Ibn Battuta

About Ibn Battuta

Ibn Battuta (1304–1368) was a towering figure of the medieval Islamic world, chronicling an epic journey that covered nearly 75,000 miles across North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and China. As a Moroccan scholar and explorer, his detailed *Rihla* (travelogue) serves as an invaluable primary source for understanding 14th-century societies, trade routes, and geography—a record so significant that the Pantheon project ranks him #420 in historical importance.

Despite this high historical standing, his modern internet visibility presents a notable attention gap. Ibn Battuta accrued approximately 623K Wikipedia views in 2025, positioning his attention ratio at roughly 1x relative to his importance score. This suggests he maintains a baseline presence, though perhaps not the dominance his historical footprint might suggest when compared to contemporaries like Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (#575 importance), who draws 2.0M views, or James Cook (#515 importance), who commands 1.4M views, despite all being categorized as explorers or existing within the medieval era.

Interestingly, while his year-over-year growth is positive at +8.2%, his recent momentum shows a -10% dip between Q1 and Q3 of 2025, suggesting his contemporary interest is perhaps plateauing or slightly declining online.