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Description
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“Pictures from Mecca” is the photographic portfolio published in 1889 by the Dutch orientalist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, as an annex to the “Pictorial Atlas of Mecca”, the Atlas accompanying the 1888 2-volume publication “Mecca”. In these texts, he reconstructs the history of the Holy City and on the origins of Islam, early traditions and practices, and the first Islamic communities. The second volume, translated into English in 1931 as “Mecca in the Latter Part of the 19th Century”, contains many details of daily life in Islamic culture and deals with the Indonesian Muslim colony at Mecca. While serving as a lecturer at the University of Leiden between 1880 and 1889, Snouck Hurgronje visited Arabia from 1884 to 1885, stopping at Mecca and he was the first Western to take photographs of the Holy City. From 1890 to 1906 Snouck Hurgronje was professor of Arabic at Batavia, Java, and, as a government adviser, he originated and developed the Dutch colonial policy toward Islam. Though Snouck Hurgronje remained a colonial adviser until 1933, he returned in 1906 to the Netherlands, where he was professor of Arabic and Islamic institutions at the University of Leiden until his death. The volume contains 20 collotype prints pasted onto card and includes a panoramic view of the Holy City, images of places related to the hajj (Mina valley, Mount Arafat), as well as a picture of the Ibn Abbas Mosque in Taif. Snouck Hurgronje decided to publish an annex to his first photographic portfolio after receiving a letter with new photographs from his doctor in Mecca, whom he taught the art of photography. The photographs had descriptions in Arabic and were signed “Photography by al-Sayyid ʻAbd al-Ghaffar, doctor in Mecca”. Al-Sayyid ʻAbd al-Ghaffar (active in 1880s) was an Indian physician as a renowned Meccan photographer can be found in the “Journal de Voyages” (1895) by French author Gustave Regelsperger (1856 – 1940) and most importantly in the account published in 1895 “The Guide to the Hajj” by the Egyptian army engineer Muhammad Sadiq Bey (1832 – 1902), who took the first photographs of Medina in 1861 and Mecca between 1880 and 1881 and whose photographs were included in Snouck’s “Pictorial Atlas of Mecca”. In his account, the Egyptian military engineer describes ʻAbd al-Ghaffar Efendi as a famous Indian doctor and photographer. Most of the scholars agree that the photographs reproduced in this portfolio were taken by al-Sayyid ʻAbd al-Ghaffar and that Snouck, both for aesthetic and scientific reasons, erased the name of the person who had taken the pictures as well as the pictures’ titles and headings., Title and date from item. Prints are mounted on 18 sheets loose in original red gilt cloth portfolio as issued, complete with the oft-lacking half-title, list of plates, title and preface., Main Heritage Compact General, HC.HP.2017.0273, 2-D Graphic, Item-ID: i24545612, BIB-ID: 2622576, C.E.S. Gavin with F.H.S. Allen, Mecca: The First Photographs (Cambridge, MA, 1981); William Facey with Gillian Grant, Saudi Arabia by the first photographers (London: Stacey International, 1996); Badr El-Hage, “The First Non-Arab Photographers of the Hijaz”, Saudi Arabia: Caught in Time 1861-1939 (Reading: Garnet Publishing Ltd., 1997); Claude W. Sui, “Travel to the Holy Land and Photography in the Nineteenth Century”, To the Holy Lands: pilgrimage centres from Mecca and Medina to Jerusalem; photographs of the 19th century from the collections of the Reiss-Engelhorn Museums, Mannheim (Munich; Berlin; London; New York: Prestel, 2008); Durkje van der Wal, Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje: The First Western Photographer in Mecca 1884-1885 (Amsterdam: Manfred & Hanna Heiting Fund, Rijksmuseum, 2011). See also Anna Canby Monk "From the Individual to the Archetypal: Abd al-Ghaffārs Edited Photographic Portraits" |
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Relation
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Ansicht de Moschee, während darin ein gemeinschaftliches Çalät abgehalten wird, Erste Ansicht der Stadt Mekka: links im Hintergrund die Festung Djijād. Das grosse Gebäude rechts ist ied [i.e., die] Hamīdijjah, links daneben die Druckere, Zweite Ansicht der Stadt Mekka über die nordwestliche (rechts) und die südwestliche Seite (links) der Moschee hinaus, Dritte Ansicht der Stadt Mekka: links die nördliche Ecke der Moschee; ein wenig südöstlich von derselben das Bâb ès-salâm, durch welches die Pilger in die Moschee eintreten, Vierte Ansicht der Stadt Mekka, Die (vor wenigen Jahren errichtete) Druckerei in Mekka, Das Grab der Sittanā Mèjmū̄nah und Lager dorthin gepilgerter Mekkaner, Zweite Anischt des Lagers der Mèjmūnahpilger, Dritte Anischt desselben, im Hintergrund windet sich der Weg nach Mekka; Das Grab der Mèjmūnah und die nächste Umgebung, Westlicher Theil des sich von Westen nach Osten erstreckenden Thales Muna (Mina) während der grossen jährlichen Pilgerversammlung, Oestlicher Theil des Thales Muna, Die zwischen Muna und ʻArafah gelegene Pilgerstation Muzdalʾfah, Der Berg ʻArafah während der jährlichen Pilgerversammlung (von Süden aus gesehen), Oestliche Seite des Berges ʻArafah, Westliche Seite des Berges ʻArafah, Pilgerlager in der Ebene östlich vom ʻArafah-berge, Das Reitkameel (Hèdjīn) des Scherīf Jah̲ja, eines Sohnes des Scherīf Ah̲med, dessen Vater der berühmte 1886 verstorbene Grossscherīf Abd èl-Mut̲t̲álib, Zwei verschiedene Aufnahmen der Rikah, des Thronsessels, auf welchen man in Mekka die jungfräuliche Braut in der Duchlah-nacht zu erheben pflegt [...] Auf B sitzt der Bräutigam dort, wo die Braut sitzen soll |
