Between Wonderment and Estrangement: Arab Intellectuals Travelling in Europe (19th-20th centuries)

  • Cristiana Baldazzi University of Trieste
Keywords: Estrangement, Arabic travel literature, Nahḍa, ‘ajā’ib ‘Mirabilia’, Egypt, XIX-XX centuries

Abstract

This article makes use of the concept of estrangement – formulated by Viktor Šklovskij in 1917 – in order to analyze some travel writings by those Arab intellectuals (Rifā‘a Rāfi‘ al-Ṭahṭāwī, Salīm Bustrus, Amīn Fikrī, Aḥmad Zakī, Muḥammad Kurd ‘Alī) who chose Europe as their destination of travel between the 19th and 20th centuries. The authors analyzed are considered among the chief exponents of the Nahḍa, or Renaissance, and come from Egypt, the Syrian-Lebanese area. Some are Muslims, some Christians. Together, though, they represent the motley reality of the Middle East. This analysis aims to provide further confirmation of the versatility of travel literature and its ability to adapt itself to the requirements of modernity. Nonetheless, our study keeps drawing on the stylistic features of traditional literature that, in this case, include the ‘ajā’ib and the maqāma, two literary forms that become a procedure of estrangement whereby the authors under consideration reinterpret and remodel modernity.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Fonti
Bustrus, Salīm, al-Nuzha al-shāhiyya fī l-riḥla al-sālīmiyya 1855, Beirut, Mu’assasa al-‘arabiyya li l-dirāsāt wa l-nashr, 2003.
Fikrī, Muḥammad Amīn, Irshād al-alibbā’ ilā maḥāsin Ūrūbbā, Cairo, Maṭba‘at al-Muqtaṭaf, 1892.
Kurd ‘Alī, Muḥammad, Gharā’ib al-gharb, 2 voll., Cairo, al-Maktaba al-Ahliyya,1923.
Muwayliḥī, Muḥammad, Ḥadīth ‘Īsa ibn Hishām. Fatra min al-zaman, Cairo, Kalimāt ‘arabiyya li l-tarjama wa l-nashr, 2013.
Ṭahṭāwī, Rifā‘a Rāfi‘, Takhlīṣ al-ibrīz fī talkhīṣ Bārīz, Cairo Kalimāt ‘arabiyya li l-tarjama wa l-nashr, 2011.
Zakī, Aḥmad, al-Dunyā fī Bārīs, Cairo, ‘Ayn li l-dirāsāt wa l-buḥūth al-insāniyya wa l-ijtimā’iyya, 2007.
Zakī, Aḥmad, al-Safar ilà l-mu’tamar, Cairo, Mu’assasa Hindāwī li l-ta‘līm wa l-tarjama, 2013.
Bibliografia
Abbattista, Guido, Umanità in mostra. Esposizioni etniche e invenzioni esotiche in Italia, 1880-1940, Trieste, Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2013.
Abu Lughod, Arab Rediscovery of Europe. A Study in cultural Encounters, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963.
Arioli, Angelo, Le Isole Mirabili. Periplo arabo medievale, Torino, Einaudi, 1989.
Arkoun, Mohammed - Le Goff, Jacques - Fahd, Tawfiq - Rodinson Maxime, (éd.), L’Etrange et le Merveilleux dans l’Islam médiéval. Actes du colloque tenu au Collège de France à Paris, en mars 1974, Paris, Editions J.A., 1978.
Aydin, Cemil, The Idea of the Muslim World a Global intellectual history, Cambridge, Ma., Harvard University press, 2017.
Baldazzi, Cristiana, Lo sguardo arabo: immagini e immaginari dell’Occidente, Trieste, Edizioni Università di Trieste, 2018.
Bellino, Francesca, “Arabic Encyclopaedias and Encyclopedism between the Seventeenth and Nineteenth Centuries: Forms, Functions, Intersections of adab and Modernity”, Adab and Modernity. A Civilising Process? (Sixteenth-Twenty-First Century), Ed. C. Mayeur-Jaouen, Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2019: 123-67.
Calasso, Giovanna, “Esperienze e scritture di viaggio nell’Islam medievale: Il mondo degli altri e il mondo dell’Islam”, Lo spazio letterario del Medioevo. 3. Le culture circostanti. La Cultura Arabo-Islamica, a cura di B. Scarcia Amoretti, Roma, Salerno, 2003: 379-408.
Çelik, Zeynep - Kinney, Leila, “Ethnography and Exhibitionism at the Expositions Universelles”, Assemblage, 13 (1990): 34-59.
Celik, Zeynep, Displaying the Orient: Architecture of Islam at Nineteenth Century World’s Fairs, Berkeley- Los Angeles- Oxford, Univ. of California Press, 1992.
Choueiri, Youssef, Patriotic Intellectuals and Enlightened Patrons: al-Ṭahṭāwī and the Egyptian Identity, Id., Arab History and the Nation State. A Study in Modern Arab Historiography, London, Routledge, 1989: 3-24.
Colla, Elliott, Conflictes Antiquities. Egyptolgy, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity, Durham-London, Duke University Press, 2007.
Delanoue, Gilbert, Moralistes et Politiques Musulmans dans l’Egypte di XIXe siècle (1798-1882), Caire, Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale di Caire, 1982.
Edmond, Charles, L’Egypte à l’exposition universelle de 1876, Paris, Dentu, 1867.
Elboudrari, Hassan, “L’exotisme à l’envers. Les premiers voyageurs marocains en Occident (Espagne, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles) et leur expérience de l’altérité”, D’un Orient l’Autre: 1 Configurations, ed. Marie-Claude Burgat, Paris, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche scientifique, 1991, 377-403.
El Enany, Rasheed, Arab Representations of the Occident. East-West Encounters in Arab Fiction, London-New York, Routledge, 2006.
Euben, Roxanne L., Journeys to the Other Shore: Muslims and Western Travellers in Search of Knowledge, Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press, 2006.
Ezzerelli, Kaïs, “The Publicist and his Newspaper in Syria in the Era of the Young Turk Revolution, between Reformist Commitment and Political Pressures: Muhammad Kurd ‘Ali and al-Muqtabas (1908-17)”, The Press in the Middle East and North Africa, 1850-1950. Politics, Social History and Culture, Ed. A. Gorman, D. Monciaud, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2018: 176-206.
Farès, Bichr, “Aḥmad Zakī Pasha”, Revue d’études islamique, 8 (1934): 382-93.
Ghersetti, Antonella, (ed.) Tropes du Voyage. Le Voyage dans la Littérature arabe 1: Départs, Actes du Colloque international qui s’est tenu à l’Università Ca’ Foscari de Venise (13-15 Décembre 2007), Padova, Studio ed. Gordini, 2010
Ginzburg, Carlo, “Straniamento. Preistoria di un procedimento letterario”, Id., Occhiacci di legno. Nove riflessioni sulla distanza, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1998: 15-39.
Hale, Dana S., Races on Display. French Representations of Colonized People 1886-1940, Bloomington-Indianapolis, Indiana Univ. Press, 2008.
Heyworth-Dunne, James, “Rifā‘ah Badawī Rāfi‘ aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī: the Egyptian Revivalist”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, 10 (1940): 399-415.
Hill, Peter, “Who Made the Nahda?”, Id., Utopia and Civilisation in the Arab Nahda, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020: 18-78.
Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Idrissi Alami, Ahmed, Mutual Othering: Islam, Modernity and Politics of Cross-Cultural Encounters in Pre-Colonial Moroccan and European Travel Writing, New York, State University Press, 2013.
Isabella, Maurizio - Zanou, Konstantina, (ed.), Mediterranean Diasporas. Politics and Ideas in the Long 19th Century, London - New Delhi - New York – Sydney, Bloomsbury, 2016.
al-Khālidī al-Ṣafadī, Aḥmad, Soggiorno di Fakhr ad-dīn II al-Ma’nī in Toscana, Sicilia e Napoli e la sua visita a Malta (1613-1618), tr. Paolo Carali, Napoli, S.I.E.M., 1937.
Kilpatrick, Hilary, “Between Ibn Baṭṭūta and al-Ṭahṭāwī: Arabic Travel Accounts of the Early Ottoman Period”, Middle Eastern Literatures, 11 (2008): 233-48.
Kilpatrick, Hilary, “A Genre in Classical Arabic: The Adab Encyclopedia”, Proceedings, Union européenne des arabisants et islamisants: 10th Congress, Edinburgh, 9–16 September 1980, ed. Robert Hillenbrand, s.n., 1982: 34-42.
Leeuwen, Richard van, “Two Egyptians at the World Exhibition in Paris”, Writing the Self. Autobiographical Writing in Modern Arabic Literature, Ed. R. Ostle, Ed de Moor, S. Wild, London, Saqi Books, 1998: 39-50.
Livingston, John H., “Western Science and Educational Reform in the Thought of Shaykh Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi,”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 28 (1996): 545-64.
Louca, Anwar, Voyageurs et Ecrivains Egyptiens en France aux XIXe siècle, Paris, Didier, 1970.
Livingston, John H., “Western Science and Educational Reform in the Thought of Shaykh Rifa‘a al-Tahtawi,”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 28 (1996): 545-64.
Matar, Nabil, “Europe through Eighteenth-Century Moroccan Eyes”, Alif, 26 (2006): 200-19.
Matar, Nabil, In the land of of the Christians. Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century, New York-London, Routledge, 2003.
Mayeur-Jaouen, Cathérine, (ed.), Adab and Modernity. A “Civilising Process”? (Sixteenth-Twenty-First Century), Leiden-Boston, Brill, 2019.
Miller, Susan Gilson, (ed.) Disorienting Encounters: the voyage of Muhammad as-Saffar, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1992.
Miquel, André, La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu’au milieu di 11e siècle, Paris-La, Haye, Mouton 1967.
Musiatewicz, Joanna, “Enthusiatic Image. Strategies of Writing about the Self and the Other in the Travelogue of Salim Bustrus (19th c.)”, Roznik Orientalistyczny, 2 (2016): 167- 77.
Muwaylihi, Muhammad, Ce que nous conta ‘Isa Ibn Hicham. Chronique satirique d’une Egypte fin de siècle, trad. R. Sabry, Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, Ed. du Jasmin, 2005.
Muwaylihi, Muhammad, Trois Egyptiens à Paris, trad. R. Sabry, Clichy Hauts-de-Seine, Ed. du Jasmin, 2008.
Muwayliḥī, Muḥammad, What ‘Isa ibn Hisham told us, or A period of time, Ed. and translated R. Allen, New York-London, New York University press, 2 voll. 2015.
Naddaf, Sandra, “Mirrored images Rifā’ah al-Ṭahtāwī and the West”, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 6 (1986): 73-83.
Newman, Daniel, “Myths and Realities in Muslim Alterist Discourse: Arab Travellers in Europe in the Age of the Nahda (19th C.)”, Chronos, 6 (2002): 7-76.
Otthofer-Latiri, Lamia, “Les représentations paysagères dans la géographie arabe classique des VIIIe-XIe siècles. Méthodes et modèles paysagers”, L’Espace géographique, 2 (2005): 175-91.
Paniconi, Maria Elena, La riscoperta araba dell’Europa nella cronaca di viaggio «Takhlīṣ al-ibrīz fī talkhīṣ Bārīz» (L’Oro di Parigi) di Rifā‘a Rāfi‘ aṭ-Ṭahṭāwī (1801-1873), in Viaggi e Viaggiatori nell’Ottocento, a cura di M. Severini, Venezia, Marsilio, 2013.
Pellitteri, Antonino, “Riforma dell’Islam e rinascita araba nel pensiero di Muḥammad Kurd ‘Alī (1876-1953)”, AIUON, 2 (1984): 219-57.
Pérès, Henri, “Voyageurs Musulmans en Europe aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Notes Bibliographiques”, Melange Maspero. III Orient Islamique, Le Caire, Imprimerie de l’Institu Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1935-1940: 185-95.
Pérès, Henri, L’Espagne vue par les Voyageurs Musulmans de 1610 à 1930, Paris, Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1937.
Roussillon, Alain, “‘Ce qu’ils nomment liberté’… Rifā‘a al-Ṭahṭāwī ou l’invention (avortée) d’une modernité politique ottomane”, Arabica, 2 (2001): 143-85.
Ryad, Umar, “‘An Oriental Orientalist’: Aḥmad Zakī Pasha (1868-1934), Egyptian Statesman and Philologist in the Colonial Age”, Philological Encounters, 3 (2018): 129-66.
Saba Yared, Nazik, Arab Travellers and Western Civilization, London, Saqi Books, 1996.
Scott Deuchar, Hannah, “Nahda: Mapping a Keyword in Cultural Discourse”, Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics, 37,(2017): 50-84.
Sheehi, Stephen, Foundation of Modern Arab Identity, Gainesville, The University Press of Florida, 2004.
Sheehi, Stephen, “Towards a Critical Theory of al-Nahdah: Epistemology, Ideology and Capital”, Jounal of Arabic Literature, 43 (2012): 269-98.
Šklovskij, Viktor, “L’arte come procedimento”, I formalisti russi, Ed. Tvedan Todorov, Torino, Einaudi, 1968: 75-94.
Soler, Renaud “Une autre histoire de la civilisation: Comment Rifāʿa al-Ṭahṭāwī repensa l’histoire de l’Égypte dans les années 1860”, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 2 (2019): 267-96.
Tahtâwî, Rifâ’at, L’Or de Paris. Relation de voyage 1826-1831 Traduit de l’arabe, présenté et annoté par Anouar Louca, Paris, Sindbad, 1988.
al-Ṭahṭāwī, Rifā‘a Rāfi‘, An imam in Paris : account of a stay in France by an Egyptian cleric (1826-1831), intr. and trans. D. Newman, London, Saqi, 2004.
Touati, Houari, Islam et voyage au Moyen Age, Paris, Ed. Du Seuil, 2000.
Zachs, Fruma, “Cultural and conceptual contributions of Beiruti merchants to the Nahda”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55 (2012): 153-82.
Zolondek, Leon, “Nineteenth-Century Arab Travellers to Europe: some Observations on their Writings”, Muslim World, 61 (1971): 28-34.
Published
2022-05-29
How to Cite
Baldazzi, C. (2022). Between Wonderment and Estrangement: Arab Intellectuals Travelling in Europe (19th-20th centuries). Between, 12(23), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/5066