Georg August Wallin

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Georg (George) August Wallin (Yrjö Aukusti Wallin, aka Abd al-Wali; October 24, 1811 – October 23, 1852) was a Finnish orientalist, explorer and professor remembered for his journeys in the Middle East during the 1840s.

[edit] Biography

Wallin was born in the municipality of Sund on the Baltic island of Åland in 1811. In 1829 he enrolled to study Oriental Languages at the University of Helsinki, graduating with an MA in 1836. He then began writing a dissertation about Arabic and Persian, while working as a librarian in the university library.

In 1839 he travelled to St. Petersburg, where he met Sheikh Muhammad Sayyad al-Tantawi and learned more about the Middle East. He made his first expedition to the area in 1843, his dark features and assumed name Abd al-Wali helping him pass for a central Asian. This subterfuge allowed him to visit Mecca in 1845, a city otherwise forbidden to non-Muslims. Between 1846 and 1848 he visited Palestine and Persia. During this time he may have adopted Islam, although his writings indicate skepticism toward religion.

By 1850 Wallin had returned to Europe, where the Royal Geographical Society published his Notes taken during a Journey through part of Northern Arabia and awarded him its Founder's Medal in recognition of his ground-breaking research. Wallin completed his doctoral thesis in 1851 and was subsequently appointed Professor of Oriental Literature at the University of Helsinki.

He was asked by both the Royal and Russian Geographical Societies to mount another expedition to the Middle East, but declined, perhaps in part due to failing health. One speculation was that he had contracted a venereal disease such as syphilis during his travels; he had dozens of sexual liaisons with the local girls, many of who would be considered underage by modern standards, meticulously recording each liaison with detailed descriptions of each girl. He also wrote that he found European culture oppressive and that he "couldn't adapt [him]self to Europe any more". Whatever the cause, Wallin died on October 23, 1852, only three years after his return to Finland and a day before his forty-first birthday.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Notes Taken During a Journey Though Part of Northern Araba in 1848. Published by the Royal Geographical Society in 1851
  • Narrative of a Journeys From Cairo to Medina and Mecca by Suez, Arabia, Tawila, Al-Jauf, Jubbe, Hail and Nejd, in 1845, Royal Geographic Society, 1854
  • William R. Mead, G. A. Wallin and the Royal Geographical Society, Studia Orientalia 23, 1958.
  • Georg Wallin, reprinted in Travels in Arabia, New York: Oleander Press, 1979:
    • Notes taken during a Journey through part of Northern Arabia, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 20, 1851.
    • Narrative of a Journey from Cairo to Medina and Mecca, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24, 1854.
    • Narrative of a Journey from Cairo to Jerusalem, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 25, 1855.
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