An Imam in Paris lets us share the responses of a highly intelligent
scholar ... Daniel L. Newman is to be congratulated on making the first
translation into English of this remarkable book, and on supporting the
text with a first-class introduction and with footnotes that are as full
as one could wish--Times Literary Supplement
A touchstone for thinking about the tangled relations between Islam and
modernity ... the most amazing and entertaining curiosity--Matthew J.
Reisz, Jewish Quarterly
In the 1820s, Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi, a young Muslim cleric, travelled
to Paris as a leading member of the first Egyptian educational mission,
where, during a stay of five years, he documented his observations on
European culture.
His account, Takhlis al-Ibriz fi Talkhis Bariz (The Quintessence of
Paris), is one of the earliest and most influential records of the
Muslim encounter with Enlightenment-era's European ideas, introducing
ideas of modernity to his native land. Al-Tahtawi's work offers
invaluable insight into early conceptions of Europe and the Other. His
observations are as vibrant and palpable today as they were over one
hundred and fifty years ago; informative and often acute, to very
humorous effect.
An irrefutable classic, this new edition of the first English
translation is of seminal value. It is introduced and carefully
annotated by a scholar fluent in the life, times, and milieu of its
narrator.
Daniel L. Newman is professor of Arabic and course director of the
master's program in Arabic-English Translation and Interpreting at the
University of Durham. His other works include Modern Arabic Short
Stories: A Bilingual Reader (with Ronak Husni, Saqi Books, 2008).
