Biography · Level 3 · 184 words

Twenty-Nine Years From Home

Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.

In 1325 a young scholar named Ibn Battuta left Tangier, in Morocco, to make the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was twenty-one and traveled alone. He expected to be gone for a year or two. He came home about twenty-nine years later.

The pilgrimage became a habit of moving. He crossed North Africa and Arabia, sailed down the East African coast, rode north into the grasslands of Central Asia, and served for years as a judge in Delhi. He was robbed, shipwrecked, promoted, and dismissed. What carried him was less courage than a network: across a huge region, Muslim merchants, judges, and rulers shared a language of law and hospitality, and a traveling scholar could expect a bed and a meal from strangers.

Back in Morocco, the sultan asked him to dictate his travels to a young writer at the court. The book that resulted mixes what Ibn Battuta saw with stories he collected along the way, so historians read it with care. Even so, it remains one of the fullest pictures we have of the fourteenth-century world, drawn by someone who actually crossed it.

Comprehension questions

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4 questions
1. Which statement best states the main idea?

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D. A short pilgrimage grew into nearly thirty years of travel, helped by a shared world of law and hospitality.
The passage opens with the gap between one or two years and twenty-nine, then explains what made such travel possible. It says the book must be read with care, and that he returned to Morocco.

2. About how long was Ibn Battuta away from home?

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C. About twenty-nine years
The text says he came home 'about twenty-nine years later.' The year or two was only what he expected.

3. Why do historians read his book with care?

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B. It mixes what he saw himself with stories he heard from others.
The text gives the mixture as the reason: seen events and collected stories sit side by side, so a reader cannot always tell which is which.

4. In the passage, 'hospitality' means:

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A. welcoming guests and caring for them
It appears beside the idea that a traveler 'could expect a bed and a meal from strangers.' That is guest-welcome, and it is free, so payment is wrong.

Source: Written for Fluency. Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.