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| Author | William Dalrymple |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Travel |
| Genre | Non-fiction |
| Publisher | Penguin Books |
Publication date | 1989 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | 0-00-654415-0 |
| OCLC | 43785829 |
| Followed by | City of Djinns |
In Xanadu: A Quest is a 1989 travel book by William Dalrymple. [1]
In Xanadu traces the path taken by Marco Polo from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to the site of Shangdu, famed as Xanadu in English literature, in Inner Mongolia, China.
The book begins with William Dalrymple taking a vial of holy oil from the burning lamps of the Holy Sepulchre, which he is to transport to Shangdu, the summer seat of the King Kubla Khan. It has been mentioned that Kubla Khan wanted a hundred learned men armed with Christian knowledge to come to his Khanate and spread the knowledge of Christianity. However, that plan was abandoned, and Marco Polo, along with his uncle, set out from Jerusalem on the Silk Route to Shang-du, to deliver a vial of the holy oil, which was rumoured to be inexhaustible, and therefore kept the lamps at the Sepulchre constantly burning. The rest of the journey is outlined with descriptions of most of the ancient sites along the Silk Route, through which Marco Polo was supposed to have passed.
The author compares the old time splendour of the cities on the Silk Route to their present physical and political conditions, and thereby illustrates the changes. Of special note is the part on his passage through the then revolution-torn Iran. [2] He also describes the bureaucratic tangle he got into while getting a permit for China via the Northern Areas in Pakistan, and spending a couple of days in the Kohistan valley near Besham, on the banks of the river Indus in Pakistan, which is supposedly the last area where Alexander the Great might have stopped during his conquests.[ citation needed ]
People of different ethnicities are also mentioned in the book, mainly the present-day Central Asians and the Gujars from Kohistan and Swat valleys, although various scholars in Pakistan have doubted the veracity of many of these accounts. [3] The author also describes a primitive rite of the Gujars which he claims he accidentally stumbled upon while exploring the area. [4] Dalrymple speculates that the rite is a 'shin' ritual, apparently a throwback to the ancient pagan religion of the Gujars, which they followed before converting to Islam; whereas Pakistani scholars opine that the incident simply depicts a wedding feast in Kohistan, in Northern Pakistan, where a goat is ritually slaughtered for the guests and is typical of a festive banquet of the area, and that Dalrymple is making much out of his rather hurried and uninformed passage through these parts. [5] These scholars throw a skeptical light on the portions of this book connected to Dalrymple's travels from Mansehra town until his passage into China. [6]
The journey was taken on a multitude of types of transport and lasted for four months. The book, which was written when the author was 22, received positive reviews and won several awards, and established Dalrymple as a major new arrival on the British literary scene. Eminent travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor chose In Xanadu as his book of the year in the Spectator and wrote, "William Dalrymple's In Xanadu carries us breakneck from a predawn glimmer in the Holy Sepulchre right across Asia... It is learned and comic, and a most gifted first book touched by the spirits of Kinglake, Robert Byron and E. Waugh." Sir Alec Guinness agreed, and in the Sunday Times called the book "The delightful, and funny, surprise mystery tour of the year."
Kubla Khan: or A Vision in a Dream is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. It is sometimes given the subtitles "A Vision in a Dream" and "A Fragment." According to Coleridge's preface to Kubla Khan, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Shangdu, the summer capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan. Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by "a person on business from Porlock". The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.
Marco Polo was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in The Travels of Marco Polo, a book that described the then-mysterious culture and inner workings of the Eastern world, including the wealth and great size of the Mongol Empire and China under the Yuan dynasty, giving Europeans their first comprehensive look into China, Persia, India, Japan, and other Asian societies.
Shangdu, more popularly known as Xanadu, was the summer capital of the Yuan dynasty of China before Kublai moved his throne to the former Jin dynasty capital of Zhōngdū which was renamed Khanbaliq. Shangdu is located in the present-day Zhenglan Banner, Inner Mongolia. In June 2012, it was made a World Heritage Site for its historical importance and for the unique blending of Mongolian and Chinese culture.
Khawaja Syed Muhammad Nizamuddin Auliya, also known as Hazrat Nizamuddin, Sultan-ul-Mashaikh and Mahbub-e-Ilahi, was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar, Sufi saint of the Chishti Order, and is one of the most famous Sufis from the Indian Subcontinent. His predecessors were Fariduddin Ganjshakar, Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki, and Moinuddin Chishti, who were the masters of the Chishti spiritual chain or silsila in the Indian subcontinent.
Book of the Marvels of the World, in English commonly called The Travels of Marco Polo, is a 13th-century travelogue written down by Rustichello da Pisa from stories told by Italian explorer Marco Polo. It describes Polo's travels through Asia between 1271 and 1295, and his experiences at the court of Kublai Khan.
William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple is an India-based Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He is also one of the co-founders and co-directors of the world's largest writers' festival, the annual Jaipur Literature Festival. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
Khanbaliq or Dadu of Yuan was the winter capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty in what is now Beijing, the capital of China today. It was located at the center of modern Beijing. The Secretariat directly administered the Central Region of the Yuan dynasty and dictated policies for the other provinces. As emperors of the Yuan dynasty, Kublai Khan and his successors also claimed supremacy over the entire Mongol Empire following the death of Möngke in 1259. Over time the unified empire gradually fragmented into a number of khanates.
The Jadoon, also known as Gadoon or Jadun is a Pashtun tribe primarily residing in the Hazara and Kohistan regions as well as in the Swabi district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. Some members of the tribe also live in Nangarhar and Kunar in Afghanistan.
Khan Bahadur Major Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan,, also written Sikandar Hyat-Khan or Sikandar Hyat Khan, was an Indian politician and statesman from the Punjab who served as the Premier of the Punjab, among other positions.
Hazara, historically also known as Pakhli, is a region in northern Pakistan, falling administratively within the Hazara Division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It forms the northernmost portion of Indus Sagar Doab, and is mainly populated by the indigenous Hindko-speaking Hindkowans and Kohistani people, with a significant Pashto-speaking population. The inhabitants of Hazara are collectively called the Hazarewal.
Burfat, Bulfat or Bulfati is a Sindhi Sammat tribe, originally from the Lasbela and Kirthar (Kohistan) mountains of the Sindh province of Pakistan. Burfats are also found in Iran, Afghanistan and Oman.
Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman is an Indian scholar of Unani medicine. He founded Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicine and Sciences in 2000. He had earlier served as Professor and chairman, Department of Ilmul Advia at the Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, for over 40 years before retiring as Dean Faculty of Unani Medicine. Presently, he is serving AMU as "Honorary Treasurer". In 2006, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri for his contribution to Unani Medicine.
From the Holy Mountain is a 1997 historical travel book by William Dalrymple that deals with the affairs of the Eastern Christians.
Ahmed Ali Lahori was a Pakistani Sunni Muslim scholar and Quran interpreter.
Xanadu: The Marco Polo Musical is an original musical written and produced in 1953 by Seventh Army Special Services in Germany, the first of the numerous stage musicals, film musicals and songs inspired in part by the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem Kubla Khan with its opening lines:
Syed Safdar Hussain Najafi was a scholar and religious leader.
Pakistani English literature refers to English literature that has been developed and evolved in Pakistan, as well as by members of the Pakistani diaspora who write in the English language. English is one of the official languages of Pakistan and has a history going back to the British colonial rule in South Asia ; the national dialect spoken in the country is known as Pakistani English. Today, it occupies an important and integral part in modern Pakistani literature. Dr. Alamgir Hashmi introduced the term "Pakistani Literature [originally written] in English" with his "Preface" to his pioneering book Pakistani Literature: The Contemporary English Writers as well as through his other scholarly work and the seminars and courses taught by him in many universities since 1970's. It was established as an academic discipline in the world following his lead and further work by other scholars, and it is now a widely popular field of study.
In the Footsteps of Marco Polo is a 2008 PBS documentary film detailing Denis Belliveau and Francis O'Donnell's 1993 retracing of Marco Polo's journey from Venice to Anatolia, Persia, India and China. The movie documents the first quest "to visit and document every region Marco Polo claimed to have traveled" using only land and sea methods of transportation. Mike Hale of The New York Times writes that the documentary includes how Belliveau and O'Donnell "encountered Mongol horsemen and hostile Chinese security officers and survived a firefight between Afghan factions. In the spirit of Polo's journey -- and to prove a point regarding the authenticity of his account -- they disdained airplanes, traveling by foot, on horses and camels and by jeep, boat and train." A text by the same name as the video, In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, written by Belliveau and O'Donnell, and published by Rowman & Littlefield, serves as a companion to the documentary film. In the Footsteps of Marco Polo has been used by Belliveau to create a unique interdisciplinary educational curriculum that he presents at schools and libraries across the United States and internationally.
Pir Syed Jamaat Ali Shah was a Pakistani author, Islamic scholar and Sufi saint of the Naqshbandi Order. He presided over the All India Sunni Conference and led the Movement for Shaheed Ganj Mosque. He was a contemporary of Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, the founder of Barelvi movement.
Muhammad Habib Khan Tarin, Risaldar-Bahadur, CSI, was a cavalry officer of Tarin descent, who lived in the Hazara region on the Punjab Frontier, in British India.
