Johann Ludwig Burckhardt (1784-1817)

 

A Swiss traveller, orientalist, geographer, and linguist. After studying the Arabic language at the University of Cambridge, he left for the Near East in 1809 to spend some time in Aleppo, where he perfected his Arabic and studied the Qurʾān and Islamic law. He subsequently disguised himself as a Muslim and adopted the name of Šayẖ Ibrāhīm ibn ʿabd Allāh. He proceeded to travel throughout the Levant and Egypt all the way to al-Ḥīǧāz and Mecca. Like most Orientalists, he was mainly interested in pre-Islamic monuments: Pagan as well as Judeo-Christian—for example, the supposed place where the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea, where the Lord fed the Israelites "manna," etc. He was keenly attracted to deserted villages and towns, the location of which he described, and the related monuments he measured with the utmost care, making full use of the simple tools at his disposal. He meticulously copied whatever inscriptions he was able to identify—Greek, Latin, and Arabic—that he jealously guarded in his journal. All this he had to do while taking care not to rouse the Arabs' suspicion. To the nomads, his weird behavior was often interpreted as aiming at locating hidden treasures that he intended to steal later on, or as sorcery and witchcraft. He managed nonetheless to describe extensive landscapes (mountains, valleys, rivers, torrents), fauna, flora, He enumerated the Arab tribes of Syria and its surroundings and described their habits. He had, however, very little to say about the large cities and main urban centers. He was a contemporary of the rising Egyptian power under Muḥammad ʿAlī Pāšā and the early reign of Emir Bašīr aš-Šihābī of Mount Lebanon. He also was an eyewitness to the late expansion of the First Saʿudī-Wahhābī State (1744-1818), shortly before its destruction at the hands of Ibrāhīm Pāšā, Muḥammad ʿAlī's son and lieutenant. He died of dysentery at the young age of 32. His most important discovery was that of the city of Petra in Transjordan.