The Pilgrimage to Adam's Peak

Among the most celebrated episodes of the travels of Ibn Battuta is his pilgrimage, about the year 1344, to the holy mountain that the Muslims called the Peak of Adam, in the island they knew as Sarandib, the Serendib of legend, which is Ceylon (Sri Lanka). The mountain is a striking solitary peak rising high above the tropical hills and jungles of the island, and upon its summit, on the bare rock, is a great hollow shaped like a giant footprint, which was, and is, an object of veneration to several faiths: the Muslims revered it as the footprint of our father Adam (peace be upon him), the first man and the first prophet, who in some traditions was held to have come to earth, or to have stood in penitence, upon this mountain. Ibn Battuta, who had by this time travelled across nearly the whole of the known world, came to Ceylon, an island famous for its cinnamon and above all for its precious stones, its rubies and sapphires, ruled by its own non-Muslim kings but with communities of Muslim merchants settled in its ports; and he made the arduous climb to the summit, by the pilgrim paths up which iron chains and cut steps had been fixed into the rock to aid the ascent of the steepest places. He has left a vivid description of the mountain, the routes, the chains and the footprint, and of the marvels and riches of the island. His pilgrimage to Adam's Peak stands as an emblem of the vast reach of the medieval Muslim world, in which a scholar from Morocco might journey to the ends of the earth and find there both the wonders of distant lands and a holy place to draw him in devotion. This scene depicts the holy mountain of Sarandib and the pilgrim path. In keeping with the project's ethics any figure is anonymous and at a distance.