If you want to judge the statement that travel bestows knowledge and wisdom, don’t examine the contemporary Urdu safarnama because here the journey is towards inner darkness, not outer enlightenment. The perverse model is Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) who travelled in the world of Islam for 30 years and rejected anything falling outside its pale, including cities inhabited by Shias. The most comic incident is that when he reached China on an ambassadorial mission, he refused to leave his tent because he didn’t want to see a civilisation he disliked! Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) later complained that Ibn Battuta told lies in his travelogue. The book says so did Herodotus (484 BC–425 BC) but the difference was that, unlike Ibn Battuta, he wished to observe the Greek and the non-Greek alike.
Plato actually thought that it was dangerous to travel. He prescribed a routine for ‘purging’ the contaminated traveller on his return and to ascertain whether his contact with alien societies had not bred in him the desire to overthrow his own. He actually prescribed death if the traveller didn’t pass muster with a citizens’ inquiry (p.22). But Athens’ great lawgiver Solon (638 BC–558 BC) travelled to be able to theorise — theo in Greek also means to observe — and understand humanity under varied conditions. One suspects that he may have travelled to teach rather than learn, but here is where wisdom and knowledge was possibly the outcome. The writing down of the results of the travel is of course another thing altogether. It can land you in trouble; therefore, why not lie?
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9:06 PM
Moderate Islamist here
