Description
Book SynopsisVividly captures the experiences of prominent Indian intellectual and scholar Shibli¯ Nu‘ma¯ni¯ (1857-1914) as he journeyed across the Ottoman Empire and Egypt in 1892. A professor of Arabic and Persian, Nu‘ma¯ni¯ took a six-month leave from teaching to travel to the Ottoman Empire in search of rare printed works and manuscripts.
Trade ReviewA work of surprising complexity. The detailed notes, the appendices, the multilingual and multinational research that the translator has done. . . . The results have made the translation far more usefully accessible than the plain text could ever have been, as a primary source for scholars of Middle Eastern intellectual and cultural history of the period. Nu‘mani was one of India’s most creative and enterprising intellectuals at the turn of the 20th century. His travelogue to the Ottoman lands, a classic of Urdu literature, is a riveting account of his experiences as he met a wide range of individuals, visited schools and libraries, and collected scholarly materials with enthusiasm. Bruce’s lucid translation, supported by excellent notes and appendices, is without question a work that will at once inform and entertain. Bruce achieved a masterful translation of an influential late 19th century Urdu text of Shibli Noumani, his travel account of Turkey, Egypt and Syria in 1892. Readings an Indian Muslims proud observations of progress and reform in the ethnically mixed cities ruled by Ottoman Caliph Abdulhamid II will be essential to understand the late 19th century Pan-Islamism during an era of empire, race and geopolitics.
