A merchant’s account of journeys in an independent African state Muhammad ibn ‘Umar al -Tunisi (d. 1274/1857) was a member of the lineage of Tunisian merchants who traded with Egypt and the present Sudan. Al-Tunisi was born in Cairo and attended al-Azhar. At the age of 14, al-Tunisi set off for the Sultanate of Darfur, where his father had emigrated the previous year.
He travelled his route, the Forty Days Road, was brought back to his father and later took over the administration of the vast estates that his father was granted by the Sultan of Darfur. The story of Darfur is the amazing account of his 10 year stay in the state of independence.
Suggested Read: The Silk Roads , History of the World, World War I, The Islamic World by Ladan Akbarnia, Nahj al-Balagha, Lost Islamic History, Stranger The History, Realizing Islam, Prophet Muhammad
In the first volume, al-Tunisi relates the history of his family’s extensive travels as well as his journey across Egypt to Darfur and the reign of the famous Sultan ‘Abd al Rahman al-Rashid. in Darfur is a blend of writing and ethnography, along with history as well as linguistics as well as travel adventures as well as, which is atypical for its time, has fifty-two illustrations that were all created from the writer’s perspective.
The story of Darfur is the only Arab narrative of Africa at the time of Western colonization. It vividly portrays an era in which travel was not impeded by bureaucracy and borders were fluid and shocking coincidences are almost every day.
Suggested Read: The Afghanistan File , Islam in Saudi Arabia, Top Seller: Islamic Art by Luca Mozzati, Jewish Morocco, Kingdoms of Faith and Islamic History For Kids: Story of Uhud
Product details
- ASIN: B07BZKVMYF
- Publisher: NYU Press
- Publication date: May 8, 2018
- Language: English
- Size of file:1992 KB
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
- Typesetting enhancement: Enabled
- X-Ray: Not Enabled
- Word Wise: Not Enabled
- Print length: 377 pages
- Lending: Not Enabled
Muhammad al-Tunisi (d. 1274/1857) was a member of an extended group from Tunisian merchants who trade with Egypt as well as what is now Sudan. Born in Cairo al-Tunisi stayed for 10 years travelling through his travels through the Darfur Sultanate. When he returned to Egypt and his return to Egypt, he was an important role in Muhammad’s modernization program overseeing the translation of medical and veterinary texts, and editing the first printed editions of the classical Arabic texts.
Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of around twenty-five works of contemporary Arabic literature, including Alaa Aswany’s the Yacoubian Building, five novels written by Elias Khoury, including Gate of the Sun and Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s leg over legs.
He also has created an important edition of the translation, lexicon, and translation of the Ottoman period. Brains Confused with The Ode of Abu Shaduf Expounded by Yusuf al-Shirbini, as well as translations and editions from al-Tunisi’s The In Darfurand Al-Sanhuri’s Riffs of poemsfrom the same period.
In addition, he’s compiled with Madiha Doss a collection of poems in Arabic called Al-‘ammiyyah almistubah The mukhtarat of 1400 and 2009. ( Egyptian Colloquial Writing: Selections from 1400 until 2009.) as well as co-written with Lesley Lababidi,
A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo. He studied Arabic from his school at the University of Cambridge, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley prior to completing the first of his translations in 2003 he worked as a researcher and social scientist for agencies across Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine and Sudan. He is a member of his university, the American University in Cairo.
R. S. O’Fahey was Professor Emeritus of History in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History, University of Bergen, Norway. This text refers to the hardcover edition.
