Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah

A vivid account of the hajj in 1853, by a British explorer who travelled to Mecca disguised as a pilgrim.

Richard Francis Burton (Author)

9781108041980, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 29 December 2011

418 pages, 1 b/w illus. 2 colour illus. 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 2.4 cm, 0.53 kg

The British explorer Sir Richard F. Burton (1821–90) was a colourful and often controversial character. A talented linguist and keen ethnologist, he worked in India during the 1840s as an interpreter and intelligence officer for General Sir Charles Napier, and published several books about his experiences in 1851–2. He first gained celebrity, however, for his adventurous 1853 trip to Mecca, under the disguise of a pilgrim, which is described in this lively three-volume publication (1855–6). Few Europeans had ever visited the Muslim holy places; one of them was John Lewis Burckhardt, whose 1829 account is also reissued in this series. Volume 1 of Burton's book describes his arrival in Egypt, the weeks he spent in Alexandria and Cairo polishing his linguistic and cultural skills, and how, at the end of Ramadan, he travelled to Suez by camel, and from there by boat to Yanbu al-Bahr.

Preface
1. To Alexandria
2. I leave Alexandria
3. The Nile steam boat
4. Life in the Wakálah
5. The Ramazán
6. The mosque
7. Preparations to quit Cairo
8. From Cairo to Suez
9. Suez
10. The pilgrim ship
11. To Yambu
12. The halt at Yambu
13. From Yambu to Bir Abbas.

Subject Areas: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]