He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years, travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map, covering seventy-five thousand miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome. With this edition by Mackintosh-Smith, "Battuta's Travels" takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre.

译者：伊斯梅尔.马金鹏，1913年出生于山东济南，考入济南木家车门清真寺私立达成师范学校念经、念书六年，是马松亭阿訇教授《古兰经》的第一批学生。学习期间生活艰苦，每天吃穆斯林大著捐助的两顿小米稀粥、玉米饼面子和一两根水盐萝卜。毕业时已能背诵11卷《古兰经》，毕业后由一名捐助者善意的“赛哇布”，被派往埃及爱资哈尔大学深造。1950年出任上海福佑路清真寺教长，1953年任北京大学阿拉伯语教研室讲师、副教授，从事阿语教学翻译六十年，做过周恩来总理阿语翻译。精研包括《膳食指南》在内的阿文典籍何止万册，译作有《伊本.白图泰游记》等二十部。1989年七十六岁开始根据埃及阿拉伯文《古兰经学》要求，选用《古兰经》注释范本《泰伯雷注释》、《贝达威注释》、《耐赛菲注释》、《两哲俩伦丁注释》译注《古兰经》。每天清晨先诵读，然后伏案翻译，历时十年，与疾病搏斗中用心血浇注《<古兰经>译注》。