Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
Rihla (The Travels)
Seventy-five thousand miles over thirty years — the most comprehensive firsthand account of the fourteenth-century world, from Tangier to Hangzhou
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | Rihla (The Travels) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Both |
| Time · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Finite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Space · Curvature | not engaged |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Local |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Local |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Immediate |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Singular |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Personal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Scripture |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Conserved |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Irreversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Continuous |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
Rihla (The Travels)
Both — God's eternity and created temporal order. The Rihla is organised chronologically: linear, uni-directional narrative time. Substantival — dates, durations, and seasons are real and significant. Non-deterministic: divine providence overarches but human choices (Ibn Battuta's own decisions to travel, stay, or leave) drive the narrative.
Space
Rihla (The Travels)
The Rihla is the supreme medieval document of real, substantival space — 75,000 miles of terrain described in vivid detail. Finite, three-dimensional, local. Space is the narrative's organising principle: each new place is a new chapter.
Matter
Rihla (The Travels)
Substantival, finite, conserved, and local. The material world is described with extraordinary sensory precision: food, textiles, buildings, animals, landscape. Matter is real and valued.
Observer
Rihla (The Travels)
Ibn Battuta is the paradigmatic singular embodied observer: one person, one pair of eyes, moving through space and time. Active agency. Immediate knowledge from direct observation. Partial retainment: the text was dictated from memory and contains inaccuracies. Personal metaphysical agency: the God of the Qur'an.
Energy
Rihla (The Travels)
Not theorised independently. The physical energy of travel — wind, animal power, human endurance — is described concretely. The standard Islamic cosmological framework applies.
Information
Rihla (The Travels)
The Rihla is an information-conservation project: recording the state of the world. Substantival: knowledge is real and worth preserving. Personal conservation via the immortal soul. Continuous: the narrative flows as lived experience.
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The Rihla's reliability is the central scholarly problem. Sections on China, parts of Anatolia, and the claimed visit to Bulghar have been questioned as possible fabrications or borrowings from earlier travellers (notably Ibn Jubayr). Ibn Juzayy, the literary editor, may have embellished the text. The tension between empirical observation and literary convention is unresolved: the Rihla is both a factual report and a work of adab (literary prose) that must conform to genre expectations.