Some more books if you are interested in Muslim travelers.
Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North
Blurb
Between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, Arab explorers journeyed widely and frequently into the far north, crossing territories that now include Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. Ibn Fadla-n's chronicles of his travels are one of the most important documents from the period, and this illuminating new translation offers insight into the world of the Arab geographers and the medieval lands of the far north. Based on an expedition to the upper Volga River in 922 AD, Ibn Fadla-n and the Land of Darkness provides a rare and valuable glimpse of Viking customs, dress, table manners, religion, and sexual practices, including the only eyewitness account ever written of a Viking ship cremation.
An Imam In Paris: Al-Tahtawi's Visit To France 1826-1831
Blurb
In the 1820s, Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi, a young Muslim cleric, travelled to Paris as a leading member of the first Egyptian educational mission, where, during a stay of five years, he documented his observations on European culture.
His account, Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz (The Quintessence of Paris), is one of the earliest and most influential records of the Muslim encounter with Enlightenment-era's European ideas, introducing ideas of modernity to his native land. Al-Tahtawi’s work offers invaluable insight into early conceptions of Europe and the "Other". His observations are as vibrant and palpable today as they were over one hundred and fifty years ago; informative and often acute, to very humorous effect.
An irrefutable classic, this new edition of the first English translation is of seminal value. It is introduced and carefully annotated by a scholar fluent in the life, times, and milieu of its narrator.
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سيف الله
03-05-2018, 08:27 PM
Salaam
Should of added this earlier.
An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliya Celebi
Blurb
Evliya Celebi is the greatest travel writer of the Ottoman Empire. Born in Instabul in 1611, he started travelling in 1640 and continued for over forty years, stopping eventually in Cairo where he died about 1685. He collected his lively and eclectic observations into a ten volume manuscript the Seyahatname, or Book of Travels.
For the first time in English, this selection gives a taste of the breadth of Evliya's interests: from architecture to natural history, through religion, politics, linguistics, music, science and the supernatural. While he made over a thousand complete recitations of the Quran in his lifetime, he also wrote with curiosity about Christianity, about his own impotence, about the antics at a world convention of trapeze artists and the feats of a Kurdish sorcerer who conjured a horse from a log pile.
The Turkish Embassy Letters Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Blurb
Lady Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was described by a contemporary, as 'one of the most extraordinary shining characters in the world. . . .' The Turkish Embassy Letters tell of her travels through Europe to Turkey in 1716, where her husband had been appointed ambassador.
Her liveliness makes these letters wonderfully readable, and her singular intelligence provides us with insights that were exceptional for their time: the paradoxical freedoms conferred on Muslim women by the veil; the value of experimental work by Turkish doctors on innoculation; and the beauty of Arab poetry and culture. The ability to study another culture according to its own values and to see herself through the eyes of others make Lady Mary one of the most fascinating of early travel writers and commentators.
Blurb
In the spirit of T.E. Lawrence, Wilfred Thesiger spent five years wandering the deserts of Arabia, producing Arabian Sands, 'a memorial to a vanished past, a tribute to a once magnificent people'. The Penguin Classics edition includes an introduction by Rory Stewart.
Wilfred Thesiger, repulsed by what he saw as the softness and rigidity of Western life - 'the machines, the calling cards, the meticulously aligned streets' - spent years exploring in and around the vast, waterless desert that is the 'Empty Quarter' of Arabia. Travelling amongst the Bedu people, he experienced their everyday challenges of hunger and thirst, the trials of long marches beneath the relentless sun, the bitterly cold nights and the constant danger of death if it was discovered he was a Christian 'infidel'. He was the first European to visit most of the region, and just before he left the area the process that would change it forever had begun - the discovery of oil.
This edition contains an introduction by Rory Stewart discussing the dangers of Thesiger's travels, his unconventional personality and his insights into the Bedouin way of life.
And another
The Marsh Arabs Wilfred Thesiger
Blurb
During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines and treating the sick. In this account of his time there he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people, describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy and moments of pure comedy, all in vivid, engaging detail.
Blurb
In this extraordinary and beautifully-written autobiography, Asad tells of his initial rejection of all institutional religions, his entree into Taoism, his fascinating travels as a diplomat, and finally his embrace of Islam.
The North-west Frontier of Pakistan by Syed Abdul Quddus
Blurb
The North west Frontier of Pakistan is a land of promise, endowed by nature with scenic beauty, lofty hills and flowery vales. the mountains are mainly part of the northwestern Himalyas, Kara-koram and Hindu Kush ranges. The Frontier, in its chequered history, has seen countless invasions. It witnessed the march of Aryans and victorious advance of Persian and Greek armies. It alsosaw the Scythians, White Huns, Seljuks, Tartars, Mongols, Sassanians, Turks, Mughals and Durranis making successive inroads into the territories beyond Peshawar Valley and Indus. the famous historic land route, the Khyber Pass, forms an integral part of Pakistan. It is this pass though which the subcontinent was invaded time and again by conquerors like Cyrus, Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazi, Timur, Babar, Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Abdali. Again it was this pass that the Russian invasion of the subcontinent was feared by the British in the nineteenth century.
Perhaps, this is the reason why the North West Frontier of Pakistan holds some of the most chequered and fascinating romances of history. nearly two centuries before Alexander, Darius the Persian swirled round the bases of the mountains and watered valleys of this land and exercised dominion over it for a short period. then followed the long Macedonian columns with their camels winding their way laboriously through the great gallary of range upon range, peaks upon peak, hill terraced perfectly on hill which hold the key to the fertile plains of what is now the Indo Pakistan subcontinent.
This book unfold the facinating story of the North Western Frontier of Pakistan and tells its romantic tale to the spell bound readership all over the world.
Should of added this at the beginning :D
The Travels of Ibn Battutah
Blurb
He did not return to Morocco for another twenty-nine years, travelling instead through more than forty countries on the modern map, covering seventy-five thousand miles and getting as far north as the Volga, as far east as China and as far south as Tanzania. He wrote of his travels, and comes across as a superb ethnographer, biographer, anecdotal historian and occasional botanist and gastronome.
With this edition by Mackintosh-Smith, Battuta's Travels takes its place alongside other indestructible masterpieces of the travel-writing genre.
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