Journeys to Southern Arabia, Mahra, and Hadhramaut

In a journey filled with descriptive beauty and rich information, the book immerses us in the delightful details of the journey to Yemen, which began with the penetration into Hadhramaut, described by the author as "shrouded in secrets." Going to that part of the world remained a passion and an obsession for him at the same time. After a moment of hesitation, the writer decided to head to Aden to accomplish his dreamed-of project: writing about Hadhramaut. He tried as much as possible to avoid what he described as significant errors that accompanied the book "Journey to Hadhramaut" by Adolf von Friede, an author who was a source of inspiration, despite the flaws that Hirsch attributed to Friede's lack of knowledge of the Arabic language. This led to errors and oversights in names, numbers, and some descriptions of geographical areas. This benefited Hirsch in accurately documenting names and their meanings, providing wonderful scenic depictions of events, and discussing the characteristics of the Arabs there, such as their good morals, generosity, and excellent qualities. The author made great efforts even in observing natural and climatic phenomena, such as winds and their seasons, high summer temperatures, dew on tree leaves, and descriptions of plants, as well as the currencies used, the names of Arab tribes, the meanings of geographical place names, and a summary of the region's history, the kings and civilizations that prevailed, and the history of the establishment of the cities of Hadhramaut that he visited. Thus, the book combines abundant information and an exciting journey rich in pleasure and narrative beauty.
The book includes a number of chapters that refer to Hirsch's wanderings within Hadhramaut: "Journey to Shihr," "Shihr," "The Road to Sayhut," "Sayhut 2," "To Qishn and Mukalla," "Mukalla," "To Aden and Back to Mukalla," "The Road to Hajarayn," "From Hajarayn to Shibam," "Shibam to Say'un and Tarim, and Back to Shibam," "From Shibam to Mukalla via Wadi Bin Ali and Wadi Adim and on the Faqra Mountains." He then concludes this journey, which traversed slopes, valleys, and mountains, with a chapter describing the details of the period before returning home, and then provides appendices containing historical documents related to the journey.
In addition to the aforementioned book by Friede, the author relied on many Western works for his knowledge of Yemen and Hadhramaut in particular, before going there to create his own work. Among these books is "Hadhramaut and the Arab Colonies in the Indian Archipelago" by the German L.W.C. van den Berg.
Perhaps the primary motivator for the author to investigate and visit Hadhramaut was that it was one of the charming and unknown parts of the world, leading to many legends surrounding it. His initial knowledge of it was based on what was prevalent in Arab accounts themselves, who speak of the establishment of the Himyarite Kingdom of Hadhramaut in ancient times. The author recalls what the Yemeni historian and writer Nashwan bin Sa'id al-Himyarī mentioned, that a mythical king named Hadhramaut was attributed to the naming of the valley. It was also ruled during the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, by kings who bore the title "Al-Abahilah," meaning free princes. The author asserts that Hadhramaut was never united under one leader in history, attributing this to the nature of local conditions and the dispositions of the people there.
Through this journey, the completed work attempted to provide the first original depiction of Hadhramaut and its main cities, a matter that was difficult to research and investigate at that time, nearly 130 years ago.