Hall of a Thousand Columns

Tim Mackintosh-Smith

ISBN 10: 0719565871 / ISBN 13: 9780719565878

Published by John Murray, 2006

Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G0719565871I3N00

Synopsis:

All the best armchair travellers are sceptics. Those of the fourteenth century were no exception: for them, there were lies, damned lies, and Ibn Battutah's India.

Born in 1304, Ibn Battutah left his native Tangier as a young scholar of law; over the course of the thirty years that followed he visited most of the known world between Morocco and China. Here Tim Mackintosh-Smith retraces one leg of the Moroccan's journey -- the dizzy ladders and terrifying snakes of his Indian career as a judge and a hermit, courtier and prisoner, ambassador and castaway. From the plains of Hindustan to the plateaux of the Deccan and the lost ports of Malabar, the author reveals an India far off the beaten path of Taj and Raj.

Ibn Battutah left India on a snake, stripped to his underpants by pirates; but he took away a treasure of tales as rich as any in the history of travel. Back home they said the treasure was a fake. Mackintosh-Smith proves the sceptics wrong. India is a jewel in the turban of the Prince of Travellers. Here it is, glittering, grotesque but genuine, a fitting ornament for his 700th birthday.

About the Author: Tim Mackintosh-Smith's first book, YEMEN: TRAVELS IN DICTIONARY LAND won the 1998 Thomas Cook/Daily Telegraph Travel Book Award and is now regarded as a classic of Arabian description. His books on Ibn Battutah's adventures in the old Islamic world and in India have all received huge critical acclaim. LANDFALLS was awarded the Oldie Best Travel Award in 2010 and the Ibn Battutah Prize of Honour by the Arab Centre for Geographical Literature. His journeys in search of Ibn Battutah have also been turned into a major BBC television series. For the past twenty-five years his home has been the Yemeni capital San'a, where he lives in a tower-house on top of the ancient Sabaean city and next door to the modern donkey market. You can find out more about him at www.mackintosh-smith.com

Bibliographic Details

Title: Hall of a Thousand Columns
Publisher: John Murray
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket