Unfortunately, this post is going to be more questions as the last bit you had us read was rather confusing.

In the capital of Dihli, Ibn Battuta encounters the sultan’s mother, who is blind. He claims the reason for her blindness is “when her son came to the throne she was visited by all the princesses and daughters of the maliks and the amirs wearing their finest apparel. As she was sitting on a golden couch encrusted with jewels and they all made obeisance before her, her sight went suddenly…” I don’t know first of all, why people visiting her could make her go blind, but why would Ibn Battuta include this? Is it to give some proof toward the fact that he was there?In the account of the hospitality gift, Ibn Battuta talks about beds. It sounds like what modern cross country back packers do, except for the part with the slave boy carrying the masters bed on top of his head. On top of his head, seriously? That’s got to be a pain in the neck. haha. Is that maybe just a problem with the translation? Ibn Battuta’s daughter dies, and the events that follow are very strange. I was also wondering about why it says their actions, not my actions or my peoples actions. I understand the Ibn Battuta is a popular guy, but they ship his kids body to the area he is in, and even the Sultan comes out to pay his respects. It is a whole big production too, with the girls mother getting carried in a dulah. But when I was reading this it didn’t occur to me as it has now. Was this woman traveling with him? That’s really the only way that it could possibly make any sense. But still, the wake was at least 3 days long. Its not like they has morgues or anything else like that back then. Its weird for this to come up because in my MFL class, we were talking about different cultures and I believe someone said that in the Philippians, wakes last about 40 days and the body is kept in the living room of the house. However, regardless of that, the funeral seems very nice with the flowers and the carpets by the tomb.

Another oddity that occurred was Ibn Battuta’s sudden employment with the sultan. Not only does the sultan employ him, (and pay him quite well) but he also pays Ibn Battuta’s rather large debt. The whole enemy of the sultan thing was weird too. If the Sultan had agreed to pay Ibn Battuta’s debt why didn’t he just do it and get on with his life. Did the sultan often pay off debts? I mean for there to be this ritual (192), I would think he must of.