In Darfur: An Account of the Sultanate and Its People, Volume Two

by Mu?ammad al-Tunisi

Overview

A merchant’s account of his travels through an independent African state

Muhammad ibn 'Umar al-Tunisi (d. 1274/1857) belonged to a family of Tunisian merchants trading with Egypt and what is now Sudan. Al-Tunisi was raised in Cairo and a graduate of al-Azhar. In 1803, at the age of fourteen, al-Tunisi set off for the Sultanate of Darfur, where his father had decamped ten years earlier. He followed the Forty Days Road, was reunited with his father, and eventually took over the management of the considerable estates granted to his father by the sultan of Darfur. In Darfur is al-Tunisi’s remarkable account of his ten-year sojourn in this independent state.

In Volume Two al-Tunisi describes the geography of the region, the customs of Darfur’s petty kings, court life and the clothing of its rulers, marriage customs, eunuchs, illnesses, food, hunting, animals, currencies, plants, magic, divination, and dances. In Darfur combines literature, history, ethnography, linguistics, and travel adventure, and most unusually for its time, includes fifty-two illustrations, all drawn by the author.

In Darfur is a rare example of an Arab description of Africa on the eve of Western colonization and vividly evokes a world in which travel was untrammeled by bureaucracy, borders were fluid, and startling coincidences appear almost mundane.

A bilingual Arabic-English edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781479867844
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	05/08/2018
Series:	Library of Arabic Literature , #15
Edition description:	Bilingual
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Muḥammad al-Tūnisī (Author)
Muḥammad al-Tūnisī (d. 1274/1857) belonged to a family of Tunisian merchants who traded with Egypt and what is now Sudan. Raised in Cairo, al-Tūnisī spent ten years traveling through the Darfur Sultanate. On his return to Egypt, he played an important part in Muḥammad ʿAlī’s modernization project, supervising the translation of veterinary and medical texts and editing the first printed editions of classical Arabic texts.

Humphrey Davies (Edited and Translated by)
Humphrey Davies is an award-winning translator of some twenty-five works of modern Arabic literature, among them Alaa Al-Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building, five novels by Elias Khoury, including Gate of the Sun, and Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq’s Leg over Leg. He has also made a critical edition, translation, and lexicon of the Ottoman-period Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded by Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī, as well as editions and translations of al-Tūnisī’s In Darfur and al-Sanhūrī’s Risible Rhymes from the same era. In addition, he has compiled with Madiha Doss an anthology in Arabic entitled Al-ʿāmmiyyah al-miṣriyyah al-maktūbah: mukhtārāt min 1400 ilā 2009 (Egyptian Colloquial Writing: selections from 1400 to 2009) and co-authored, with Lesley Lababidi, A Field Guide to the Street Names of Central Cairo. He read Arabic at the University of Cambridge, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and previous to undertaking his first translation in 2003, worked for social development and research organizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, and Sudan. He is affiliated with the American University in Cairo.

Table of Contents

Letter from the General Editor iii

Map 1 The Author's World: from Mali to Mecca ix

Map 2 Darfur x

In Darfur, Volume Two 1

The Book Proper, in three chapters 2

Chapter 1 A Description of Darfur and Its People, of Their Customs and the Customs of Their Kings, and of the Names of the Positions and Ranks Held by the Latter, in five sections 4

Section 1 A Description of Darfur 4

Section 2 Customs of the Kings of the Fur 34

Section 3 On the Offices Held by the Kings of the Fur 48

Section 4 The Functioning of the Sultan's Court 64

Section 5 Garments of the Kings of the Fur 82

Chapter 2 In two sections 102

Section 1 Marriage Practices among the Fur 102

Section 2 Eunuchs (Known in Egypt as Tawashiyah) 130

Chapter 3 In two sections 160

Section 1 Sicknesses of the Blacks; Their Dishes; the Healthiness of Their Various Climes; Hunting; and Some Animals 160

Section 2 Currency among the People of Darfur 192

A Chapter on the Plants That Grow in Darfur; on Magic, the Making of Amulets, and Geomancy; and on Other Matters 204

Colophon 252

Notes 255

Glossary 274

Bibliography 298

List of Images 303

Index 304

About the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute 319

About the Typefaces 320

Titles Published by the Library of Arabic Literature 321

About the Editor-Translator 324

Editorial Reviews

"In Darfur offers an interesting glimpse of a (still) neglected part of Africa, and a surprising wealth of information."

The Complete Review

"As edited, translated, and presented by Davies, al-Tūnisī’s account is not only a rich primary source for the early nineteenth-century history of Darfur but also a literary gem marking Egypt’s dynamic and innovative intellectual history at mid-century."

Journal of the American Oriental Society

"The translation is most readable and fluent, yet it also follows the text closely. The arrangement of Arabic and English side by side makes it extremely valuable for research, particularly for the historian, the Arabist, and for teaching purposes on the whole. [...] This is the first published and complete English translation, and given that this is a parallel text publication, it is also the first time in decades that the Arabic work is again within easy reach."

African Studies Review

" In Darfur offers an interesting glimpse of a (still) neglected part of Africa, and a surprising wealth of information."- The Complete Review

From the Publisher