Around the year 30s,

around the year 1333, the North African writer and traveller Ibn Batuta went on a journey around all of Asia

that would take him to India and over the sea to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Malaysia, and eventually

on to his final destination of China.

But the first leg of this journey took him along the winding roads overland from Constantinople.

He traveled past the shores of the Black and Caspian seas over vast grasslands and on southwards

through the deserts of Central Asia, in what is now Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

Ibn Batuta had heard marvelous stories about the opulent cities that lay along the vast trade

route known as the Silk Road, which laced across the continent of Asia.

These were the cities of Balk, Bukhara and Samarkand. First he visited the city of Bukhara, once the jewel of Islamic

learning, a city of enormous libraries and colleges. But to his disappointment, when he arrived,

he found the city a much reduced place, as he wrote in his journal.

Then we traveled for a whole day through contiguous orchards with streams, trees, and habitations, and arrived at the city of Bukhara.

This city was formerly the capital of the lands beyond the River Jai, but was laid in ruins,

so at the present time its mosques, colleges and bazaars are in ruins, All but a few, and its inhabitants are looked down upon.

There is not one person in it today who possesses any religious learning, or who shows any

concern for acquiring it.

Surprised at the sorry site of the once great city of Bukhara, Ibn Batuta continued on to the opulent metropolis of Samarkand.

I journeyed to the city of Samarkand, once one of the greatest and finest of cities,

and most perfect of them in beauty. It is built on the bank of the river called the Wadil

Wasarin, along which there are water wheels to supply water to the orchards.

But when he arrived at the oasis of Samarkand, he found it too was in a much diminished state.

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