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Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje

Early Photographs of Mecca

Facsimile after the edition of Leiden, 1888 - 1889With commentary byProf. Dr. Jan Just Witkam, Leiden University

A facsimile-edition of the 40 magnicent photographs, originally published in 1889 in the

Bilder Atlasto the classic 2-volume work on Mecca by the world famous Dutch orientalist and

islamologist Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, together with the 20 photographs of the additional

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.

This series represents a most important documentation of the people and customs associated

with the 19th-century pilgrimage to Mecca and the residents, topography and architecture of

the area.

HES & DE GRAAF Publishers

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Early Photographs of Mecca

ISBN 978 90 6194 450 8Print run Limited edition. 1000 copies only.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.Publication date Late 2011.

Price Subscription price approx. 950 ,- (excl. VAT and shipping).After publication approx. 1250 ,- (excl. VAT and shipping).

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Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) was a Dutch scholar of Oriental cultures and languages and

Advisor on Native Affairs to the colonial government of the Netherlands East Indies. He received his

doctorate at Leiden University in 1880 with a dissertation on Het Mekkaansche Feest(The Festivities of

Mecca). Snouck became a professor at the Leiden School for Colonial Civil Servants in 1881 and visited

Mecca in 1884-1885 as one of the rst Western students of Oriental culture to do so. In 1889 he left for

the Dutch East Indies to become ofcial advisor to the Dutch government on colonial affairs. He wrotemore 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 inuence in shaping colonial administration policy throughout therest 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 thefestivities 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 hisown 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 outtted himself with photographicequipment.

Snoucks visit, and his monograph on Meccan history and society, published in 1888-89 after his safereturn 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 rst a historical study on the city of Mecca and its

rulers, the second describing Meccas society in the 1880s - and a portfolio of p hotographic images. Some

of these were made by Snouck Hurgronje himself, making him the rst European photographer of Mecca,

and, after an Egyptian ofcer, 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 Atlasalready 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 nameSnouck had used during his stay in Mecca - thereby became the rst 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 Mjmnah 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 Bilderaus Mekka. Mit kurzem erluterndem Texte von C. Snouck Hurgronje (Pictures from Mecca, with brief

explanatory texts by C. Snouck Hurgronje).

The present facsimile edition of both, the Bilder Atlaswith 40, and the Bilder aus Mekka with 20

photographs the additional volume to the Bilder Atlas, as Snouck calls it in his preface will be

accompanied by an extensive commentary by the Leiden Arabist and Orientalist Professor Jan JustWitkam, a well-known expert on Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje and in a sense Snoucks successor on the

chair of Arabic studies in Leiden.