Abstract
This article addresses the symbolic semiotic representations expressed in Ibn Battuta's New Journey, focusing on cultural space in relation to the self, the traveler, and the other. Drawing on Yuri Lotman's theory of the semiosphere, the study examines how the traveler-narrator moves within the Islamic semiosphere and across neighboring cultural spaces. It shows that cultural representations are organized around three major oppositions: similarity and difference, us and them, and the sacred and the profane. The article argues that the journey divides the other into internal and external figures and organizes space into familiar, safe, and sacred zones on the one hand, and strange, dangerous, or profane zones on the other. In this way, geographical places acquire cultural meanings that go beyond their physical dimension.
Recommended Citation
Mechkouri, Abdelhafid
(2025)
"Ibn Battuta's New Journey and Crossing the Boundaries of the Semiosphere,"
Soroud: The journal of Literacy Criticism: Vol. 8:
Iss.
1, Article 19.
Available at:
https://scholarhub.univh2c.ma/soroud/vol8/iss1/19