Scholars such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo are widely known to have travelled extreme distances to the kingdoms of Central and East Asia, most notably to China and even Japan. Considering the relatively close distance between West Africa and Brazil (2500km I believe), why was there no trans-oceanic Ibn Battuta that explored the oceans? As far as I know, that distance wasn’t insurmountable with the technology at the time, as the Normans and Vikings invaded several lands even farther away from their homelands than that. (I am aware that most of those journeys stuck close to land and thus could resupply; obviously that isn’t possible on the open Atlantic).
Thanks for any answers!
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!