Arabic Proverbs

Abstract

John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817) was a Swiss explorer who is best remembered for his rediscovery of the ancient city of Petra in modern Jordan. In 1809 he was commissioned by the African Association to discover the source of the River Niger. In preparation for this journey, for which he needed to pass as a Muslim, Burckhardt spent two years exploring and studying Arabic and Islamic law in Aleppo, before travelling widely in Arabia and Egypt. This volume, first published posthumously in 1830 by the African Association, contains a collection of Arabic proverbs. The main group derives from an eighteenth-century collection, to which Burckhardt added proverbs he had heard during his residence in Cairo. Given in both Cairene Arabic and English, with Burckhardt's explanations of the context in which they were used, these proverbs provide a valuable source for the language and culture of nineteenth-century Cairo.