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Case file

Ibn Battuta

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “born in tangier”. Today it says “maghrebi muslim traveller”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “14th-century Muslim Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar”. It now reads “Maghrebi traveller and scholar (1304–1368/1369)”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta ( February 24 1304 to 1368 to 1377 , year of death uncertain) was born in Tangier , Morocco during the time of Merinid Sultanate rule in the Islamic calendar year 703, into a Berber family. He was a Sunni Islamic scholar and jurisprudent from the Maliki Madhhab (a school of Fiqh , or Sunni Islamic law), and at times a Qadi or judge. However, he is best known as an extensive traveller or explorer , whose account documents his travels and side-excursions over a period of almost thirty years, covering some 75,000 miles (120,700 km). This journeying covered almost the entirety of the known Islamic world, extending also to present-day India , the Maldives , Sri Lanka , Southeast Asia and China , a distance readily surpassing that of his prior, near-contemporary and traveller Marco Polo . His name may alternatively be rendered ibn Batuta , ibn Batuda or ibn Battutah . He is also sometimes known by the appellation Shams ad-Din , a title or honorific at times given to the names of scholars particularly in the Islamic East, meaning "the Sun of Religion". His full title and name is given as Shams ad-Din Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammed ibn Ibrahim Ibn Battuta al-Lawati al-Tanji . At the instigation of the Sultan of Morocco, Abu Inan Faris , several years after his return Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his journeys to a scholar named Ibn Juzayy , whom he had met while in Granada . This account, recorded by Ibn Juzayy and interspersed with the latter's own comments is the primary source of information for his adventures.1 The title of this intial manuscript may be translated as A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling , but is often simply referred to as the Rihla , or "(My) Travels".2 Whilst apparently fictional in places, the Rihla still gives as complete an account as exists of some parts of the world in the 14th century . Almost all that is known about Ibn Battuta's life comes from one source – Ibn Battuta himself (via Ibn Juzayy). In places the things he claims he saw or did are probably fanciful, but in many others there is no way to know whether he is reporting or story-telling. The following account assumes the former where it is not obviously the latter.3

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 17972364.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “born in tangier”. Today it says “maghrebi muslim traveller”. The one-line description Wikipedia serves to search engines and AI systems read “14th-century Muslim Maghrebi traveller, explorer and scholar”. It now reads “Maghrebi traveller and scholar (1304–1368/1369)”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

born in tangier

Now

maghrebi muslim traveller

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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