No choice but to travel : Safavid travelogues written in Persian

Kiyanrad, Sarah (2020): No choice but to travel : Safavid travelogues written in Persian. In: Kiyanrad, Sarah; Sauer, Rebecca und Scholz, Jan (eds.) : Islamische Selbstbilder : Festschrift für Susanne Enderwitz. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing. pp. 273-297

Abstract

This paper introduces twenty-two Persian travelogues dating from the Safavid era (1501–1722), which can roughly be divided into three categories; private travels, missions, and pilgrimages. It aims to show that Safavid travelogues, a hitherto somewhat neglected literary phenomenon, form part of a Persian travelogue tradition and that the accounts often comprise relevant autobiographical information. Since the travelogues’ contents, tropes and forms are however partly a result of (evolving) lit­erary standards of travel writing, it is often only through a close reading that we are able to uncover—or at least catch a glimpse of—the authors’ Selbstbilder.

• Item Type: Book Section
• Faculties: Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies; Cultural Studies > Department of Ancient and Modern Cultures > Institute for Near and Middle Eastern Studies > Iranian Studies
• Subjects: 900 History and geography > 950 History of Asia
• ISBN: 978-3-947732-19-7 ; 978-3-947732-18-0
• Place of Publication: Heidelberg
• Language: English