Medieval Arab travellers such as Ibn Battuta called the islands '''' () from the Arabic word '''' ("palace"), which must be how the Berber traveller interpreted the local name, having been through Muslim North India, where Perso-Arabic words were introduced to the local vocabulary. This is the name currently inscribed on the scroll in the Maldives state emblem. The classical Persian/Arabic name for Maldives is ''''. The Dutch referred to the islands as the '''' (), while the British anglicised the local name for the islands first to the "Maldive Islands" and later to "Maldives".