The excitement of the unfamiliar: Battuta's India

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Ibn Battuta was a Berber Muslim scholar and traveller, born in Tangier, Morocco, in 1304, died c. 1377. [2]
His travel book's full title is Tuhfat al-anzar fi gharaaib al-amsar wa ajaaib al-asfar — "A gift to those who contemplate the wonders of cities and the marvels of travelling". It is usually just called the Rihla (rihla = journey). [2]
He came to the court of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (ruled 1325–51), drew him by reports of the Sultan's generosity to Muslim scholars, was received with honours and gifts, and was later made grand qazi (chief judge) of Delhi, a post he held for several years. [2]
By the time he arrived, the subcontinent was already part of a global communication network running from China to north-west Africa and Europe.
In Indian cities he found a cosmopolitan urban culture — people speaking Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He was at home in it.

He wrote for readers who had never seen India. So he picked out whatever looked unfamiliar and explained it using things his readers already knew.
The coconut:
The tree, he said, is just like the date-palm — a tree North Africans knew well.
The nut "resembles a man's head": two marks like eyes, one like a mouth, and the fibre on it looks like hair.
Use: the fibre is twisted into cords that sew ship planks together instead of iron nails, and into ship cables.
The paan (betel leaf):
A tree that bears no fruit, grown like the grape-vine on supports.
It is grown only for its leaves, which are chewed with areca nut and chalk (lime).

Indian cities were densely populated and prosperous — except when hit by war and invasion.
Streets were crowded; markets were bright and stacked with goods.
Delhi — "a vast city… the largest in India":
The rampart wall was 11 cubits broad.
Inside the wall were rooms for night sentries and gatekeepers.
The wall also stored grain and other edibles, ammunition, ballistas (stone-throwing war machines) and siege machines.
Build: the lower part of the rampart was stone, the upper part brick.
28 gates (darwazas). The Budaun darwaza was the greatest. Near the Mandwi darwaza was the grain market; near the Gul darwaza an orchard.
Daulatabad was so big it rivalled Delhi.
Its grand market was Tarababad, the market of male and female singers.
The chief musician presided there, sitting under a cupola (domed canopy), on Thursdays.
Both Hindu rulers and some Muslim rulers patronised these singers.
Daulatabad's older name was Devagiri / Deogiri — "Hill of Gods" — the fort capital of the Yadavas of Deogiri. Muhammad bin Tughluq renamed it Daulatabad, "the abode of wealth", and made it his capital in A.D. 1327; the fort's strength was the reason he shifted. [3][4]
The shift went badly and he had to move the capital back to Delhi. [3]

Bazaars were hubs of social and cultural life, not only places to buy and sell.
Most bazaars had a mosque and a temple inside them.
Some had fixed spaces set aside for dancers, musicians and singers.

Indian soil was so fertile that it gave two crops a year.
Historians read his account and infer a link: towns got rich by taking the surplus produced in villages. The wealth he saw in cities came from the countryside.
India was well integrated with inter-Asian trade.
Indian textiles — cotton cloth, fine muslins, silks, brocade and satin — were in high demand in West Asia and Southeast Asia.
Some muslins were so costly that only nobles and the very rich could wear them.
The state encouraged merchants: it set up inns and guest houses on trade routes so traders could move safely.

Merchants used the state post to send information, remit credit (transfer money without carrying it) and dispatch goods.
Speed comparison he gives:
Sind to Delhi took a traveller about 50 days.
But spies' news reports reached the Sultan in just 5 days.

Post	Name	Working
Horse-post	uluq	royal horses stationed every 4 miles
Foot-post	dawa	3 stations per mile (each stage one-third of a mile); the runner carries a two-cubit rod with copper bells and hands the letter to the next runner; faster than the horse-post; also used to carry fruits of Khurasan to India

Why the foot-post beat the horse-post: the bells warn the next runner in advance, so he is already running when the letter reaches him. No stopping, no rest.

Ibn Battuta was born at Tangier, Morocco, in 1304; he was a Berber Muslim scholar. [2]
His book's short name is Rihla; full title Tuhfat al-anzar fi gharaaib al-amsar wa ajaaib al-asfar. [2]
He was appointed grand qazi of Delhi by Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325–51). [2]
Delhi's rampart wall was 11 cubits broad; the city had 28 gates; the greatest was the Budaun darwaza.
Mandwi darwaza = grain market; Gul darwaza = orchard.
Tarababad was Daulatabad's market of male and female singers.
Daulatabad means "abode of wealth"; the older name Devagiri means "Hill of Gods"; capital made here in A.D. 1327 by Muhammad bin Tughluq. [3][4]
Horse-post = uluq (horses every 4 miles); foot-post = dawa (3 stations per mile, runner carries a two-cubit rod with copper bells).
News from Sind reached Delhi in 5 days by post, against 50 days of ordinary travel.
Coconut fibre was used for sewing ship planks and making cables, replacing iron nails.

A traveller's "strangeness" is itself evidence. Ibn Battuta noticed exactly what an insider would never write down — coconut, paan, bazaar life. Outsider accounts therefore fill gaps that Persian court chronicles leave empty.
Cities lived off villages. His picture of rich, crowded towns plus a countryside yielding two crops a year lets historians argue that urban wealth in the Delhi Sultanate rested on surplus appropriated from the peasantry — useful for any question on medieval agrarian–urban links.
The state as an enabler of trade. Sarais on highways, a two-tier postal system carrying credit and news, and India's place in inter-Asian textile trade show a Sultanate doing more than tax collection and war. Link this to Tughluq's ambitious projects — including the Daulatabad capital shift of 1327, which failed and was reversed. [3]
Limits of the source. He wrote from memory, for a distant audience, and liked the marvellous. His figures (28 gates, 11 cubits, 5-day news) need cross-checking against archaeology and inscriptions before being taken as exact.