Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1

Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.3

Word count: 7.3K words
Chapters: 1

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 by BurtonAuthor: Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Nov 1, 2003

Editor's review

Burton's Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah, Volume 1, is one of the classic texts of nineteenth-century travel literature. Writing as an eyewitness, the author records his journey to the Islamic holy cities, combining geographical observation, descriptions of customs, and personal adventure. Volume 1 generally covers the departure, sights along the way, and the experiences before and after entering the Arabian Peninsula; the narrative is detailed and rich in particulars, making it a useful reference for the study of nineteenth-century Middle Eastern society, travel writing, and cross-cultural observation. Its readability comes from the author's strong subjective voice and abundance of concrete description, but this also means readers need to maintain a critical distance: the judgments in the book carry obvious period and personal biases. As a public-domain ebook, it is easy to search and cite, and suitable as supplementary reading for courses in history, anthropology, and travel literature. Readers are advised to consult maps and background materials alongside the text and to distinguish factual record from the author's evaluations.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Students of Middle Eastern history and Islamic studies who need primary travel documents
Lovers of travel literature who enjoy the narrative style of long nineteenth-century travelogues
Readers in anthropology or cross-cultural studies concerned with the observer's perspective and bias
Writers who need public-domain English historical sources for searching and citation

Not a good fit for

Readers looking only for a concise pilgrimage guide or an introduction to religious knowledge
Readers impatient with nineteenth-century English travelogue syntax and length
Readers expecting a neutral, objective account and unwilling to parse the author's biases

Reading tips

Start with the table of contents and maps to establish a geographical framework before reading the main text.
Mark the author's subjective judgments as you read, distinguishing observation from evaluation.
Read alongside background materials on the nineteenth-century Arabian Peninsula to reduce misunderstanding.
Read selectively by chapter; there is no need to finish the whole book in one go.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book a pilgrimage guide or travel literature?

It is closer to travel literature and a personal record of observations than to a religious pilgrimage guide. The author records his own journey, observations, and judgments, with extensive description of geography, customs, and personal experience. For the norms of pilgrimage rituals, consult a religious reference work instead.

Do I need prior knowledge of Islam to read this book?

Some grounding helps, but you need not be an expert. Knowing basic geography and religious background will help you tell which descriptions are factual and which carry period bias. Complete beginners can read it too, but they will need more patience in checking and comparing sources.

Are the descriptions in this book still reliable today?

As a nineteenth-century primary record, it has value for historical research, but it cannot serve as a current field guide. Society, cities, and transport have all changed, and the author's judgments carry personal and period limitations. Read it as a historical text, not as a description of present conditions.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Burton, Richard Francis, Sir, 1821-1890 Author

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) was a British explorer, writer and Orientalist. This library holds fifteen of his works, spanning East African exploration, accounts of a pilgrimage across Arabia, Hindu myth and tales of Central African travel. First Footsteps in East Africa records his journey into the interior of East Africa; the two-volume Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah offers a first-hand portrait of the holy cities; and Vikram and the Vampire retells classic Hindu tales of adventure. His prose is detailed and precise, combining the calm of an observer with a storyteller's vividness, and has had a lasting influence on travel writing and Oriental studies. As public information is limited, this note is based chiefly on the works held here.