An Imam in Paris: Al-Tahtawi's Visit to France (1826-31) [Hardcover]

Daniel L. Newman (Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0863563465 | ISBN-13: 978-0863563461 | Publication Date: September 6, 2002 | Edition: annotated edition

This is an annotated translation of al-Tahtawi’s Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz, the first translation of an in-depth Arabic account of a visit to Western Europe by a Muslim from the Near East. In addition to its historical and literary value, the book offers invaluable insight into misconceptions about the continent and the ‘other’, and the disorientation that follows a descent into a new world. Its ideas and notions are as vibrant and palpable as they were over 150 years ago.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I think the translation is fabulous . . . read it from beginning to end with much enjoyment, just as much a scholarly gold mine as the streets of Paris as seen through Tahtawi’s eyes." --Robin Ostle, St John’s College, Oxford University.

Book Description

This is an annotated translation of al-Tahtawi’s Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz, the first translation of an in-depth Arabic account of a visit to Western Europe by a Muslim from the Near East. In addition to its historical and literary value, the book offers invaluable insight into misconceptions about the continent and the ‘other’, and the disorientation that follows a descent into a new world. Its ideas and notions are as vibrant and palpable as they were over 150 years ago.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Saqi Books; annotated edition edition (September 6, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0863563465
• ISBN-13: 978-0863563461
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,093,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the most influential books in Arabic of the 19th century, June 30, 2010

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Caraculiambro (La Mancha and environs) - See all my reviews

This review is from: An Imam in Paris: Al-Tahtawi's Visit to France (1826-31) (Hardcover)

Eugene Rogan on this book:

"Al-Tahtawi was sent by the ruler of Egypt as the chaplain of an educational mission to France. The aim of the mission was to train young Egyptians in the languages and the arts and the sciences that had made Europe so strong in that first quarter of the 19th century. And he was a very insightful observer, who presents us with a pretty unique example of an Arab or Muslim traveller describing the manners and customs of an exotic people: in this case the French. He was very curious and he wasn't particularly judgmental. So he went with an open mind and wide open eyes. He was fascinated by the relations between men and women, by how they dressed, by how they worked, by the way they decorated their homes and even how they set their tables. There are wonderfully vivid descriptions of all these things, which were so different from the way in which society worked in his native Egypt. He was also very interested in the way the politics of French society worked; he was fascinated by constitutional government, the idea that there could be rules that applied on rulers as well as on subjects. And he's the first person to introduce the idea of a newspaper to the Arab world. At the time, in the 1820s, there were no newspapers in Arabic. He's the first one to describe how they worked, how they allow accountability, how people's actions can be put under scrutiny, and how anybody, whatever their standing in life, was able to write for these things called newspapers. The book was a bestseller from the moment it was published in Arabic. It was instantly translated into Turkish, so it reached the Ottoman world at large, and really is more responsible than any other book, in the first half of the 19th century, for setting reformist debates in Ottoman and Arab society. But it's also just a great read - a fascinating, fantastic book, and there's a wonderful new translation of it [by Daniel Newman]."