My trip to Ibn Battuta Mall!
There are many malls in the UAE, some big outstanding ones like Dubai Mall, and some smaller more localized ones like Safeer Mall here in RAK. I have been to quite a few, but there is one mall whose concept and overall execution is one of my favorites -- if not THE favorite that I have ever been to, and it is Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai, and so this week I decided to go there.
Ibn Battuta Mall is located adjacent to Sheikh Zayed Road between interchanges 5 and 6 in Dubai, and it is supposed to be a mall dedicated to the travels and general life of the famous Arab traveler Ibn Battuta who spent the majority of his life traveling across much of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
The mall is divided into "courts", there are six of these courts and each of them is supposed to represent one of the major countries that Ibn Battuta visited. You can enter from any of the courts but the creators of the mall have said that China is meant to be the start, so in this visit we entered from the China court. The chain of courts goes as follows: China, then India, then Persia, then Egypt, then Tunisia, and then lastly Andalusia. Each of the courts has its own theme and design, and although in my "humble" opinion the Persia court is the best, all of the courts have something different and often beautiful to offer, with little anecdotes about Ibn Battuta's travels, and the major activities or researches that happened in each of those regions around the time that he would have been there.
So now that all that explanatory stuff is out of the way let's move on to how it was actually going there. Now I will say that I have been to Ibn Battuta Mall before but I was much younger (and thinner), so other than what I've heard about it and the few vague memories I have of visiting the mall I didn't know much about it going in to this. As I mentioned before, we entered from the China court and it is truly spectacular. It definitely qualifies as one of my top three favorite courts and in fact I think it would be my second favorite, with its majestic Asian styled archways and its beautiful Chinese designs it really is pretty good look'n.
Like I mentioned before, each court has a little statue or recreation or informational object that is meant to correlate with whatever was going on in that region around when Ibn Battuta showed up there. So for China they have a roughly life sized recreation of a Chinese explorational boat called the Junk (I love that name) which Ibn Battuta is said to have traveled on, but more than that it's a great place for a picture!
After we had finished appreciating that Junk we moved on into the India court, which was nothing to scoff at with its white and gold decorations mimicking the Taj Mahal. The India court falls into my third favorite out of all the courts and its main attraction would most likely be the elephant clock.
Now before you look it up just let me give you a brief explanation of what exactly this impressive time telling contraption is, and then you can go watch a video of it in action. The elephant clock was invented at the time of the Mughal empire in India by an Arab engineer named Al Jazari that tells the time every 30 minutes by way of pulleys and a water tank. I'll leave a link to a YouTube video that does a much better job of explaining it at the end of this post. On the other side of the India court there is also an interesting contraption that I was told had been closed at that time for refurbishing, but I was informed that it had something to do with telling the time as well, and its back was open so of course I had to take the opportunity for another photo.
After we finished tweaking our watches we moved on and now I would like to take this opportunity to talk about something very important to yours truly. The ceiling is different or special for each court (obviously) but between the courts there are corridors or hallways that connect the courts and the ceiling for these sections is sky, so that when you are moving between the courts it looks like you're traveling. I mention in my vlog that in my opinion this is absolutely amazing attention to detail by the mall's creators, and is one of the first things that I would tell someone about if they asked me what was most notable about Ibn Battuta Mall's design.
So now that I have told you what's up we can continue with the actual mall. The next court that we went into after the India court, is as I have mentioned before and I mention in my vlog my number one favorite part of the mall and in my mind it is the most spectacular court, design wise (closely followed by China). This court that I have built up way too much anticipation for is the Persia court, with its absolutely eye annihilatingly beautiful designs and colors, and of course the fact that it has the biggest Starbucks outlet in the mall, it immediately hit my number one position as soon as I walked into it. If the looks (and the Starbucks) don't immediately capture you, then have no fear because the centerpiece of this court is not a life sized monument or an unusual amount of clocks but it is the giant and in my opinion absolutely spectacular dome that caps the whole thing, and if it doesn't grab your attention then I believe nothing will. It also has a lot of nice pillars and some informational pieces about Ibn Battuta's travels in Persia but the real attraction is the dome.
Once we had gotten back our eyesight we moved on to the next court which is the Egypt court. The Egypt court is nice, it ties with the Andalusia court for my fourth favorite spot and it is not too shabby. With its ancient Egyptian styled hieroglyphs, scarabs, pharaohs, and sphinxes it does do a good job of tingling my history senses but other than that it doesn't have much to catch my personal attention.
After we had brushed the sand off of us we moved on to the second to last court which is the Tunisia court, and it falls into my least favorite spot sadly. When I say it is my least favorite I by no means am saying that it sucks, but it just doesn't do it for me personally, I mean it is the only court of its kind. The thing that is special about it is that it isn't one big square room with a monument or two and some shops around the edges but instead it is a giant area full of twists and turns that are designed to make you feel like you're in a bazaar with shops every where. This is part of why it lands at the bottom of my personal favorites because although it gives the opportunity for a bit of change in design it just doesn't fit the narrative of the rest of the mall and it makes me feel like its just another place for them to throw some extra shops in, which I suppose is fine it just doesn't appeal to me personally (and its roof is just sky).
So now that I have taken sizable dump on what is actually a perfectly fine court let's continue on to the final court which is the Andalusia court. Now for those of you who don't know, Andalusia is actually the Arabic name for Spain when it was under the occupation of the Muslim empire. In normal history this is actually one of my favorite areas and time to study but in the case of this mall it isn't anything outstanding in my opinion. I still like it alright but more than anything it's just really small, and it feels to me like they just kind of put it in there for the sake of it. Although it does have a nice fountain and a recreation of one of the first gliders ever which is pretty cool.
So all together i think that Ibn Battuta Mall is one of the greatest malls of all time, not because it has the best shops or because it's a bigger mall, but simply because the concept is just absolutely brilliant. And I wish that there were more malls here in the UAE and all over the world that followed themes and carried out concepts with even an ounce of what this mall has done. But until there are more we can just marvel at the ones that are already here and especially this one. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you all here again in a couple weeks' time for wherever we go next.
Two pictures on this page are from the Ibn Battuta Mall website.