The first non-believer known to have visited Mecca and Medina was at Italian from Bologna named Ludovico di Varthema, who published a book of his travels in 1510. In this book, he describes his adventures in Egypt, Syria, the Hejaz, Yemen and subsequent journeys in India and the Moluccas.
The book tells us very little of his early life apart from the information that he lived in Bologna, and had probably been a soldier prior to his travels. He was not a learned man - he describes himself as of very slender understanding and he resolved to see things personally and with my own eyes, to endeavour to ascertain the situation of places, the qualities of people, the diversities of animals, the varieties of the fruit-bearing and odoriferous trees - remembering well that the testimony of one eyewitness is worth more than ten thousand hearsays.
He left Europe toward the end of 1502, and in early 1503 arrived at Alexandria in Egypt. From there, he made his way up the Nile to Cairo and then returned to Alexandria from where he sailed to Beirut, then on to Tripoli, Aleppo and reached Damascus in April 1503. There he managed to get himself enrolled, under the name of Yunas (Jonah), in the Mameluke garrison.
At that time, the Mamelukes, from whose ranks the escorts for the pilgrim caravans were drawn, ruled over Egypt and Syria. Originally, they had come to Egypt as prisoners of war from Europe and southern Russia (Circassia) and had been converted to Islam. The Mamelukes gradually rose to power through government service before seizing control of Egypt in 1250. Although they were Moslems, and could therefore make the pilgrimage to Mecca, they did not necessary look like Arabs, and this is no doubt why di Varthema sought to join their ranks, since, as a member of the Mameluke guard, he could join the pilgrimage with little fear of detection.
According to di Varthema, it was an enormous caravan that left Damascus bound for Mecca - 40,000 pilgrims, 35,000 camels with a Mameluke escort of 60. Their first stopping place inside the Hejaz was at the oasis of Khaybar. For many centuries, there had been a Jewish colony here, possibly founded after the destruction of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar II in the sixth century BC. Di Varthema describes the oasis as being 10 - 12 miles in circumference, with a population of between 4,000 and 5,000 people who go naked and are in height five or six spans (ie about four feet) and have a feminine voice and are more black than any other colour. They live entirely on the flesh of sheep and eat nothing else. They are circumcised and confess that they are Jews, and if they can get an Arab into their hands they skin him alive.
Eventually, the caravan reached Medina, where the pilgrims prayed at Mohammed's tomb. It was popularly believed in Europe that Mohammed's coffin was suspended in mid-air by giant magnets, a belief which di Vartema was able to disprove. Soon after leaving the city, the caravan stopped for a day to give the pilgrims time to bathe and put on the ihram - the special garment worn by all Moslems making the pilgrimage, which consists of two pieces of white cotton cloth which are wrapped around the body. The caravan then traveled onwards towards Mecca. There he was careful to write down all sorts of details, not only of the religious ceremonies, but also of the city itself and the trade which was carried on there. He was the first non-believer known to have visited Mecca - the next recorded visit of a European to Mecca did not occur until 1678, by the Englishman, Joseph Pitts.
Part of the religious ceremonies took place at Mt. Arafat, about 10 miles east of Mecca. At the foot of this mountain, there were two reservoirs, one for the caravan from Cairo, the other for the caravan from Damascus. The Cairo caravan was far larger than that from Damascus, with 64,000 camels accompanying the pilgrims, together with an escort of 100 Mamelukes. One of the ceremonies involved the sacrifice of at least two sheep for every pilgrim, with the meat being given to the poor.
When the time came for the caravan to return north to Damascus, di Varthema decided to desert the Mameluke guard, a risky proposition, punishable by death, as the Mameluke officers had no intention of allowing deserters from the escort to wander about Arabia. In any event, di Varthema's life was already in danger by virtue of his being a non-Moslem in the holy city. He extricated himself by pretending to be a cannon-maker, and a merchant allowed him to hide in his house - at the time, the Arabs were badly in need of guns to use against the Portuguese, whose ships were beginning to divert the profitable trade between India and Europe around Africa, and therefore away from Arabia.
Once the caravans and Mamelukes had left Mecca, di Varthema proceeded to Jiddah, the port for Mecca, where he hid himself in a mosque. He pretended to be very ill, and lay groaning amongst the large group of beggars who had also found shelter there. In the evening he would slip out to buy food and observe the life of the busy port. After three weeks in hiding, he managed to get a place on a ship bound for Persia that stopped along the coast of Yemen and docked at Aden. Unfortunately, here he was arrested and imprisoned as a Christian spy, but was able to regain his liberty through the intervention of one of the Sultanas of Yemen.
After making an extensive tour of south-west Arabia, he again took ship for the Persian Gulf and India. On the way he touched at Zaila and Berbera in Somaliland. He then sailed across to the Indian port of Diu in Gujarat, afterwards famous as a Portuguese fortress. From Diu, he sailed up the Gulf of Cambay to Gogo, and thence turning back towards the Persian Gulf, proceeded to Julfar (which lies just within the entrance of the gulf), Muscat and Hormuz. From here he seems to have journeyed across Persia to Herat and Shiraz, where he entered into a partnership with a Persian merchant who accompanied him during nearly all his subsequent travels.
After an unsuccessful attempt to reach Samarkand, the two returned to Shiraz, then came down to Hormuz and took ship for India. From the mouth of the Indus, Varthema traveled down the west coast of India, touching at Cambay and Chaul; at Goa, from where he made an excursion inland to Bijapur; at Cannanore, from which he again struck into the interior, and Calicut, where he stopped to describe the society, customs and institutions of Malabar, as well as the topography and trade of the city. Passing on through Cochin and Kulam (Quilon), he rounded Came Comorin, and passed over to Ceylon, where he briefly stayed.
Leaving Ceylon, he sailed to Pulicat, slightly north of Madras, then crossed over to Tenasserim on the Malay peninsula and thence to Pegu, in the company of his Persian friend and two Chinese Christians (probably Nestorians) whom he met along the way. After some successful trading with the king of Pegu, Varthema and his party sailed on to Malacca, Sumatra and Banda.
From the Moluccas he returned westward, touched at Borneo and then chartered a vessel for Java, the "largest of islands" as his Christian companions reckoned it. He noted the use of compass and chart by the native captain on the voyage from Borneo to Java. Leaving Java, he crossed over to Malacca, where he parted company from the Chinese Christians, and from Malacca he returned to the Coromandel Coast.
By now (probably early 1506), Varthema was anxious to resume Christianity and return to Europe, and so joined the Portuguese garrison at Cannanore. He fought for the Portuguese in various engagements, and was knighted by the viceroy, Francisco d'Almeida, with the navigatot Tristan da Cunha acting as his "sponsor." For 18 months, he acted as Portuguese factor at Cochin and in about 1508 finally left India for Europe by the Cape route. Sailing from Cannanore, Varthema apparently struck Africa somewhere near Malindi, and described the Portuguese fortress then under construction at Mozambique. Finally, he arrived safely in Lisbon, sometime before 1510 when his book was first published.
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Bibliography :
Varthema's work (Itinerario de Ludovico de Varthema Bolognese) first published in Italian at Rome in 1510.
The first English translation was by Richard Eden in 1576-77 and is included in Eden's book "The History of Travayle".
An extract from Varthema is to be found in Samuel Purchas' "Pilgrimage" (1625-26).
The Hakluyt Society published Vartema's book in 1863, edited by J W Jones and G P Badger.
This page was written for Discoverers Web by Leigh Rayment. For which our gratitude.