al28894 | al-numbers

A few weeks back, a link to a Substack piece popped up while I was on the phone scrolling the net. I glanced it, opened it in a new tab, and left it unread till today, when I finally paid my attention in full.

I've always had a love for travel literature, probably because of my childhood and adolescent years reading the fantastic novels, storybooks, and Doraemon comics where all the characters go off to another world. Fictional places and fantastic locales. Places I've never been too and people I've never met.

(There's a reason why I hold The Starless Sea in high regard, and it's not because of the bees lol)

So real-life people like Ibn Battuta and Evliya Celebi, who travelled across Asia, Europe, and Africa in their lifetimes, have always caught my interest. If the past was another country, then they are the travellers writing of a lost world. And so did the people who followed in their footsteps it seems, for I have stumbled upon a blog that documents an Imam's visit to a tomb and shrine.