Bibliotheca Islamica – serie

Al-Fawāʾid al-sanīyah fī al-riḥlah al-Madanīyah wa al-Rūmīyah by Quṭb al-Dīn al-Nahrawālī (d. 990/1582) is a unique book in its content and history and has been long-awaited to be seen in an edited publication. The present edition is based on the manuscript in Velieddin Efendi's collection of Beyazit Umumi Kütüphanesi in Istanbul. This manuscript is the author's draft of which he was unable to make a fair copy for public readership. This has rendered the editor's task much more challenging, requiring him to consult a corpus of significant historical, geographical and literary sources to finalize the current edition. The book includes historical and literary material relating to some Hijaz events in the mid-tenth century/sixteenth century. It also relates the author's many voyages within the Hijaz region and his trip to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent as an envoy carrying a letter of complaint from the Sheriff of Mecca against the Ottoman governor of Medina, Delü Piri. For an-Nahrawālī, this book was so important that he used to take it with him on all his travels. He expressed deep sorrow when he lost it, and relief when it was recovered through the intervention of the sultan's son Beyazit. Although parts of his travel accounts have been published, this is the first time that the complete work of an-Nahrawālī has been made available to scholars and researchers.