One Thousand Roads to Mecca « Simerg – Insights from Around the World

In our concluding part of the series on Naser-e Khosraw’s travels, the Ismaili poet, philosopher and traveller provides a grim look at the merciless deserts of Arabia and the predatory ways of the Arab Bedouin. He encounters camel riding pirates, and the price of safe-passage costs him and his party their money and their clothes. But he also finds great consolation during a nine-month stay in the city of Lhasa. Read his fascinating account by clicking Naser-e Khosraw’s Dangerous Homeward Journey: From “One Thousand Roads to Mecca” by Michael Wolfe or on the following image:

A portrait of Naser-e Khosraw on a large rock in Badakhshan. Please click on image to read the concluding part of his journey. Photo: Ali M. Rajput., UK.

IN PART II OF NASER-E KHOSRAW’S TRAVELS

“….There is a lighthouse that I saw in Alexandria, on top of which used to be an incendiary mirror. Whenever a ship came from Istanbul and approached opposite the mirror, ﬁre would fall from the mirror and burn the ship up…. On the morning when the Sultan is going out for the ceremony, ten thousand men are hired to hold the steeds….At some distance behind all of these comes the Sultan [al-Mustansir], a well-built, clean-shaven youth with cropped hair, a descendant of Husayn son of Ali. He is mounted on a camel with plain saddle and bridle with no gold or silver and wears a white shirt…”

Naser-e Khosraw in Fatimid Cairo: From “One Thousand Roads to Mecca” Edited by Michael Wolfe