Abu Dhabi, 11th Jan. 2010 (WAM) -- Kalima, the translation project of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (ADACH), published an Arabic translation of Jeremiah Curtin's "A Journey in Southern Siberia: The Mongols; Their Religion and Their Myths".
The book is the result of years-long efforts of research, hard travel and journeys through frozen desert. It concentrates on the Mongols (or Moguls), the people and their customs, traditions, religion and history. The Mongols had a great impact on humanity, cultures and civilizations. They affected many countries, especially through their ruthless leaders infamous for their brutality and love of destruction that continue to be difficult to comprehend. They unleashed their hordes against the civilizations of the early middle ages, in Asia and Europe with devastating effects. They had shown no mercy to man, animal, plants, nor spared books. They brought the contemporary civilizations either to a standstill or to a complete destruction. They burned Hungary to the ground and destroyed Baghdad, the capital of Arabic and Islamic civilization. They inflected the same kind of devastation on many other empires, states and cities. But this is not the only image the author wanted to portray in his book. Curtin goes beyond the stereotype image of the Mongols to present people with norms, spiritualities and thoughts. He traces their ruins through their modern-day geographical spreading and through what is left of their civilization, stories and myths, and the way they live today. Jeremiah Curtin (1838-1906) was a linguist, translator, writer, diplomat, adventurer, expert in world folklore and anthropologist. He learned many languages and dialects, and rumored to master sixty of them. He spoke many European languages fluently and had total control of German, Swedish, Italian, Hungarian, Russian, Arabic, Sanskrit, Icelandic, Finish, and Welsh plus many more Asian languages. His books span many subjects, the most known of them are: "Irish Tales of the Fairies and the Ghost World", "The Pharaoh and the Priest: An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt", "Creation Myths of Primitive America: In Relation to the Religious History and Mental Development of Mankind", and "A Journey in Southern Siberia: The Mongols; Their Religion and Their Myths" which Kalima translated. The book is translated and introduced by Dr Adnan Khalid Abdullah and comes full of photographs taken by the author himself.Copyright Emirates News Agency (WAM) 2010.
