Charles Huber

William Facey is a historian and museum planner. He was born in Northern Rhodesia in 1948 and studied classics, philosophy and art history at Wadham College, Oxford from 1967 to 1972. His career in Arabia began in 1974 and since then, he has been involved in many museum projects throughout the region, particularly in Saudi Arabia. His books, introductions and articles explore the history, architecture and early photography of the Arabian Peninsula, along with Arab maritime history, Islam among the British and Western travellers in Arabia, with a focus on those visiting Islam's holy cities. He founded Arabian Publishing Ltd in London in 2002 and ran it until 2015, when it was acquired by Medina Publishing Ltd. In 2006, he became a founding trustee of the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia (BFSA), now the International Association for the Study of Arabia (IASA; www.theiasa.com) and served as the book review editor of its Bulletin from 2006 till 2019.

• Illustrations xi | Foreword by Christian Julien Robin xiii | Preface and Acknowledgements xvii | INTRODUCTION Charles Huber: France’s Greatest Arabian Explorer French patriot and geographer 1 |Huber’s first journey in Arabia, 1880–81 7 | A deniable partnership with Julius Euting, 1882–83 13 | The 1883–84 joint Arabian itinerary 39 | Huber and Euting: a fraught relationship 44 | Huber’s final Arabian travels and death in the ?igaz, 1884 54 The Tayma? Stele imbroglio 64 | Publication history 83 | THE TRANSLATION Charles Huber’s First Journey in Central Arabia, 1880–1881 85 | Part I Bulletin de la Société de Géographie 7ème série, no. 5, 1884, pp. 304–63 87 | ?Uqdah 137 | Gabal Sarra? 140 | Part II Bulletin de la Société de Géographie 7ème série, no. 5, 1884, pp. 468–530 147 | Gabal Aga 147 | Al-Qa?im 152 | Gabal Gildiyyah 179 | The ?igaz 181 | Part III Bulletin de la Société de Géographie 7ème série, no. 6, 1885, pp. 92–148 213 | From ?a?il to Baghdad 225 | From Baghdad to Damascus via the ?amad 249 | The geography of the Shammar Emirate 263 | APPENDICES 1. Inscriptions collected in Central Arabia (1878–1882) Bulletin de la Société de Géographie 7ème série, no. 5, 1884, pp. 289–303 277 | 2. Concordance of the inscriptions recorded by Huber on his first Arabian journey. By Michael C.A. Macdonald 293 | 3. Correspondence with the Ministry of Public Education and Société de Géographie, 1878–83 305 | 4. Twenty-five letters from Huber to Maunoir and Weisgerber, 1882–84 349 | 5. Letters from Huber to the Emir Mu?ammad Ibn Rashid and others in Arabia, April 1883 407 | 6. Letters from Huber and Maunoir to the Ministry of Public Education, 1883 417 | 7. Letter from Huber to Renan, 8 April 1883 427 | 8. Letter from Huber to Nöldeke, 3 September 1883 431 | 9. Letters from Félix de Lostalot Bachoué, August 1884–November 1885 433 | 10. Letters from Julius Euting, 1884–86 453 | 11. Correspondence between Ernest Renan, Julius Euting and Philippe Berger, 1885–91 463 | 12. Charles Huber by two of his friends 471 | 13. Concordance of Arabic place names, personal names and words as used by Huber 479 | Sources and References 507 Index 531