An Imam in Paris

by Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi & translated and introduced by Daniel L Newman

Al-Tahtawi was a very insightful observer, who presents us with a pretty unique example of an Arab or Muslim traveller describing the manners and customs of an exotic people: in this case the French. And he’s the first person to introduce the idea of a newspaper to the Arab world. The book was a bestseller from the moment it was published in Arabic. It was instantly translated into Turkish, so it reached the Ottoman world at large, and really is more responsible than any other book for setting reformist debates in Ottoman and Arab society.