ime he reached Baghdad, he had resolved never to cover the same ground twice” (Who Is 1).
At times, Ibn did have companionship on his journey. However, this companionship was largely in the form of soldiers who traveled with him for his protection in dangerous lands. During the initial phases of his travel, Ibn was appointed a religious leader and high court official in places like India and the Maldives. However, Ibn’s goal was to bring reform to the regions he traveled, reform that was aimed at getting individual’s to live their lives based on Muslim ideology—lives being lived as faith with a similar level of zeal to his own. Unfortunately, the masses and leaders Ibn encountered could forgive him just about anything but moral reform. While successful at first, his commitment to his faith and moral zealousness cost him everything material he possessed, but since what he lost was material it did not diminish his perseverance and devotion to living his faith wherever he temporarily called home, “He amassed great fortunes, at one point even transmitting sums of money back to his family in Morocco. He amassed great fortunes, at one point even transmitting sums of money back to his family in Morocco. But his reforming zeal eventually swept him from grace in each of these lands. Even after the Indian ruler restored his fortunes with the appointment as ambassador to China, he lost everything but his clothes and prayer rug. He wandered years before regaining enough wealth to enter China as the Sultan’s envoy” (Who Is 1).
The disfavor visited upon Ibn by others is understandable if we recognize that Ibn wanted all Muslims to live their lives by the Sacred Law or shari’a. His own conviction and commitment to do so were developed by him to such a degree that he often found it confounding when not observing a similar level of devotion in others. He did not realize that at the same time he was trying to spread t...