1001 Inventions of Ibn Battuta’s Meccan Journey

When people learn Muslim culture and the various scientific, technological, mathematical, medical and other advancements which were made by the Muslims one would be astonished by the tremendous efforts which Muslims have given towards education and inventions alike. A famous film which was made under the title of the journey to Makkah under the footsteps of Ibn Bathuta, gives a very clear description about those who want to learn Muslim culture and understand and appreciate their efforts towards society.

In the movie, Ibn Battuta took a span of one and a half years to go all the way to perform Hajj from Morocco, and after completing the hajj he traveled the world for a period of 29 years by stopping at places such as West Africa, Spain, India, China etc in a journey of more than 75,000 miles!

There were more than 1600 people who watched this movie when it was released in the year 2011 which included people of different faiths and cultures in Southern California alone. While the film was being played there were some people in the audience who shed tears when they saw the Kaaba so closely for the first time.

The movie mentioned that when Ibn Bathuta was only 21 years of age, he had a dream after which he told his friend called Hamza that he flew on top of a huge Cairo bird to the river Nile and crossed Mecca and the red sea in the journey as well.  As a result, Ibn Bathuta started his 3000 mile journey starting from Tangiers to Morocco and to Mecca, where he performed his Hajj pilgrimage.

The main reason that this man undertook such a long journey was only to seek knowledge, and not for any under leisure or other reason whatsoever. It is from this knowledge that he gained herein that he authored the books on various inventions and discoveries that he made as a result of the knowledge he gained from these expeditions. However the reason these are not highlighted much by the West is because they took place during the dark ages, which was the time the Western world was blind and the Islamic empire was expanding both knowledge wise and span wise.

Some of the prominent inventions that were introduced from the Islamic world include, the fact that people made wings which enabled them to fly just as a birds around in the air. It was during this time that the Wright Brother started their invention of the aero plane the concept of which was already laid out by the Muslims themselves! Similarly there were other masterpieces and inventions which would take several pages of ink just to note down, which is the reason the book was called as the 1001 inventions! The technique which is used nowadays for fabricating the swords blade was also developed during those times where the metal was heated, hammered to thickness and quenched in water and oil to ensure great quality at all times.

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