Muhammad Husayn Husayni Farahani (1847–1912)

A detailed account of a 19th-century pilgrimage to Mecca by an Iranian Shi'ite. From the introduction: "It is evocative, lively, delightful, and enormously informative. It offers lavish and meticulous information on the social, political, and economic life of the Middle East of the late nineteenth century. It illuminates Russian officials as they administer the affairs of the Caucasus. It compares and contrasts western political and commercial officers in Egypt, the Levant, and India. It tells us about the Muslims of the Russian empire, the Ottomans, and the Egyptians. It speaks of places and conditions in Arabia, of the Arabs themselves, and also of the thousands of pilgrims who, then as now, come great distances in order to venerate the holy places in Arabia."… (mere)