famous travel book, the Rihla. It offers an insider’s picture of one of the most powerful and controversial rulers of medieval India.

Arrival in India

Ibn Battuta left Tangier on pilgrimage in 1325 and spent the following years travelling through North Africa, the Middle East, Anatolia and Central Asia, as described in Ibn Battuta’s Travels. He had heard that the sultan of Delhi rewarded learned foreigners lavishly, and he made his way to India by way of Afghanistan.

By his own reckoning he reached the Indus on 12 September 1333. On the frontier, officials recorded his arrival and sent reports to the sultan by the royal postal service. He described its two branches: a horse post and a faster relay of runners who carried letters from station to station, so that news reached the court within days.

At the court of Delhi

Ibn Battuta reached Delhi around 1334. The sultan was absent at first, but on his return he received the traveller, gave him gifts and appointed him a qadi of the city, with a large salary and the revenue of several villages. He was later also put in charge of the endowment of the mausoleum of the sultan’s predecessor, Qutb al-Din Mubarak Shah.

He found the city still recovering from the transfer of the capital to Daulatabad, with large areas sparsely inhabited. He described the palace with its great audience hall of a thousand pillars and the elaborate ceremonies of the court.

Ibn Battuta lived extravagantly and fell heavily into debt. According to his own account, the sultan eventually paid off his creditors, a sign of the royal generosity that he praised throughout his narrative.

Portrait of the sultan

Ibn Battuta’s picture of Muhammad bin Tughluq is famously double-sided. He calls him a man who loved above all to give presents and to shed blood. He admired the sultan’s learning, his gifts to scholars and foreigners and his distribution of food during a severe famine. He also recorded a long list of executions, including of religious figures who opposed him.

His account agrees in broad outline with the Indian historian Ziya al-Din Barani, who also knew the sultan. Both describe a highly intelligent but suspicious and harsh ruler whose ambitious schemes led to rebellions across the empire.

Life as a qadi

As a qadi of the Maliki school of Islamic law, the school followed in North Africa, Ibn Battuta was something of an outsider in Delhi, where most Muslims followed the Hanafi school. By his own account he objected that he did not know the local language, and the sultan answered that deputies would be appointed to assist him. His appointment owed more to the sultan’s policy of attracting foreign scholars, whose presence added prestige to the court, than to local need.

The post brought wealth and status but also risk. Foreigners at the court depended entirely on the sultan’s favour, and Ibn Battuta saw how quickly officials could fall from honour to execution.

Disgrace and the embassy to China

Ibn Battuta’s position became dangerous after he visited Shaykh Shihab al-Din, a Sufi who had refused to serve the sultan and was later executed. Ibn Battuta’s name was found among the shaykh’s visitors, and he was kept under guard for several days, fearing for his life.

Released, he gave up his office and spent some months as a follower of an ascetic. The sultan then summoned him and, in a surprising change of fortune, appointed him envoy to the Yuan emperor of China. The embassy left Delhi in July 1342 with gifts and a large escort.

The mission met disaster almost immediately. Near Kol (modern Aligarh) the party fought with rebels, and Ibn Battuta was captured, robbed and nearly killed before escaping. At Calicut on the Malabar Coast, the ships carrying the gifts were wrecked in a storm. Afraid to return to Delhi, he travelled instead to the Maldives, Sri Lanka, Bengal and eventually China.

Legacy

Ibn Battuta returned to Morocco in 1349 and, after a final journey to Mali, dictated his memories to the scholar Ibn Juzayy in Fez, who completed the Rihla in 1355. The Indian chapters are the richest in detail. Historians use them for information on the Tughluq court, the postal system, cities, food, customs and practices such as sati, the burning of widows, which he witnessed in central India and described with horror.

Timeline

• 1325: Ibn Battuta leaves Tangier.
• 1333, 12 September (his date): reaches the Indus.
• c. 1334: arrives in Delhi and is appointed qadi.
• c. 1341: falls from favour after the Shihab al-Din affair.
• 1342, July: leaves Delhi as envoy to China.
• 1342: embassy ships wrecked at Calicut.
• 1355: the Rihla is completed in Fez.

Why it matters

Ibn Battuta’s years in Delhi gave the world one of the fullest eyewitness portraits of the Delhi Sultanate, written by an outsider who also served inside its government. His account remains essential reading on Muhammad bin Tughluq and 14th-century India.