Soubhy, Saleh. Pèlerinage à la Mecque et à Médine. Précédé d'un aperçu sur l'islamisme et suivi de considérations générales au point de vue sanitaire et d'un appendice sur la circoncision.

Cairo, Imprimerie nationale, 1894.

Large 8vo. 109 (instead of 129), (2) pp. With 16 (instead of 19) plates. Marbled half calf with giltstamped title to spine.

 2,500.00

Includes 4 photographic views of Mecca, 3 of Medina and 3 of Jeddah (after Sadiq Bey and others), wants only the ten-leaf appendix, 2 portraits and the plate showing the departure of the Mahmal in Cairo.

Salih Subhi, an Egyptian public health official, was commissioned by his government to undertake the Hajj in 1888 and 1894. Here he describes the eight-month journey in great detail. Muhammed Sadiq Bey was a major pioneer in the history of Arabian photography and the first person ever to photograph the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina.

Browned throughout due to paper. Our copy without the ten-leaf appendix before the author's epilogue and portrait.

Rare, the last copy on the market fetched £27,500 (Christie's, April 13 2010, lot 276, with author's dedication), the Burrell copy fetched £8,000 in 1999 (complete, but in modern cloth).

References

Macro, Bibliography of the Arabian Peninsula, 2096. Auboyneau/Fevret 20. OCLC 7055812.