Vincent le Blanc as the Second Non-Muslim in Makkah and Madinah

Abstract

Societies and nations generally construct their worldviews and strive to realize their religious and political objectives in the light of these worldviews. Christians of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries began to explore the world and discovered new continents. They disseminated their views related to the peoples of the world, especially the Muslims, through their travelogues and books. It is generally acknowledged that the books published from the national pedestal are always biased. Hence, the analysis of books that are politically and religiously oriented is a very important task. Keeping this purpose in view, this article discusses the case of Vincent le Blanc as the second European non-Muslim to visit Makkah and Madinah. It argues that, in reality, the man never did as he claimed. The visit was staged mainly for the interest of Christian anti-Islamic polemics. The justification of this contention is two-pronged. Le Blanc’s fallacious, self-contradictory and irrational accounts of Makkah and Madinah, their holy mosques, and of hajj rituals are scrutinized. It is followed by bringing to fore his extensive plagiarism of the work of Ludovico di Varthema. The findings of this study suggest that the books written by tourists such as Le Blanc are characterised by biases and alienated approaches. Therefore, their propositional as well as linguistic material should always be viewed cautiously to safeguard against their misleading contents.