Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb Khan : in Asia, Africa, and Europe, during the years 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, and 1803

This narrative is a rare and important example of an Indian Muslim writer describing his travels in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century.

In 1810, the orientalist scholar Charles Stewart translated and published an extraordinary travel narrative written by a Persian-speaking Indian poet and scholar named Mirza Abu Talib Khan. At the turn of the century, Abu Talib travelled from India to Africa, and on to Ireland, England, and France, where he recorded his observations of European culture with wit and precision. The narrative’s vital and controversial account of British imperial society is one of the earliest examples of a colonial subject addressing the cultural dynamics of metropolitan Britain, and its complex critique of empire challenges many preconceptions about intercultural relations during this era. Following his European sojourn, Abu Talib’s remarkable Shi''ite pilgrimage through present day Turkey and Iraq further enhances his meditation on the encounter between Islam and European modernity.

This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction and chronologies of the lives and works of Mirza Abu Talib and Charles Stewart. The appendices offer contemporary reviews of the narrative, selections of British orientalist discourse, and examples of proto-ethnographic writing from the period.