Muslims Who Explored the World

He left Tangier at 21 intending Hajj and did not return for nearly three decades. His travels covered North and West Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, the Maldives, Southeast Asia and — by his account — China.

He served as a judge in Delhi and the Maldives. His Rihla, dictated on his return, is one of the most valuable eyewitness sources historians have for the fourteenth-century world.

Working at the court of Roger II in Sicily, al-Idrisi produced the Tabula Rogeriana — a world map and geographic text drawing on travellers' reports, and among the most accurate maps produced anywhere for centuries.

Sent in 921 as part of an Abbasid embassy to the Volga Bulgars, ibn Fadlan wrote a detailed account of the peoples he met, including the Rus. His report is still cited by historians of early Eastern Europe.

Trans-Saharan caravans linked West African gold and salt to North Africa. Indian Ocean monsoon shipping tied East Africa, Arabia, India and Southeast Asia into one commercial world.

Islam largely spread along these routes through traders and teachers whose honesty and conduct made an impression — a reminder that character has always been a form of da'wah.

In China, Muslim communities date back to the early centuries of Islam. Zheng He (1371–1433), the Ming admiral who led enormous fleets across the Indian Ocean, came from a Muslim family in Yunnan.