Sahar Abdel-Hakim Boeken

To travelers, Egypt is a place of a country whose lifeblood is a mighty river, flowing from the heart of Africa. Along the fertile fringe of its banks an astonishing civilization raised spectacular monuments that our modern minds can hardly encompass. For centuries this past dominated travelers' minds - yet the present and its great buildings too engaged their interest and admiration and gave them pleasure. The experience of Egypt has over the centuries inspired travelers to write of what they saw and tried to understand. These travelers' observations are part of the history of modern Egypt, for seeing ourselves through others' eyes helps us to understand ourselves. The compilers of this anthology have selected records of travelers from many countries and cultures over many centuries, and, mainly using the Nile for a pathway, here offer these travelers' observations on the many facets of Egypt. The collection includes extracts from the writings of Herodotus, Strabo, Ibn Hawkal, al-Muqaddasi, Pierre Loti, Rudyard Kipling, Florence Nightingale, and many more.

For generations, travelers have been lured by the beauty and mesmerizing stillness of Egypt’s deserts, leaving behind the comfort of what is familiar in a quest for adventure, knowledge, and escape, and for others still, a taste of eternity. Traveling Through the Deserts of Egypt is a compilation of some of the most fascinating and beautiful writings to come out of the experiences of desert travelers through the ages. Seen through their eyes, the desert emerges as possessed of a multitude of identities, a source of majesty and life-giving natural beauty, barrenness, and yet incalculable mystery. By reading in the footsteps of those who crossed the desert’s valleys, slept in its caves, and rode its camels, we discover that the desert in its boundlessness and utter unpredictability shatters all our notions of time and holds out the offer of an intensity of meaning and renewed self-awareness that is as irresistible as it is rewarding. The collection includes extracts from the writings of Herodotus, Ibn Khaldun, Ferdinand Lepsius, Leo Tregenza, Harriet Martineau, Ahmed Fakhry, and Ahmed Hassanein.

Sinai has long attracted travelers to its ancient caravan routes and haunting landscapes, and visitors have frequently left written accounts of their experiences. In this wide-ranging anthology, Deborah Manley and Sahar Abdel- Hakim have collected dozens of accounts and observations from travelers who have written about Sinai, its people, its sights, and its historical and biblical landmarks. Starting with Egeria, a fourth-century Christian who relates her visit to Mt. Sinai and the Burning Bush, Traveling through Sinai offers a diverse collection of voices over the centuries. Among themare the German friar Felix Fabri, who visited in 1492, and nineteenth-century antiquarian William Flinders Petrie, giving his impressions of the Bedouins of the peninsula. French novelist Alexandre Dumas writes of meeting two monks in the desert carrying a letter signed by Napoleon, while others describe crossing the canal at Suez, the ancient inscriptions of Wadi Mukattab, and the harrowing experiences of desert travel.