ABSTRACT
Why read these travelogues again? It might be more "pedagogical" to start with what I do not want to do when reading these rihliit, considering that a lot of studies have already been published about these texts.' First, my purpose is not to deal with a "literary genre" as such. I shall only note down here the fact that what has been kept of the "literary tradition" of travelogues -the organisation of the tale, the rhetorics of the 'qciib.. .-is subjected to all kinds of reshuffling. In Egypt, for instance, the modern novel started mainly as a traveller's tale2 and this genre easily developed into the
' See, for instance, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, Arab Rediscovery ofEurope, a Study in Cultural Encounters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963); Anouar Louca, Voyageurs et e'crivains kgyptiens en France au XLXe siBcle (Paris: Didier, 1970); Bernard Lewis, The Muslim Discovery of Europe (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1982); Nazik Saba Yarid, al-Rahhalzin al-'Arab wa Hadlira al-Gharb Jt al-Nahda al-'Arabiya al-Haditha (Beyrouth: Diir Nawfal, 1992); SaYd Bensald al-'Alawi, Urubba Jt Mar'at al-Rihla: Sara al-Akhar Jt Adab al-Rihla al-Maghribiya al-Mur@ira (Rabat: Mohammed V University, 1995); Abdelmajid Kaddouri, Sufara' Maghariba Jt Urubbii, 161 0-1922 (Rabat: Mohammed V University, 1995).
