Given Morocco’s history-making moment yesterday, we thought it would be best to track down the amazing and bizarre adventures of Morocco’s most famous national, curious, and outspoken traveller who has his imprints all over the subcontinent.
Situated 17 km from the city center of Dhaka stands the grand Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport. The airport takes its name from a 14th-century Sufi saint of undivided Bengal, Jalāl Mujarrad Kunyāʾī or Shah Jalal.
Strangely enough, this 14th-century mystic had once met a Moroccan traveler, but how did that come to pass?
While explorers in the 14th century were trying diligently to find a sea route to the sub-continent, a young traveler from the north of Africa made a perilous journey across the land.
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta, born into a family of legal scholars or Qadis in the port city of Tangier left his hometown at the tender age of 21 in 1325, and in the 29 years to follow he would cross two continents, logging about 75k miles across 44 countries.
Battuta’s initial idea was just to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, but he was awed as he encountered new places and met with new people and their cultures. His eagerness to learn more about the world grew and he started keeping a journal, The Rihla.
In 1346 Batutta entered modern-day Bangladesh in Chittagong after working in service of the Delhi Sultanate and trotting around most of the sub-continent. There he heard about the Sufi saint Hazrat Shah Jalal, who invited Battuta into his abode.
Battuta wrote of the incident “When I presented myself to him, he arose and embraced me. He then asked me of my country and travels.”
What unfolded after their meeting was quite bizarre. Before Battuta’s arrival, Shah Jalal had talked about a prophecy that his most beautiful coat made of goat skin would be taken from him and be handed over to someone else but through the hands of a traveller.
As Battuta’s eyes fell on the coat, he immediately asked for it and the Sufi saint was more than happy to give it to him. But there was a catch. He told Battuta that he mustn’t associate with Pagans,or the coat would be taken from him and he would stand naked.
“As he has clothed me in his own clothes, I will never enter with them into the presence of any king…”
After a while, during his travels in the Yuan province of China, he got separated from his traveling companions and Battuta himself was taken to see the king. The king immediately took a liking to the coat and took it from him, showering him with gifts in its stead.
But there was more. A year later, in the Middle East, Battuta found the coat on somebody else’s shoulder. When he asked the person how the coat reached him, the man talked about Jalal’s prophecy and said the coat was meant for him only and Battuta was the medium.
Battuta’s travel diary is riddled with such fascinating and bizarre incidents and he still perhaps serves as an inspiration for this new generation of Morccons, telling them to go into uncharted territory brave and undaunted.
Sources:
M H Haider, Age-old travelogues: Rare glimpses of Bengal’s forgotten past, https://www.thedailystar.net/lifestyle/news/age-old-travelogues-rare-glimpses-bengals-forgotten-past-2065061;
