28 Facts About Ibn Jubayr

Ibn Jubayr, written Ibn Jubair, Ibn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus.

Ibn Jubayr's chronicle describes Saladin's domains in Egypt and the Levant which he passed through on his way to Mecca.

Ibn Jubayr was born in 1145 in Valencia, Spain, to an Arab family of the Kinanah tribe.

Ibn Jubayr was a descendant of 'Abdal-Salam ibn Jabayr, who, in 740 AD, had accompanied an army sent by the caliph of Damascus to put down a Berber uprising in his Spanish provinces.

Ibn Jubayr studied in the town of Xativa, where his father worked as a civil servant.

Ibn Jubayr later became secretary to the Almohad governor of Granada.

Ibn Jubayr left Granada and crossed over the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta, then under Muslim rule.

Ibn Jubayr said of the Italians and Muslims on board who had experience of the sea that "all agreed that they had never in their lives seen such a tempest".

Everywhere that Ibn Jubayr traveled in Egypt, he was full of praise for the new Sunni ruler, Saladin.

Ibn Jubayr pointed out that when the Nile did not flood enough, Saladin remitted the land tax from the farmers.

Ibn Jubayr said that "such is his justice, and the safety he has brought to his high-roads that men in his lands can go about their affairs by night and from its darkness apprehend no awe that should deter them".

Ibn Jubayr was impressed by the free colleges, hostels for foreign students, baths and hospitals in the city.

Ibn Jubayr noted that there were between 8,000 and 12,000 mosques in Alexandria.

Ibn Jubayr noted that under Saladin, the walls of the citadel were being extended with the object of reinforcing the entire city from any future siege by Crusaders.

Ibn Jubayr saw a spacious free hospital, which was divided into three sections: for men, women and the insane.

Ibn Jubayr saw the pyramids, but he was unaware for whom they had been built, and the Sphinx.

Ibn Jubayr saw a device that was used to measure the height of the Nile flood.

In Sicily, at the very late stages of his travels, Ibn Jubayr recounted other experiences.

Also striking Ibn Jubayr was the city of Palermo, which he described as follows:.

Ibn Jubayr travelled to Medina, Mecca, Damascus, Mosul, Acre and Baghdad.

Ibn Jubayr's path was not without troubles, including a shipwreck.

Ibn Jubayr spent 32 days in the Christian Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Ibn Jubayr traveled to the East on two further occasions without leaving an account.

Ibn Jubayr provides a highly-detailed and graphic description of the places he visited during his travels.

Ibn Jubayr is considered an important source for the study of Muslim subjects within the Frankish states, based on his thirty-two-day stay in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Ibn Jubayr's writing is a foundation of the genre of work called Rihla, or the creative travelogue.

Ibn Juzayy, who wrote the account of Ibn Battuta's travels in around 1355 AD, copied passages that had been written 170 years earlier by Ibn Jubayr that described Damascus, Mecca, Medina and other places in the Middle East.

Passages copied from Ibn Jubayr are found in the writings of al-Sharishi, al-Abdari and Al-Maqrizi.