Source: lbn Battuta (1325–1355 CE), an Islamic
scholar
and traveler from Morocco, reported on Mali in The Travels of Ibn Battuta (1352) :
…Their women are of surpassing beauty, and are shown more respect than
the men…but
on the contrary from his mother’s brother. A person’s heirs are his sister’s sons, not his own sons. This is a thing which I
have seen nowhere in the world except among the Indians of Malabar. But those are
heathens; these people are
Muslims, punctilious in observing the hours of prayer, studying books
of law, and memorizing the Koran. Yet their women show no
bashfulness before men and do not veil themselves…their zeal for
learning the Koran by heart. They put their children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it… The women servants,
slave-girls, and young girls go about in front of everyone naked, without a
stitch of clothing on them…grotesque ceremonies we have described when the poets recite their verses.
DOCUMENT
6