The Journey of al-Tijānī to Tripoli at the beginning of the fourteenth century A.D./eighth century A.H.

Abstract

Al-Tijānī was a highly-placed scholar and man of letters at Tunis. At the beginning of the fourteenth century A.D., the eighth century A.H., he made a devious and slow journey from Tunis to a point between Tripoli and Misurata, returning much more directly. On the way he employed his considerable leisure to correspond with his acquaintances, often in verse, and still more to collect, by diligent inquiry, the material for the account which he wrote of his adventure. The journey itself became the thread upon which were strung descriptions of each place he visited, first the topography, then the history, the men of religion, and finally the poets illustrated by generous quotations from their works. In this way he managed to provide a great deal of information, at first and second hand, about the route and its interest, contemporary and antiquarian, for an educated gentleman with a taste for literature and literary composition. Some of this information is known to us from other sources; al-Tijānī belonged to the classical Arab literary tradition of the Maghrib as it grew by constant repetition. Some of it is new, because the author drew on works which have not otherwise survived. The rest is al-Tijānī's own contribution, his invaluable tale of what he did and saw. The resultant work, known as the Riḥla or Journey of al-Tijānī, was published in a French translation by Alphonse Rousseau in the Journal Asiatique in 1852–3; this excluded the poetry and a great deal of anecdote, which the translator considered to be ‘sujet de nul intérêt’. The translation itself is not always accurate; nevertheless it is valuable as a guide. The full Arabic text was published at Tunis in 1927, and in a critical edition in 1958.