A traveler-historian in the tradition of Ibn Battuta, Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Jubayr, Leo was a man of many talents, occupations and adventures. He was, at various times, a diplomat, jurist, hospital administrator, geographer, teacher, political prisoner and international celebrity. In the course of his travels from Timbuktu to Istanbul, he survived Atlas mountain blizzards and Nile crocodile attacks only to be kidnapped by pirates and presented to Pope Leo x in Rome, where he ostensibly converted to Christianity.

Leo is considered the last of the great Muslim intellectuals to pass along Islmaic learning to the pre-renaissance west.
http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200801/a.man.of.two.worlds.htm

IBN BATTUTA
1304 - 1377
Moorish Traveller
Ibn Battuta was the greatest medieval Arab traveller and author of one of the most famous travel books in history, the 'Rihlah'.

Ibn Battuta lived for a time in Mecca and Medina, visited the last Mongol Khan of Iran and the Khan of the Golden Horde in Russia. He served for several years as a judge in Delhi.

His many voyages, covering over 70 000 miles, brought him to China, Sumatra, Ceylon, Arabia, Syria, Egypt, East Africa and Timbuktu. Accounts of those visits were recorded in the 'Rihlah'.





www.lpod.org/coppermine/index.php?cpgLanguage...

I have his famous book, but didnt have time to read it.