{"id":52123,"date":"2025-01-30T05:01:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T05:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/ustad-amjad-ali-khan-to-enthrall-audience-with-sarod-recital-in-riyadh\/"},"modified":"2025-01-30T05:01:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T05:01:00","slug":"ustad-amjad-ali-khan-to-enthrall-audience-with-sarod-recital-in-riyadh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=52123","title":{"rendered":"Ustad Amjad Ali Khan to enthrall audience with sarod recital in Riyadh"},"content":{"rendered":"
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New book series \u2018Arabian Explorers\u2019 reintroduces seminal works on Arabian history<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
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\n\tDUBAI: Driven by romanticism, imperial ambition, and scholarly curiosity, a succession of European adventurers set sail for Arabia throughout the 19th century, laden with expectation and a desire to unravel its mysteries. For many, the goal was a deeper understanding of the region\u2019s history, religion, geography, peoples, and wildlife, as well as the uncovering of Biblical truth. For some, natural history, ethnology, cartography, and archaeology were combined into a single expedition, resulting in the publication of multi-disciplinary personal narratives that fed the Victorian hunger for adventure, discovery, and escapism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAmong them were Charles Montagu Doughty \u2014 the first European to enter Hegra, the Nabateans\u2019 second city after Petra \u2014 and James Raymond Wellsted, a second lieutenant of the East India Company, who survived a hurricane off the coast of\u202fMagna and took part in a detailed study of the Gulf of Aqaba. Arguably the most famous, however, was the eccentric Englishman Richard Francis Burton, a complex figure remembered for his keen sense of adventure, overt Orientalism, and undertaking the Hajj in disguise. He also embarked on an outlandish mission in search of the legendary gold mines of Midian, an ancient region or tribal confederation mentioned in both the Qur\u2019an and the Bible and thought to be located in north-west Arabia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe newly-published Arabian Explorers Series reintroduces travelogues by all three, as well as by William Gifford Palgrave, an intriguing figure who served variously as a soldier, interpreter, priest, missionary, spy, and diplomat. Published by Empty Quarter Press, the series seeks to bring the authors\u2019 vivid depictions of Arabia to a new audience.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t
\n\t\tWilliam Gifford Palgrave. (Supplied)<\/figcaption>
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\n\t\u201cThroughout their journeys, each author recorded some of the most detailed analyses and observations of Arabia in the English language and precious details about society, cultural customs, political structures, ancient heritage sites, and the shifting power dynamics of the peninsula in this period,\u201d says Jeff Eamon, editor-in-chief at Empty Quarter Press. \u201cWe aim to couch each text in its proper context so readers can appreciate their significant historical value (and) understand each author\u2019s subjectivities and perspectives.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tThe reprints include newly commissioned maps, glossaries, and forewords by leading historians, placing these complex and often provocative legacies in context. Included are new editions of Palgrave\u2019s \u201cPersonal Narrative of a Year\u2019s Journey Through Central and Eastern Arabia (1862-63),\u201d first published in 1865; volume one of Burton\u2019s \u201cThe Land of Midian (Revisited),\u201d originally published in 1879; Wellsted\u2019s \u201cTravels in Arabia Volume Two,\u201d printed in 1838; and Doughty\u2019s \u201cTravels in Arabia Deserta Volume One,\u201d a monumental text first published in 1888.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMuch of the written information that we have about 19th-century Arabia comes from these travelogues,\u201d explains Eamon. \u201cThey have long provided precious information for scholars, students of history, and general readers interested in Arabian culture, social customs, and heritage. With Saudi Arabia\u2019s current investment in its wealth of cultural assets and heritage sites, these publications are amazing sources of information. Doughty, for instance, is the first to document Hegra in minute detail, with detailed sketches of the Nabataean tombs, which have become a major part of Saudi Arabia\u2019s cultural offering.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t \n\t\tCharles Montagu Doughty was the first known European to enter Hegra and he provided glimpses of the area through his sketches. (Supplied)<\/figcaption>
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\n\tThe four travelogues have inspired academic inquiry for over a century, but have also sparked debate, not least because of the biases inherent in their authors\u2019 views. Burton in particular, has faced accusations of Orientalism and of perpetuating stereotypical views of Arabia. His observations were often tinged with a sense of superiority and colonial arrogance, although he had great admiration for both Islam and Arab culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBurton\u2019s views on the Arab world were complicated,\u201d admits Dane Kennedy, a historian of the British imperial world and author of the foreword to \u201cThe Land of Midian (Revisited).\u201d \u201cHis comments on the Bedouin could be highly critical, though he also promoted a romanticized view of them as princes of the desert. Furthermore, he was a forceful defender of the Islamic faith and Arab culture, so much so that many of his countrymen ostracized him, believing him to be a convert to Islam.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHe was a man of many talents and vast contradictions.\u202fHe was both an agent of British imperialism and a critic of it. He was a\u202fbigot\u202fand a relativist. He was, above all, a man of immense curiosity about other cultures, and he sought to satisfy that curiosity by learning some 25 languages, travelling widely across India, Arabia, Africa, Latin America, and other lands, and often acquiring an intimate knowledge of the local communities he encountered.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tPalgrave, who made a foolhardy attempt to cross the Nafud desert in July without local guides and barely made it to salvation in Jubbah, also viewed the world through a Eurocentric, colonial lens. The first Westerner to successfully cross the Arabian Peninsula from the Red Sea to the Arabian Gulf (west to east), he travelled in disguise \u2014 as a Syrian physician \u2014 and filled his narrative with vivid, compelling observations of the landscapes, tribal dynamics, and cultural practices of the Arabian Peninsula. He achieved immediate acclaim upon the publication of \u201cPersonal Narrative,\u201d thanks in part to his love of storytelling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe are now more than 150 years on from Palgrave\u2019s Arabian travels and his narrative can be read on various levels \u2014 from travelogue to adventure story,\u201d says James Parry, a cultural heritage writer and author of the foreword to the new edition of \u201cPersonal Narrative.\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s worth remembering that he had a great sense of theatre and wrote his account with his audience very much in mind \u2014 it\u2019s a very entertaining read. His descriptions of the places and tribes he visited are fascinating, even if some of his comments about local people and customs are seen as problematic today. They need to be understood as the product of their time, and his account as an historical document.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tAll four travelogues filled in much of the outside world\u2019s knowledge of the Arabian Peninsula. Burton\u2019s account of his journey from Cairo to Makkah, for example, gave the British public a much richer understanding of the region and its peoples.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cDespite their flaws, it is important to recognize that each author spent years travelling in Arabia, learning the language and customs of its people long before mass transit made the peninsula easily accessible to outsiders,\u201d says Eamon. \u201cWhile some of their observations can be dismissed now, they nonetheless help paint a picture of pre-industrial Arabia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cHistory-telling is fickle,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt carries with it the same baggage that weighs down any human experience. The Arabian Explorers Series is just this: a collection of human experiences, however flawed, that contribute to the broader mosaic that is the history of Arabia.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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