Hello everyone the here and I’m Gabby and welcome back to the podcast my ho I’m gonna go ahead and say this right now from the beginning guys I screwed up I did I really did I made a promise this last time that this was going to be a
Two-part episode I was I was wrong okay the sheer insane story of even batuta over the course of creating this thing maybe think oh yeah know I could totally split this into two parts it’ll be fine and then I got like eight pages into
This and I was like okay um I’m I’m not half way to the point here that I thought that I was going to end this thing so as it turns out there’s going to be a third part to this and for that I apologize you always underestimate how
Long it would take I do yeah I I actually do it’s one of my big faults it definitely is one of my big faults and I have a number of them but that is definitely one of the big ones is underestimating things I would be a terrible military commander from that
Like you know how there’s that big whole thing of like like underestimating an enemy that would be my precise thing it’s like oh no I’m sure it’ll be fine they can’t totally have 10,000 people here at Max it’s five and then lo and behold I’m surrounded that would be me
Yeah yeah I would be you anyway from our story from where we left off even batuta had left Morocco he’ gone on his little adventure and by little I mean massive Adventure across the Middle East had gone down into uh Arabia had gone down into Africa had gone up into Persia and
Other territories and here well now here was going to be a continuation of his journey also since we’re talking about Journeys here again I figured that this would be a great time to tell you all that there are still a couple early bird spots that are left for our trip that
We’re going to be taking to Germany if you don’t want to see the Christmas markets with us and you don’t want that $200 discount then you can check out the trip that we’re doing to Peru which is going to be in July or Italy which is in
May and the links for all that are down in the description so okay where we last left off with Ian batuta he had spent about a year in Mecca where he was studying and making his third pilgrimage post ter of course well yes of course because it’s
What it is that he had to do uh he was thinking though more and more about doing something else he didn’t want to stay in one place for very long and specifically he’ been hearing tales about the Sultan of Deli which was for when I say Delhi for anyone who is
Confused about that I mean yes as in the city of Delhi in India that was the Muslim controlled region in India which actually at the time had a pretty massive Empire the sultan there was reportedly welcoming Scholars and judges from abroad and if you went there he
Would just give you a high-paying job like if you just showed up and you were an educated Muslim you were going to pretty much get rich there that was almost a guarantee it seems at least those were the rumors but first in order to get there
Imuta had to get a guide someone who was going to be able to speak Persian someone who knew how to get to India and knew India pretty well so in the year 1330 he went to the town of jid on the Red Sea and after looking unsuccessfully
For a guy to India for several months he decided okay well since I can’t really go to India I’m going to continue to travel elsewhere like he just you know just completely changed his mind and instead he went North to Turkey this would be the region though at the time
It wasn’t called turkey it was just you know the region of Anatolia from there he would be able to connect with any Turkish Caravans that possibly were traveling along the Silk Road to go to India and what he would then do is travel back into Egypt where he would
Meet a friend they would then go by Caravan to Damascus Syria and from there they would head north for Anatolia ima’s small group would leave Syria on a large Galley ship that was belonging to a genoise trading Mission and from there they would arrive at Ela
In Anatolia this was a town that was a pretty busy trading port and it was especially famous for its wood which was something that was heavily shipped down to Egypt and Syria which historically I’m not sure if many people are familiar with large swaths of the Middle East but
Um there’s not all that much wood they they don’t have as many trees there which meant that it was a very valuable uh commodity that you can send down as he would describe the journey quote we set out for the country the Turks it was conquered by the Muslims but there are
Still large number of Christians there that are under the protection of the turkman Muslims we traveled on the sea for 10 nights and the Christians treated us honorably and took no passage money from us on the 10th day we arrived at alna where the province begins this
Country is one of the finest in the world World in it God has brought together the good things dispersed through other lands its people are the most comely of men the cleanest in their dress and the most delicious in their food and the kindliest folk in creation
Wherever we stopped in this land whether at hospice or at private house our neighbors both men and women these do not Veil themselves came to ask after our needs when we left them they B us farewell as though they were our relatives and our own folk and you would
See the thing about this is that when he’s going and traveling this places he absolutely loves Anatolia he loves how hospitable they are but there’s something else while he did praise the Turks hospitality and how committed they were to being proper Sunni Muslims he was very surprised by certain things
Such as the fact that they ate hashish which is essentially Indian hemp it’s a a type of drug that is like marijuana and he was shocked that they did this and just didn’t care like they didn’t think anything of it that was something that for anyone who’s unfamiliar with
The Muslim faith it’s like you know how that we talk about Mormons out in um uh why can I not remember the name of the of the University BYU yes BYU how there was that whole controversy about caffeine on campus that’s always a controversy it’s always ongoing yeah so
That is what we’re talking about here except in this case it was you know Indian hemp and it was like a drug it was almost like marijuana and he was shocked that they would be able that or not be able to but that they would inebriate themselves using the substance
When you specifically were not supposed to within Islam and in every town that he was he would visit he was welcomed by a fraternity of Muslim Brothers every time he went to a place they would provide him with food with shelter and apparently they would even compete with
Each other like with other fraternities for the honor of entertaining their guests and whoever could entertain them the most whoever could give them the biggest welcome that is how they earned like a great and honorable place in society as he would say about the whole event quote we stayed here at the
College Mosque of the town now in all lands inhabited by the turkman in Anatolia in every District town and Village there are to be found members of the organization known as the young Brotherhood nowhere in the world will you find men so eager to welcome strangers so prompt to serve food and to
Satisfy the wants of others the members of this community work during the day to gain their livelihood and bring what they have earned in the late afternoon with this they buy fruit food and the other things which the hospice requires for their use if a traveler comes to
Town that day they Lodge him and he stays with them until he goes away if there are no Travelers then they themselves assemble to partake of the food and having eaten it sing and dance on the tomorrow they return to their occupations and bring their earnings to their leader in the late
Afternoon so in other words from all this again there was Major competition between these varing different groups as to well how well they could entertain and he was going to take advantage of this as much as possible even butut would stay in the homes of important
Leaders some of them even related to the Ilan of Persia himself and at every single place as was custom he was given Hospitality gifts sometimes people just gave him money sometimes they gave him robes sometimes they gave him a horse or even a slave like just anything and
Everything that you can think of that would have been a good gift back in the day he was going to get and oftentimes a letter of introduction that he would then be able to use to the next person or place where he was going to be going
To along the trip to you know have a nice place to stay as he traveled through turkey he would see many different things but what seems to have shocked him when he did this was that specifically there was a varying different um how do I even phrase this
The status of women whether they were free or slave was very different from what he had expected and saw as he would say and I quote a remarkable thing which I saw in the country was the respect shown to women by the Turks for they hold a more dignified position than the
Men I saw also the wives of the merchants and the common men their faces are visible for the Turkish women do not Veil themselves sometimes a woman will be accompanied by her husband and anyone seeing him would take him for one of her servants this was something that absolutely shocked him because obviously
He’s coming from a region that was very Pious strict when it came to their interpretation of Sunni Islam and you’re going to hear over the course of this a lot of um comments that he’s going to make about women at the time and well it provides us with valuable insight as to
How this wasn’t a singular uniform custom and practice everywhere where people had to closely and strictly Veil themselves it was actually different in different parts of the world but the whole reason that I even bring this up in the first place because in one town that he would visit he was extremely
Critical of how it is that they treated slave women as he would say the in AB habitants of the city would make no effort to Stamp Out immorality indeed the same applies to the whole population of these regions what they would do is buy beautiful Greek slave girls and then
Put them out to prostitution and each girl has to pay a regular due to her master I heard it said that the girls go to the bath houses along with the men and anyone who wishes to indulge in depravity does so in the bath house and
Nobody tries to stop him I was told that the governor in the city owns slave girls employed in this way and it’s this point that I I really just need to say something that I want you to keep in mind remember how I said in the first
Part of the story for anyone who listened to the first episode which I really hope that you did before going into this the whole deal with batuta is that he kept no notes he told his story orally three decades later to another guy who embellished it so what I can say
Here is that he definitely does offer us some really great insights on these places that he describes things that in general many people would never have even thought of writing down in the first place but the amount of times that he relates a story as oh I was told this
Happens it’s a bit frustrating and it makes me think of the Netflix docy dramas and the amount of oh I thinks in there but either way that being said there is nothing that we can really do about it he is still easily one of the most valuable sources for insights into
This time and from many different places around the world at this point that otherwise we would know pretty much nothing about but anyway in November of 1331 Ian matuta and three friends which would also include two of their slave boys and a slave girl along with several horses and gifts from Governors and
Hosts they would start out towards the black seat now Ian batuta had benefited greatly from the generosity of the Turks this was obvious he was traveling in style at this point but the next part of the trip was not exactly going to be easy because he would end up getting
Caught in a raging River he would be misled by a guide who got the party lost and then demanded money from them he would almost freeze to death but they would end up making it through and they would arrive at the Port of syop on the
Black Sea and they were ready to leave towards the steeplands the home of the golden horde and I’m going to need to explain that because there’s probably a bunch of people who’ve never really heard of this thing before when genghiskhan died he divided the Mongol empire into four different Kates these
Being you know where they would have the indiv ual cons who had ruled this territory and these were for his sons and grandsons the golden horde was the Northwestern conic this included much of Eastern Europe and Russia and was a very large territory the interesting thing to
Note about this is that unlike when the Mongols went and conquered Persia and they then settled down in the cities and they adopted Persian culture and these types of things or how the Yuan Dynasty did the same kind of thing in China where they settled in and became Chinese
Or you know adopted that culture the golden horde didn’t really do that they maintained their nomatic Customs on the Russian steps and as a result would continue on as a Mongol horde for many many years and so after waiting more than a month for good weather even matuta and
His small party would board a ship and they began to cross the Black Sea severe storms though would hit and when this happened it would almost cause the entire ship to capsize but after several days of panicking and almost disasters occurring they would manage to arrive at
The opposite Coast they then would reach kafa which was a genoise colony which had around 200 ships in its harbor and here Traders from all over Europe had gathered from Genoa from Egypt Russia Venice elsewhere this is where some of the biggest and best Traders across the continent were gathered the thing is
Though there was only one mosque this being because un likee a lot of the places thatbut had visited up until this point kafa was a Christian settlement something that was still in Christian control and so when the church bell rang that you know was signaling the time
We’re calling people to church IM batuta and his friend actually ended up being offended by this because they were so used to being surrounded by so many Muslims that they just it was like the shocking thing that this was a place where Christianity was dominant so they
Went to the top of their lodging and angrily started to call on people like to to arrive for prayer like for Muslim prayer and some other Muslims in the area then had to rush to them and try to stop them because that could potentially lead to a religious fight inside of the
City and get them all expelled and that is not something that they wanted to do the next day he would move on to another city with a much larger Muslim population because they just simply didn’t want to stay in that kind of place anymore and this is something that
As we tell his story you’re going to hear quite a bit about he is an extremely valuable resource for describing these things but he definitely has a lot of his own biases that are made very painfully obvious so at the Black Sea ports they could see
The trade goods at the step they could see the grains the timber The Furs the salt the honey the wax all these valuable things as well as the stuff that was coming along the Silk Road from Persia and China and everywhere you looked there were slaves War captives
The sad children of poor parents who sold their children to survive did people really do that yes they sell their children to survive so in a time of famine this was one of the most common think about this you have a farm what is the labor on a farm children CH
Typically children this is one of the reasons why farming communities are very fertile usually is that children were free labor what happened if a farmer didn’t have kids um they usually had to hire help but that was expensive and it wasn’t good for them like you you farming was a very family dependent
Thing that’s what you had to utilize or you use slaves like where do you think plantations like that’s where the whole thing would come from and why they would do that cuz they could have enough kids yeah it was very well it was also it was
It it was way more labor dependent and also more brutal work and that wasn’t something you wanted your children to be doing uh yeah not it’s not a clean thought but that’s the reality of it and so let’s say that you had a um a drought something happened and half your crop
Died well now you’re not going to have the food NE Neary to feed your entire family okay that’s wild because your entire entire the entirety of kids not being sold into slavery would just be is there going to be a drought or not that is a wild thought yes and that literally
Would happen that that is that is what would happen and so these children would go to the slave markets in Cairo you know potentially from there some of them could have been turned into Unix and shipped off to an ottoman Court you could have had something where they
Would be sent to the sugar plantations that existed on Cyprus or be sent as servants to Rich households inside of Italy because there were whole thriving Muslim communities that were there or just sent off to some other households you never really knew so when they would arrive then at Alam which was another
City and this one you can already judge from the name was definitely not a Christian settlement even B’s party of Travelers finally heard some good news they had managed to arrive just in time to make the 700 M long trip to the vulgar River under the protection of the
King of the golden horde who had actually just traveled a few days ahead of them so they were very very close to being able to catch up and actually be part of a large Caravan so they bought three wagons they got the animals to pull them and they rushed as fast as
They could to go and catch up and soon they would catch up to the Caravan of the kipchak Khan olb who was the King of the golden horde the K’s Caravan was described at this time like being a m massive vast City something that would move with its inhabitants with mosques
Bazaars the smoke of kitchens Rising the air as they cook on the March it was literally a Mobile City because remember what I said in the beginning the golden horde did not adopt a settled lifestyle like the Mongol conquerors of Persia or other regions they kept their nomadic
Traditions and as he settled in even matuta was shocked at how well the animals were treated and by well they were treated I mean the fact that they weren’t just stolen because well there’s a very key reason as he would say every times the Turks would halt they would
Just loose their horses their oxen their camels and they would drive them out to pasture just free night or day they didn’t have Shepherds they didn’t have Guardians they just let all the animals loose that is shocking because in any other society around Earth what would be
Happening there at the time is you let your animals out and since animals are a huge sign of wealth and are very valuable someone is likely to come along and steal them but this didn’t happen here and the reason he said so is because this was because of the severity
Of the laws against theft because if there was any person who is found in possession of a stolen horse that person would be obliged to restore it with nine others so you had to return back if you were found with stolen property you had to return nine times its value if you
Could not do this that person’s Sons were taken as slaves if he had no Sons they were slaughtered really the whole thing is a stronger variant of an eye for an eye wow so the next morning after even matuta had arrived at the massive tent camp Caravan thing he goes and meets the
King the KH sbeg who is seated upon a silver throne in the middle of a huge tent whose exterior is covered with a layer of bright gold tiles so the tent had tiles oh hugely wealthy you know how we just bought that tent I want you to
Imagine something 100 times that so okay okay so what was it like a canvas tent how do they put the gold were they real gold tiles how do felt yurs okay and then you put gold tiles on that yes you you could apply it over the
Top as a kind of thing where it would be a um uh to help shed like rain and things so can we get gold tiles for our lar tent I I’m so glad you agree okay continue they would also be sewn into it I think it was specifically to make it
Shine bright would technically speaking if we did that in the middle of the summer and we had multicolored you could turn the entire thing into looking like stained glass where it just shimmers okay that sounds cool it does it was warm here right well uh in the
Summer yes so that could be really pretty yes but in Winter oh my God these things this place gets ridiculously cold oh yeah so when he arrives and he sees all this right it’s really impressive but what was confusing was that the family of the con were below the throne
But the four wives that he had were seated next to him see interesting fact here in the Mongol States women would actually like like women of the Court like the ones who were Royal women they actually shared in the governing of the realm princesses just like brothers they
Could be awarded their own land which they would rule in tax like women actually had more capability in that place and time than in many other areas which was really unique this the lack of veils and the fact that they drank Millet beer oh this shocked patuda because remember he was a
Strict Muslim and so the idea of people inebriating themselves with beer and their women having power like that and not wearing veils oh oh how how that that couldn’t happen but it it it’s besides the point the biggest thing the biggest offense that absolutely shocked
Him was that at one point the great KH even came drunk to a remember Muslim not supposed to be drinking which severely embarrassed him oh yeah so when they uh when they reached astracon even batuto would learn that the third wife of the con was pregnant and the con had given her
Permission to go back to her father who was the king or emperor of the Byzantine Empire from there the whole point was because she wanted to have her baby back in Constantinople why because it a whole thing where she had spec okay so this is
Going to be a little bit of a complex thing um the Byzantine Empire by this point is not in a good state it is really not it is the early 1300s and it has been completely broken it has been trying to bribe as many people as it can
To leave them alone uh it no longer has a professional Army and entirely utilizes forces of mercenaries to protect their borders it’s it shrink from what it once was it just it can’t do anything and so the third wife of the con this princess she had been
Specifically married off to the con in order to be a political tool for peace right to to not be invaded and one of the conditions was that she would be able to go back and visit like that was one of the the stipulations that they
Would have so in this case she was able to take her baby back with her and have it there because it’s what she wanted to do and he was going to allow this this is something that even batuta was going to jump on because he was going to ask
The con if he could also go and get permission to go there because this would be another chance for him to see another part of the world his first time to go beyond the world of Islam the DAR al- Islam and from there see one of the greatest ancient cities of the world
Would he be okay to go beyond the world of Islam was the question he should ask himself and there were many different times over the course of the story that you’re going to wonder precisely that because in many cases it does not end well oh did he write a lot of like judgy
Oh he was very every single place that he went he was super judgy I get that though because if I were to write a book of my travels o yeah the Judgment yeah he is again a very valuable resource in order to describe many of these places at this time but also
Simultaneously you have to understand that he inherently had his own biases he was literally a member of like he was a he was a cotti right he was one of the religious Elites in the Muslim world that’s like saying you know a Greek not even Greek but like a Catholic bishop
Went traveling to Saudi Arabia and just started judging people for everything it’s like he’s a literal Bishop okay you’re going to expect that so then in July of 1332 they set out with around 5,000 Horsemen 500 of her personal soldiers and servants 200 slave girls 20 Indian and Greek Pages which are like
Little servant boys 400 wagons 2,000 horses and about 500 oxen and camels what is really crazy about this whole thing is right they’re traveling with this massive Entourage and unfortunately as they are traveling you know how there’s that whole thing about Hospitality that is supposed to be
Provided for guests what about it well the whole thing here is that um they that the people along the way were required to support this massive Caravan with food and this would be considered part of the tax that was required to support the local rulers interesting so yeah they got they
Got sucked dry basically and this wasn’t a quick Journey either after traveling for around 70 5 days they finally arrived in Constantinople and imuda noticed something that really bothered him as they got closer and closer to the city this former Christian princess who had converted to Islam she stopped the calls
To prayer she no longer partook in Muslim practices they brought out wines and these were brought to her and she even ate pork isn’t she pregnant she’s just drinking wine yeah yeah but that’s also what was done at the time like remember her marriage to the con was something that was a completely
Political arrangement she didn’t she converted to Islam but she didn’t really convert to Islam this is like one of those things that oftentimes happened with many different conversions in history is that yes there were initial conversions for whether to Christian to Islam or to any other faith it usually
Took several generations for those practices to actually stick like to the person you know to actually follow it because before she didn’t do any of these practices now I mean it was a arranged marriage she didn’t want to convert so I mean it makes a lot of
Sense yes it’s shocking but it checks out exactly so I matuta would arrive in Constantinople and he would stay there for a month he even at the time got to meet the Emperor who was andonis theii and he saw many of the different sites of the capital city of the Christians
The new Rome which for anyone confused about this Constantinople had become the capital of the Roman Empire in the mid-4th century and the inhabitants of the region still refer to themselves and is the Romans they didn’t call themselves Greek they didn’t call themselves Byzantine that was a later
Invention in like the 17th century I think it was or 18th century I can’t remember when it was they specifically refer to themselves as the Romans really yeah he even went and saw the great Christian Cathedral of the a Sophia though he did not actually ever go
Inside actually on that note I still think I remember seeing something here um I remember seeing a story about people like in turkey that straight up they did not believe that the I Sophia had ever been a church that it had always been a mosque and that shocked me
That some people would never have seen that there before that’s like people in Spain not knowing that large swaps of the South had been you know Muslim controled before I think maybe they just don’t go over that time period you know what I’m saying I don’t know why would
It be taught I because it’s an important part of the history I guess but well yeah it’s an part of the history but maybe they weren’t proud of it so it’s just not really brought up I don’t know that’s a very important question then so this princess that imuta had escorted
With she decided to stay for some time with her father in Constantinople and you know just basically resume being a Christian princess that what she would do but she gave permission to her escorts to return home to the kip chap con so I matuda would once again set off
For the step the grassy lands of the pneumatic golden horde however when he went back to the step it was no longer as nice as when he went the first time oh was it cold now yeah the thing about the step is that it doesn’t exactly retain heat very well
And this is just at the moment that the very heavy Eurasian winter had set in so this guy is going to this land that mind you remember he is from Morocco at a time before AC or anything else like that he and he is used to traveling in desert
Climates very hot he was so cold that he regularly had to wear three fur coats all at the same time two pairs of trousers two pairs of heavy socks and heavy boots that were lined with bare skin and and if you think he’s exaggerating or being a little crazy
Because it does sound a little extra doesn’t it I mean no that’s how I dress in Winter okay yeah I get that but for a lot of people are going to think that he’s a bit crazy until they know that whenever he washed with hot water water like water that had literally been
Heated over a fire and then he tried to wash his face or other things the water would run down his beard and before it reached the end of his beard it would freeze how did people stay warm so the Yurts like the the the actual things they had there were very well
Constructed remember these things were made out of felt so they were it was like giant animal skins very very warm especially with how they would be multi-layer they would be sealed with um God why can’t I remember the term so they used oil they used fats they used
All different kinds of things that would provide a kind of seal on it that would stop heat from being able to escape so they were very good at that uh they would have fires inside of these yts I’m assuming the baby boom after winter was wild oh yeah and also especially
Remember that it was men having multiple wives so also yeah the thing is here’s oh that would actually keep you pretty warm if they’ll at 10 I’m just thinking Logistics okay actually I read this really interesting story I don’t know if it was New York Times but it was one news source that
Posted that people were actually saving money um you know on heat in winter in America by just uh having sex yeah yeah there was also that thing that was said what was it about um uh saving money by just not eating well yeah a lot of
People eat once a day so I mean we’re we’re doing great guys this is going to sounds so weird to say but it would be very funny sad in this scenario for why but sad but funny if it simultaneously s solved the Obesity crisis and also the population issue just by virtue of
People sleeping around more and also eating less but inflation is going to take us out I don’t think people can afford to have kids oh yeah no they cannot they absolutely cannot either way we need to talk about a time that definitely didn’t have nearly as many
Troubles as what we have now the late medieval period that was a joke it was obviously a very different time and they had plenty of their own troubles that were way worse than what it is that we have today so they would once again reach asron but after this would
Continue northward to meet the con who is then at new which was a city up the vulgar river which was now Frozen here too there was a band of Muslim Scholars and hopeful bureaucrats that were hoping to find jobs in the frontier cities of the world of Islam because from there
You know they they needed to go to places that had less God what is the right term here not presence that’s um uh frequency no that’s not the right term Gabby what are you trying to say I’m trying to think of the term for what happens to where there’s not a lot of
Something in an area because it’s new like it’s because it’s scarce there and there was a specific term for it wasn’t established yes that’s the term okay cuz Frontier cities were not established thank you I don’t know why I was failing to remember that but yes was sleep would
Probably have something to do with your lack of memory the far as asleep the fever the working non-stop for 3 Days yeah I’m wild sick I mean yeah just just to name a few yeah I haven’t been doing well guys here but the work doesn’t stop
And we still have had stuff to create and stories to tell so yes these people were hoping to go to places that weren’t established because there was way less Scholars there meaning they would be able to achieve a much greater degree of power influence and wealth in those
Spots yes because there was a scarcity a lack of them available thank you so Ian batuta would leave the vulgar River colony and he would head south generally towards India for five months he would travel through the different regions that have been conquered by the Mongols
And in the aftermath of the conquest um large parts of the civilization that had existed there for hundreds thousands of years was gone like like wiped out in bukara as an example he would report quote the mosques colleges and bazaars are in Ruins there is not one person in
It today who possesses any learning or shows any concern for acquiring it because again those places were freaking destroyed like the big walled cities that had tried to resist the Mongols earlier had been completely wiped out this is kind of funny though because um not in the whole wiping out part uh
But the destruction that he saw was actually the lighter variant cuz that was only their first pass through later on I can’t even remember how far away it is from when he’s doing his travel but within the next Century uh the Mongols were going to come back again in
The form of tamarlane like Timmer the great and he was the guy who’d create literal pyramids of skulls so yeah anyway even batuto would continue on his journey leaving the step the land of the golden horde and from there he would cross into the land of the Khan of chagatai which was another
Descendant of genas Khan this was the center of the Mongol Empire not culturally geographically like this was the place that was the middle of it all but it was here where mostly nomadic herders lived with a few major trading cities or centers of learning generally speaking they kept to the kind of
Lifestyle that You’ expected of the Mongol hordes the present Khan a guy by the name of Thomas Sharin he was the first of his dynasty to make Islam the official religion of state and I batuto would stay with the con for 54 days during the cold winter of
1333 when he left he was given 700 Dinars two camels and a nice warm Sable coat very nice and Rich gifts a few months later in India he would learn that the con had been overthrown by a nephew and a group of anti-muslim commanders so again this would be
Another example and we’re going to see this many more times where even batuta would arrive in a brief moment of Peace before disaster would tear a kingdom apart he somehow managed to magically escape this multiple times so it’s the spring then of 1333 and IM matuto would continue with
The others on his Caravan into the mountain passes into Afghanistan and here they would have to deal with Bandits they would have to deal with treacherous environments Rock slides snow everything it was a rough journey and after a four month journey through this land and the land of chagatai they
Finally rode into India here ruled by a Muslim conqueror and it was here that I batuta had hoped to finally settle down and get a high-paying job and live out his days he had finally arrived at his final destination or had he had he no no he had absolutely not if
That was the case then I wouldn’t be saying that there would be a part three to all this see I batuto would enter India through the high mountains of Afghanistan and from here he would followed the footsteps of the Turkish Warriors who in the previous Century had conquered the Hindu farming people of
India and established the sultanate of Delhi this was a state that didn’t necessarily last all that long but it was very violent very quick and it gobbled up large swats of India very quickly the first wave of Muslim soldiers that came in weren’t actually trying to settle down they instead were
There more for raiding and establishing bases of operation they would loot towns they would smash the images of the Gods of the Hindu worshippers but when they would come back later as full conquerors instead of trying to convert the entire population the Kings who conquered everything decided hey you know what
Would be great we have this whole thing in Islam called a jiza tax where if you don’t convert and you keep your local religion you’re allowed to do it but you got to pay an extra tax and Kings like their taxes so rather than slaughter The Peasants they would largely allow people
To Live and Let Live with their native Faith but they would then have to pay an extra tax they would replace the local Hindu Leaders with Turks from Afghanistan and from there they would conquer and unite a large area something that almost reached to the southern tip
Of the continent or the subcontinent I should say but the thing is these were foreign Invaders they were Muslim Sultans in an area that was overwhelmingly Hindu they would face constant opposition from the Hindu majority in India who time and time again would continuously rebel against their conquerors and also not only
Having to deal with that they would also have to deal with periodic Mongol and invasions that were still coming from the north because it wasn’t safe thing is over time slowly India was becoming more and more firmly controlled by Islamic leaders Hindus were even at this point converting to Islam because
They were finding that oh hey if I actually go and convert to Islam that means I can get a good government job they recognized that there were actually good economic advantages to becoming Muslim you would pay lower taxes you had more opportunities for advancement under the present leader this was something
That in cities you generally saw more of this population convert in the rural areas though the population almost remained exclusively Hindu it did not change they had to pay their taxes but they would be allowed to worship as they wished and they many of them many of them hated the Muslim government which
Had been imposed upon them this is where You’ see some of the greatest concentrations of resistance in order to strengthen his hold on India the sultan who ruled from Delhi needed more people he needed more judges he needed Scholars he needed administrators he needed Warriors he needed writers he
Needed poets he needed entertainers he needed literally everything that you could possibly have in order to be able to run a state and maintain it to do this since he couldn’t really get it from the local population because you know even the people who converted to Islam from the area were not necessarily
Fully trusted remember the whole thing we talked about with that Byzantine princess you could really trust recent converts so you did they have like a set amount of time they let someone be before they could trust them that’s a great question it’s going to be dependent upon the time place culture
And there’s going to be different rules a little initiation time frame what a trial period yeah so for some it was literally just the Next Generation for others like in the case of remember that’s what it is like when you get a job and they’re like oh you have 90 days
Where you have absolutely no benefits but you’re going to do all of the work and then will decide if you’re going to keep you like did they have one of those a probationary period I I guess you could say so there were some that um
Went and put this back way far like as a as a key example remember how Spain conquered or rather it was Castille and Aragon and Portugal the whole Reconquista they conquered Spain back from the Muslims who had invaded centuries earlier the whole thing with Al andalo yes okay so when this happened
Right uh the the Muslims who had been conquered in the south of the peninsula had been either expelled or forcefully converted to Christianity like the Jews the Muslims these people were forcefully converted or converted willingly just to try and maintain their own livelihood in the state anyway the reason I bring that
Up in the first place is because when when time would go on eventually the Christian rulers in Spain would go back on this and actually end up expelling a bunch of the Muslims or an Muslims former Muslims who had converted and I don’t mean that they who had converted like from their individual
Generation I mean people who had been Christian for at least two generations at this point and yet they were completely kicked out of the country because they could not deem to be trusted by the state they didn’t trust recent converts interesting so it’s going to vary depending upon the time and place
The sultan was faced with a similar kind of situation you couldn’t trust the local population so instead he would recruit foreigners and he would reward them with fabulous gifts and very high salaries oh my God we’re going to describe this here in a second for what even batuta reportedly got paid when he
Was there and it is it’s pretty insane Persians Turks Muslims from across darl Islam all these people flocked to the new Empire looking for great rewards Persian was the language at this point of the ruling Elite which pretty much meant that the capital city was isolated it spoke none of the local language
Around it it only spoke Persian which was the language of the foreign conquerors and it was here from Sultan Muhammad tluk that ibben batuta would try to gain employment now when I talk about this guy here’s the thing I’m gonna have to specify this uh Muhammad tuuk was a
Person who is going to go down in history as an interesting character to say the least he was an amazing scholar he was was very bright he was very kind and generous to people he was also very erratic he was very eccentric he was an extremely violent and vindictive and paranoid
Ruler he was a lot of things he learned how to write Persian poetry and mastered the art of calligraphy he could debate legal and religious issues with Scholars as he was very well learned he had learned Arabic in order to read religious text like the Quran and he
Would shower gifts on Scholars and Muslims who he trusted he sounds well around like a well-rounded guy who’s just a little bit angry I think a lot of people are just a little bit angry yeah but he also made a lot of bad decisions he had a tendency to go way too far
Whether it was um about which battles to pursue uh where and how to establish his government you know listening to the people around him how to handle the economy but like he gave away so many gifts and did so many things and wasted so much money that he almost bankrupted
The entire State and what ended up pissing off a lot of people uh he wasn’t U he he was very cruel with how he would administer Justice like this was a guy who was known as a cruel man even by the Middle Ages like we talk about that people usually talk about medieval
Punishment and that sort of thing he was famous for being cruel in his Justice even back in the day he was responsible not only for having Rebels and thieves punished with cruel deaths but also Muslim Scholars and holy men basically anyone who questioned him about his policies even if they happened to be
Just a friend of a person who did this would bring them up on a list that was the equivalent of Stalin calling for quotas of people needing to be executed anyone who questioned him any friends any association you were dead he was paranoid and fearful of any kind of
Criticism as one Observer would write quote not a weak past without the spilling of much Muslim blood and running the streams of Gore before the ENT of the palace um what yeah if you’re wondering what it is I’m talking about uh this reportedly included cutting people in half skinning
Them alive chopping off their heads and displaying them on poles as a warning to others and having prisoners tossed about by elephants who had swords attached to their tusks okay points for creativity but when you said he was like a little bit of an angry ruler I thought like you
Know maybe he imprisons some people as would a reasonable person do if were paranoid but the elephant tusk thing is next level demented especially since elephants generally speaking don’t want to do that like you have to actually torture an elephant to turn it into a war any elephants that wants swords on
Their tusks first of all wouldn’t the tusks be enough yeah you think so you would think so so as even batuta would write quote the sultan was far too free in shedding blood he used to punish small faults and great without respect of persons whether men of learning or piety or Noble
Descent every day there are brought to the audience Hall hundreds of people Chained pinioned and fettered and they are executed tortured or beaten um what what is he afraid of yeah I know right so like what exact I understand dangers of being a ruler back in the day remember literally everyone around him
Is a potential enemy they are a minority ruling class ring people that hate them I get that but they gave them so many bribes okay um to not kill them why is he killing everybody to save money no on having to buy their loyalty he was an absolute
Ruler from all definitions of an absolute ruler he was a guy who could not be questioned because if you questioned him potentially that meant that you could have been working with a general or some other kind of bureaucrat to oust him don’t get me wrong I absolutely love his style but I think
Maybe he’s doing a little bit too much yeah attack so you could say that working for this man was very dangerous it naturally was but if you survive which feels like a weird thing to say but it’s real if you survive that’s just employment though if you
Survive it’s true the rewards would be massive so in late 1334 even batuta goes to Delhi to seek official employment and there he signs a contract agreeing that he is going to stay in India he goes and he cleverly assembles an rrange of gifts for the sultan So when he arrives in Delhi he has already given these gifts and he in turn receives a welcoming gift of 2,000 silver Dinars and gets put up in a very comfortable furnished house Muhammad tluk at this time was not in Delhi and so even batuta had to wait there tuglu
Had received reports about his arrival and immediately hired even batuta without ever actually seeing him like he literally heard about oh hey this big traveling Muslim scholar has come here to our to our realm oh okay hire him literally never spoke to him never had any idea about him never had anything
Just heard about him hired him on the spot and there he would receive an annual salary of 5,000 silver dinars to be paid from 2 and a half Villages located about 16 miles from the city now I’m saying a lot of numbers here there’s a reason why I was saying how
Insane this number was the average Hindu family reportedly lived on about 5 a month and he was receiving 5,000 a year that he he was receiving as much in a year what the average family was like a literally a thousand times what they made in a month that’s insane wow so he
Was doing this for a while and Muhammed tluk would return in June and there IM matuta and the other newcomers who had come with them from the Caravan would go and greet the ruler with their gifts and the next day the sultan comes parading into the city of Delhi and on some of
The elephants that he is leading in him there are little catapults that are tossing out gold and silver coins to the crowd that is cheering him on right this guy knows how to make an entrance he knows how to be wild you think oh yeah the elephant tusk that that is the idea
Of a man who not only know knows how to be wild but he knows how to make an impression A Lasting Impression like thinks of that man I know he does and so from this even matuta goes to work as a judge problem is he doesn’t really speak Persian very well and so
The sultan goes and gives him two assistants the the basic idea of it was that these would be the actual guys who’d be doing a lot of the daily reading uh they would have to report to him and he would make the final judgment call that sort of thing right oh right
Cuz he was a judge with his family from like the very beginning yeah he was a judge who didn’t speak the language but if you were a judge does that qualify you to be a judge everywhere else I feel like yeah there’s no standardization of Judges you could just go judge another
Culture everything was still based on his lamic law that’s the thing and he was a kot of sharia oh I I know that but still it’s a completely different different types of tradition right correct and this is something that he would actually have to interven in a lot
Remember how I said how judgy he was for many different places that he went that was his job though so he had to be judgy it was his nature he was literally a judge of course he was Jud trade yes okay that fair fair statement I can’t
Really fault you for that so he was a judge right but also he had a ton of time to be able to join the sultan and the other high officials on elaborate Hunting Expeditions and when you would participate in a Royal hunt which remember you had to provide the stuff
That you went on the hunt with yourself this would require getting elephants you had to get your own tents you had to get a massive number of servants to carry all of your stuff it was such an extravagant expense that even with the amount of money that even patut was
Making he was still going into debt but luckily the sultan was very generous and would just give him more money to pay back his debts he would also give imuta another job which would help make him some more money and that would be to take care of the cop Alin Mubarak musl
Now of course this massive complex was something that I think that when I was reading about this it required like 460 servants to operate it it was huge and so to do this imuta would of course ask for more money to take care of the Tomb
Not to mention money that he would use on himself to take care of his house to do all the stuff and the sultan would just readily give it to him while he is doing all of this though something happens that is going to change everything because over, 1300
Miles away one of Muhammad TL’s Governors Rebels against him and he instead proclaims himself as a sultan this then causes tluk to have to bring his army South and over the course of the next two and a half years that the sultan is away battling and Waging
War IM matuta is living here in Delhi he acts as a judge giving out punishments including one of the cases here remember how he hated when people were drinking when a guy was caught doing this he he was punished with 80 Lash with a whip yeah what yeah that’s again he was
Very strict about it he did his job from how it would be that he would interpret things 80 lashes 80 lashes for drinking wine yes in addition to all this he was taking care of the tomb which required a massive number of workers he would collect debts from his village but this
Became very hard because there was a disastrous famine that would end up hitting Northern India in 1335 and it would last seven years as he would say thousands upon thousands of people would perish of want and naturally speaking you can’t really collect debts and taxes from
People that are dead and have nothing so he was forced to help to give them charity to the poor in order to try and preserve them and he was just trying to maintain things at this time and it was tough the sultan would eventually return and his campaign was not
Successful because of this lack of success and because of some other issues that were going on the army officers and a governor near Delhi also then launched a rebellion the empire was basically disintegrating around Muhammad TLA this time though he wasn’t going to fail he was a very skillful Soldier and he would
March out to secure the town Ian matuta ended up witnessing all of this and future historians were specifically going to talk about his accounts when describing it as the traitorous leaders were captured and then thrown to the elephants exactly as I explained the quote that he has describing this says
They started cutting them in pieces with the blades placed on their tusks and throwing some of them in the air and catching them all the time the Bugles and FES and drums were being sounded so literally as these elephants are stomping on these guys and ripping them apart with Tusk swords they’re just
They’re just playing drums and [ __ ] it’s a show it is literally a shows something you would see in Game of Thrones though yeah not something that would be real history is wilder than fantasy hate to say it but do we know if that’s true or exaggerated the there are
Many different accounts that describe him doing very cruel things so yes this is more than likely true and he is just one of the best accounts that we have specifically describing it but many people would talk about specifically what it is that this guy did and the problem is that there would
Be many more people that would write about about it because this is one of the key points in which tug starts to lash out at everyone against Real enemies but also people that he is imagining are enemies even even batuta came under suspicion at this point while he was
Living in Delhi he ended up getting married to a woman and had a daughter with her and this daughter was the daughter of a court official who had plotted a rebellion and was executed by the sultan the serious problem that inent was facing here was that he was a
Friend with a Sufi holy man and in addition to that marriage relation the holy man refused to do anything with politics and was trying to live a religious life and so when the sultan wanted this guy to do something for him he snubbed him he refused to do the
Building like the bidding of the of the sultan he would not do it because he was a Pious Muslim man who was going to follow specifically his faith he wasn’t going to follow a secular ruler the the sultan didn’t like this in retaliation Muhammad had the holy man’s
Beard plucked out hair by hair and then banished him from Deli later the sultan would order him to return to court which the holy man refused to do the man was then arrested for doing this tortured and then beheaded the following day the sultan then went and demanded a list of friends
Of the holy man and I B’s name was included in this so for 9 days he was under house arrest all this time imagining in horror that he was going to be executed to as he would say quote I recited lines of prayer 33,000 times and fasted 5 days on
End reciting the Quran from cover to cover each day and tasting nothing but water after 5 days I broke my fast and then continued to fast for another 4 days on end the entire time hoping he would survive he got rid of all of his possessions he put on the clothes of a
Beggar and in giving away everything he was given permission to join a Hermit who lived in a cave outside of Delhi and he just lived like that for apparently five months giving up everything all of his riches after all this he was called back to the palace and fearfully he returned
And this the sultan had a change of heart he was greeted warmly but also determined at this time to not make any further troubles for himself he got up enough courage to ask the sultan who was now you know actually in a good mood if he would be able to make another Hodge
You know if he could go on a pilgrimage and leave Sultan didn’t want this though instead he had another task in mind one that ibuta may actually be perfect for something he found fascinating knowing that he loved travel in sightseeing the sultan wanted to make ibuta the official
Ambassador to the mon Court of China if he agreed he would accompany 15 Chinese Messengers back to the Homeland and carry shiploads of gifts to the emperor now he was being given an opportunity to get away from tukl and to visit further lands under the sway of Islam in Grand
Style this was an offer that was stupidly exciting and if he refused just stupid it was way too dangerous to give this up so he would go but I think at this point though we’re reaching the end of everything that we talk about here now otherwise the story is going to go on
Forever we will my friends I promise you finish the story here going into the third episode yes I know I made that promise here with the first episode that would be ending of the second I know I know I understand that but I promise that one is like half Britain and it is
Actually going to finish in a decent amount of time so I promise you it’s going to be over
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