Battuta began his journey at the age of twenty with the aim of undertaking pilgrimage to Mecca. He travelled through North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria before reaching Mecca in 1326. After completing his pilgrimage, he decided to tour parts of modern-day Iran and Iraq, before returning to Mecca. After this, he decided to transverse regions of east Africa, Middle East, and the Byzantine Empire before finally reaching India in 1335. In India, he became a qadi or a jurist and developed close personal relationship with the sultan (ruler) of the Delhi Sultanate, Muhammad bin Tughlaq. In 1341, the sultan appointed him to lead a diplomatic mission to China. Batutta’s journey to China was cut short due to a shipwreck and he spend the next two years visiting parts of South India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Sumatra, and Java finally reaching China around 1345. After travelling for twenty-nine years when Battuta returned home, the sultan of Morocco ordered him to dictate his accounts of travel to the writer Ibn Juzayy. The book is encyclopedic in character and closely follows the trajectory of Battuta’s journey, providing detailed descriptions of lands and people, his impressions, curiosities, and experiences travelling the Afro-Eurasian medieval lands.