Ibn Battuta is known as one of the greatest world travelers in history. About seven hundred years ago, he set out from Morocco and saw the countries we now know as Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Iran, India, China, Maldives, Philippines, Russia, Spain, and Somalia, and even got a position in the court of some kings. Marco Polo, whose memories seem to be false, did not travel half as much.
Ibn Battuta’s travelogue is full of tips and salt. If there is time, you should write more about it. The part that keeps repeating in my mind these days is related to his passage through a very hot and barren desert, somewhere in present-day Arabia. A desert that must be crossed quickly so as not to get caught in its hellish heat. He heard and tells a story about this desert:
“. You are like hell! In one of the years, the poisonous wind (a very hot and poisonous wind) that blows here caused great hardships and sufferings for the pilgrims: the water storage ended.”
As the water storage ran out, those who were more wealthy started buying water from others. Despite the high demand and very low and very limited supply, the work is auctioned and those who had water sold it to the highest bidder. Some people who did not have money were watching this auction for their lives. The demand was so high that Ibn Battuta says, “A serving of water was bought and sold for a thousand dinars.” In those days, you could buy a horse for forty dinars. Imagine that someone paid twenty-five horses to buy a water container. The high street water sellers were happy with their bargain and thought they could get to the next town with the water they had left. The expensive drinkers were also happy that they would survive and gave dinars to survive. Those who had neither water nor dinars are in fear and hope that an opening will come.
The last scene of the story is “And the buyers and the sellers died: and finally, both the seller and the buyer perished”. Those who had money and bought, and those who had water and sold, and those who did not have money and did not have water, all died. Everyone suffered in that transaction because the object of the transaction was not water and money at all; That was John.
Why did I say this? A few days ago, someone described that a lady came to buy a mask at the pharmacy and the seller said: “We don’t have any.” The woman was desperately leaving the pharmacy when the attendant told her: “Of course, there are ten thousand tomans!” And the woman replied: “Greedy unfortunate!” If you knew, you would have given this mask to the people for free so that no one would get sick to you, your wife and children.” What a deep word!
This unexpected calamity that has befallen Iran these days, if it is not contained, it will make the same deal with the people as it did with the caravan. Mask sellers and drug sellers will enter into a deal for their lives if they step in this desert of greed and that day, far from everyone’s life, “the seller and the buyer of that [mask] will both perish”.
Quotations from “Ibn Batuta’s travel book” translated by Mohammad Ali Mowahed
This post is written by Ambiolo