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Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje

Early Photographs of Mecca
ISBN 978 90 6194 450 8
Print run Limited edition. 1000 copies only. Early Photographs of Mecca
Portfolio 58 x 38 cm. Clothbound. Gold stamped. With 60 high quality facsimile plates.
Text volume 20 x 28 cm. Approx. 200 pp. Text in both English and Arabic.
Case 29.5 x 38.5 x 6 cm. Cloth. Gold stamped.
Facsimile after the edition of Leiden, 1888 - 1889
Publication date Late 2011. With commentary by Prof. Dr. Jan Just Witkam, Leiden University
Price Subscription price approx. € 950 ,- (excl. VAT and shipping).
After publication approx. € 1250 ,- (excl. VAT and shipping).

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Address: A facsimile-edition of the 40 magnificent photographs, originally published in 1889 in the

Bilder Atlas to the classic 2-volume work on Mecca by the world famous Dutch orientalist and
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islamologist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, together with the 20 photographs of the additional
VAT no*: fourth and last volume, also published in 1889. The facsimile addition is accompanied by an
extensive commentary by Jan Just Witkam, professor of Arabic studies at Leiden University.
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with the 19th-century pilgrimage to Mecca and the residents, topography and architecture of
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Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) was a Dutch scholar of Oriental cultures and languages and The present facsimile edition of both, the Bilder Atlas with 40, and the Bilder aus Mekka with 20
Advisor on Native Affairs to the colonial government of the Netherlands East Indies. He received his photographs – the ‘additional volume’ to the Bilder Atlas, as Snouck calls it in his preface – will be
doctorate at Leiden University in 1880 with a dissertation on Het Mekkaansche Feest (The Festivities of accompanied by an extensive commentary by the Leiden Arabist and Orientalist Professor Jan Just
Mecca). Snouck became a professor at the Leiden School for Colonial Civil Servants in 1881 and visited Witkam, a well-known expert on Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje and in a sense Snouck’s successor on the
Mecca in 1884-1885 as one of the first Western students of Oriental culture to do so. In 1889 he left for chair of Arabic studies in Leiden.
the Dutch East Indies to become official advisor to the Dutch government on colonial affairs. He wrote
more than 1,400 papers on Aceh, the position of Islam in the Dutch East Indies, the colonial civil service
and the phenomenon of nationalism. As the adviser of J. B. van Heutsz, the military governor of Aceh,
he took an active part in the end of the Aceh War. He used his knowledge of Islamic culture to devise
strategies to crush the resistance of the Aceh inhabitants and impose Dutch colonial rule on them. His
success in the Aceh War earned him influence in shaping colonial administration policy throughout the
rest of Indonesia. Until 1906 Snouck played an important role as government advisor on indigenous,
Arab and Islamic affairs. In that year he returned to Leiden, where he occupied the chair of Arabic
languages until 1933.

During his long and productive life Snouck left a long trail of documents and publications. Before the
age of 40 Snouck had achieved the legendary status that he retains to this day. In his dissertation on the
festivities of Mecca (1880), for the greater part based on classical texts on Meccan history, Snouck launched
several provocative ideas on, and compelling interpretations of the origin of the Islamic pilgrimage and
the role of the prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). A few years later he undertook a journey to Mecca to see the
holy city of Islam with his own eyes. Since Mecca is closed to non-Muslims, earlier Western travelers to
the city had disguised themselves as inhabitants of a Muslim country. Snouck did not resort to this deceit.
Speaking the language very well, behaving and dressing like the local inhabitants, he traveled under his
own name and succeeded in being accepted by the Meccans. In addition to seeing Mecca for himself he
also wished to show it to his fellow Europeans, for which purpose he outfitted himself with photographic
equipment.

Snouck’s visit, and his monograph on Meccan history and society, published in 1888-89 after his safe
return to Leiden, made him instantly famous. His richly illustrated work has continued to astonish readers
ever since. The book has two volumes of text - the first a historical study on the city of Mecca and its
rulers, the second describing Mecca’s society in the 1880s - and a portfolio of photographic images. Some
of these were made by Snouck Hurgronje himself, making him the first European photographer of Mecca,
and, after an Egyptian officer, the second one ever to photograph the city.

Snouck would have liked to see the great annual pilgrimage (hajj), but he was forced to leave Mecca just
before it began. This did not detract from the value of his study of Islam in its very centre.

Back in Leiden in 1889, when the Bilder Atlas already had been printed, Snouck received an additional
set of 20 photographs taken by the Meccan doctor and naturalist Abd al-Ghaffar who was instructed by
Snouck how to use the photographic equipment. This Abd al-Ghaffar - by coincidence the same name
Snouck had used during his stay in Mecca - thereby became the first native Meccan photographer of his
town.

These 20 views of Mecca include images of the mosque and the Kaaba, the surroundings of Mecca, the
camp of the Mèjmünah pilgrims, the Muna valley with pilgrims, Mount Arafah, and indigenous people.
The collection was published by the Leiden publishing house E.J. Brill in 1889 with the title Bilder
aus Mekka. Mit kurzem erläuterndem Texte von C. Snouck Hurgronje (Pictures from Mecca, with brief
explanatory texts by C. Snouck Hurgronje).