The Narrative of Taleb Sidi Ibrahim be Muhammed in Berber, Arabic and English

'The personal narrative of the Taleb Sidi Ibrahim be Muhammed el-Messi, of the province of Sus; including some Statistic and Political Notices of the extreme south-west country of Morocco'. The Berber manuscript was commissioned by William Brown Hodgson (1801-1871), US State representative to North African Barbary States, who had it translated into Arabic. From the Arabic translation he made an English translation. All three are bound within the book with an introduction by Hodgson, concerning the commissioning of the manuscript, which he believed was the third manuscript to be written in Berber. The introduction is dated 1 March 1835.

William Hodgson was born in Georgetown, USA. He studied oriental languages while working for the Department of State, became a dragoman in the Barbary States and was Acting Consul in Algiers from 1826-29. He returned to Washington in 1830 but in 1832 went to Constantinople and then on to Egypt in 1834. In 1836 he was in London. This is possibly when the manuscript was given to the Royal Asiatic Society. In 1837 he left Washington for Lima, Peru, but was taken ill at Panama. He also served in Tunis in 1842, but returned to America via many European countries in 1842 to marry Margaret Telfair. He became a mainstay of the Georgia Historical Society. He died in New York in 1871.

Open. Please contact the archivist. Details can be found here. The archive is open on Tuesdays and Fridays 10-5, and Thursdays 2-5. Access is to any researcher without appointment but it will help if an appointment is made via phone or email. Please bring photo ID.

The exact date when the manuscripts entered the Society's collections is unknown. It is probable that Hodgson donated them to the Society when he was in London in 1836. A footnote in the Journal for 1837 states that all three manuscripts were in the Society's possession. They were bound together by the Society into a volume with half calf binding and marbled boards.

This volume was catalogued by Nancy Charley, RAS Archivist, in 2023.

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The Berber manuscript and its Arabic translation were commissioned by William Hodgson. He created the English translation and introduction in 1835.

Hodgson's translation of the manuscript was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1837, pp.115-129.

The Society's collections also hold publications by Hodgson on North Africa and Berber languages.