Between Ibn Baūa and al-ahāwī: Arabic Travel Accounts of the Early Ottoman Period

This article offers a preliminary survey of a neglected genre, Arabic travel accounts from the early Ottoman period. It proposes to classify known texts according to the travellerʹs aim: pilgrimage, spiritual initiation, diplomacy, requests for support, commerce, and private reasons. It draws attention to issues such as the writerʹs milieu, the level of language used, and the relation of the time when the account was composed to the time when the journey took place. Finally, it argues for further comprehensive study of the genre, in both the Maghrib and the Mashriq and among both Christians and Muslims.