Writings of the European schools of orientalism on the trips to Makkah Al-Mukarramah

Abstract

The problem of this research lies in identifying the reality of the schools of orientalist travelers who travelled to Mecca from different European countries with their various types and characteristics. The study also deals with the different types of travelers with their distinct goals and aspirations from these trips.The tenth century AH, and beyond, is considered as the beginning of the orientalist travelers' activity in writing travel books to Mecca, showing greater interest in learning more about Mecca and its secrets, and to learn about the conditions of Muslims in it. The researcher used the descriptive research method, aiming to introduce the most prominent orientalist traveler schools from European countries, identify the characteristics of each school, classify orientalist travelers according to their goals and directions, and review the trips of the most prominent orientalist travelers from each of these European schools. The research included Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Finnish, and Dutch European Orientalism schools on the Journeys to Mecca. Among the most prominent results of the research: Orientalists traveling to Mecca wrote many of their impressions about the people and terrain of Mecca, and described its conditions and the prevailing culture in it and in its people and visitors from pilgrims, especially presenting the title of Hajj in front of their Islamic names, which is considered a pride for Muslims for whoever visited Mecca and do the pilgrimage. In spite of the agreement of goals of these European orientalist schools in the journey to Mecca, each school has features that distinguish it from the other schools.The researcher recommended collecting the writings of European orientalists travelers and classifying them according to their topics or according to the types of orientalists, as they are important materials and a good subject of study. It is also recommended to single out each school of European orientalism to Mecca in a separate research, tackling with it and its distinguished travelers.