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" "There are a large number of religious establishments ["convents "] which they call khanqahs, and the nobles vie with one another in building them. Each of these is set apart for a separate school of darwishes, mostly Persians, who are men of good education and adepts in the mystical doctrines. Each has a superior and a doorkeeper and their affairs are admirably organized. They have many special customs one of which has to do with their food. The steward of the house comes in the morning to the darwishes, each of whom indicates what food he desires, and when they assemble for meals, each person is given his bread and soup in a separate dish, none sharing with another. They eat twice a day. They are each given winter clothes and summer clothes, and a monthly allowance of from twenty to thirty dirhams. Every Thursday night they receive sugar cakes, soap to wash their clothes, the price of a bath, and oil for their lamps. These men are celibate; the married men have separate convents.
Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta (Arabic: أبو عبد الله محمد ابن بطوطة) (born 24 February 1304 - year of death uncertain, 1368 or 1369) was a Moroccan Berber scholar and jurisprudent from the Maliki Madhhab (a school of Fiqh, or Sunni Islamic law), and at times a Qadi or judge. However, he is best known as a traveler and explorer, whose account documents his travels and excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some 73,000 miles (117,000 km). These journeys covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic world and beyond, extending from North Africa, West Africa, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe in the west, to the Middle East, Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and China in the east, a distance readily surpassing that of his predecessors and his near-contemporary Marco Polo.
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[Sultan al-Malik az-Zahir was a] most illustrious and opened-handed ruler... He was constantly engaged in warring for the Faith (Jihad against the infidels) and in raiding expeditions... His subjects also take a pleasure in warring for the Faith and voluntarily accompany him on his expeditions. They have the upper hand over all the infidels in their vicinity, who pay them poll-tax to secure peace.
Most interesting and instructive are the details connected with Alapur, a small city, most of whose inhabitants were infidels under protection (zimmi). The commandant of this place “was one of those heroes, whose bravery was proverbial. Ceaselessly and quite alone he would fall upon the infidels and would kill them or take them prisoner, so much so that his reputation spread widely and he made a name for himself and the infidels feared him”. One day he fell upon a Hindu village and was killed in course of the fray. But his slaves seized the village. “They put its male population to the sword and made the womenfolk prisoner and seized everything in it”. Later, the Hindus avenged the insult by killing his son (p. 162-63). Immediately after narrating this, Ibn Batiitah mentions an incident which shows the precarious tenure of a Hindu life. When he visited Gwalior he went to see the commandant who ‘‘was going to cut an infidel into two halves’. At Ibn Batitah’s request the life of the infidel was saved (p.163)...
One day while Ibn Batitah was taking his meals with the Sultan a Hindu (infidel) “was brought in along with his wife and their son who was seven years of age. The Sultan beckoned the executioners ordering them to cut off the Hindu’s (infidel’s) head”’, and then uttered some words meaning “and his wife and son”. Ibn Batitah turned away his eyes while this was being done. Another day the Sultan ordered the hands and feet of a Hindu to be cut off. Ibn Batiitah left the place on pretence of saying prayers, and when he returned he found the unfortunate Hindu weltering in blood (p. 228)... In the capital city of a Hindu State in Malabar coast, “there are about four thousand Muslims, who inhabit a suburb of their own inside the jurisdiction of the city. There is fighting between them and the inhabitants of the city often” (p. 185)... The Brahmans, says Ibn Batitah, “are revered by the infidels and inspire hatred in the Muslims” (p. 188).
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On the bank of the Nile opposite Old Cairo is the place known as The Garden, which is a pleasure park and promenade, containing many beautiful gardens, for the people of Cairo are given to pleasure and amusements. I witnessed a fete once in Cairo for the sultan's recovery from a fractured hand; all the merchants decorated their bazaars and had rich stuffs, ornaments and silken fabrics hanging in their shops for several days."