The Journey Of Ibn Fattoma Analysis

The Journey of Ibn Fattouma follows a man named Qindil on a journey through many diverse societies. The Muslim traveller progresses through the towns and judges the merit in hopes of finding refuge in one of them. The ultimate destination is the mysterious land of Gebel, which is supposedly perfect. The journey is made to escape Qindil’s problems, to serve as an allegory through different time periods, and is eventually successful.
Qindil’s journey is solely to escape the problems of his home. Directly after his heart is broken and he thinks everyone has betrayed him, he leaves. He has said in the past he desires adventure, but he really just needs to get away. He claims he is on the journey to figure out the perfect society and, to a lesser extent,
His home simply prompts his journey with the problems it causes him. The first town, Mashriq, represents the primitive beginnings of time with animistic religion and minimal government. Haira, the second society, is similar to the rise of civilizations as it is a time of confusion and a divine ruler. The third city of Halba demonstrates the freedom accompanied with developed culture and its overtaking of the previous two towns indicates the popularity of this freedom. Aman is clearly representative of communism and the conflict between it and Halba is indicative of the struggle of political ideologies prominent in the time the author lived. Ghuroub does not represent a time or structure of the real world, but rather the concept that people need to leave all ideas of the past behind to experience perfection. Ending the story before the perfect land of Gebel and the possibility it is not even real illustrates the fact that the world has not discovered the perfect time and it may not exist. Qindil himself symbolizes the difficulty of people to accept a culture different from their