Quote by Leo Africanus: “I, Hassan the son of Mohammed, call myself a wanderer and a stranger to all races.”

Rather than belonging fully to one culture or community, the speaker claims a kind of radical homelessness — belonging everywhere and nowhere at once. This isn't self-pity; it is a description of what it means to move across cultures and find that no single one fully contains you.

Leo Africanus wrote his Description of Africa in Rome in 1526, having lived across Morocco, sub-Saharan Africa, the Ottoman Empire, and Italy. His life bridged Islamic and Christian civilizations in one of the most transformative moments in world history — the aftermath of the fall of Granada and the beginning of European colonial expansion.

Andalusian-Moroccan diplomat and author born around 1494, originally named al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Wazzan. Captured by Spanish pirates and presented to Pope Leo X, he converted to Christianity and produced his Description of Africa in 1526, the most comprehensive European account of Africa for over a century. He later returned to the Islamic world.