Abu 'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr, usually known simply as Ibn Jubayr, came from an Arab family long settled in Spain. In February 1183 he set out from Granada to perform the pilgrimage to Mecca. His fame chiefly rests on the account he has left of his journey to the East and back, a journal not without rhetorical flourishes but of particular importance for the breadth of the author's interests and its abundance of vivid detail.