Tamaththulāt al-Jabal al-Akhḍar fī Adabīyāt al-Raḥḥālah al-Gharbīyīn: Qirāʼah Naqdīyah fī al-Waṣf wa-al-Inṭibāʻ al-Thaqāfī - Tūbīyah, Balqīs bint Aḥmad ibn Marhūn; Multaqá al-Tīn wa-al-Zaytūn al-Awwal (2026) (Wilāyat al-Jabal al-Akhḍar) (Wilāyat al-Jabal al-Akhḍar : Markaz Dhākirat ʻUmān, 2026)
Many Western travellers, explorers and missionaries visited Al Jabal Al Akhdar and wrote about it, reshaping it within their texts so that this geography became the site of constructed literary representations. This study analyses the image Western travellers presented of Al Jabal Al Akhdar through a critical and analytical reading of selected texts from their writings, foremost among them the work of the British traveller Wilfred Thesiger, alongside references in the writings of other travellers and missionaries such as Samuel Zwemer. The study proceeds from a central question: how was Al Jabal Al Akhdar represented in these writings, and to what extent did that image reflect the reality of the region or take its shape from the cultural backgrounds of the travellers? It adopts a descriptive-analytical method, unpacking travel discourse and recording the patterns by which place is represented, whether in the description of the geographic setting, of ways of life or of built structures. The study also seeks to approach these texts so as to reveal possible biases, particularly in the light of the Orientalist perspective, and hypothesises that they constitute a composite narrative construction rather than a straightforward reflection.
Permanent citation identifier: MHF-TEENZAYTOON-023.
Conference theme (in Arabic): التراث العلمي والثقافي.
Text in Arabic; title also romanized (ALA-LC); abstract and keywords in English.
Keywords: Travel literature; Orientalism; Cultural representation; Wilfred Thesiger; Al Jabal Al Akhdar; Critical discourse analysis; الجبل الأخضر; أدب الرحلات; الاستشراق; التمثّلات الثقافية