earticle

영어

Travel is a very important keyword in understanding the Islamic civilization since it plays a role as a kind of “window” through which one can look into the religious and cultural characteristics in the Islamic world. Traditionally, to be specific, there have been a number of those who, so called “Literary Travellers,” chose to make travelling their job or to take advantage of it as a survival strategy for them. Among them were Ibn Battuta and Evliya Çelebi who had a lot of outstanding and extraordinary experiences from long-distance trips in premodern Islamic history.
Their competitive careers and the expectations of any other experiences from trips
in the future not only allowed them to establish closer relationships with the exalted personages including the Sultans, but brought them both wealth and honours as well, although they could not take up any posts officially. As a “Envoy of Communication,” what is more, they promoted the exchanges of many different fields between the muslim communities and delivered a huge amount of information across the wide-ranging area as far as their comtemporary policitians’ geographical views could be reached. In short, the existence of literary travellers in the Islamic society suggests that a set of communal values are implicit in their travelling. It can be also said, in other words, that these Islamic values which, when they were on long journeys, they kept in their minds on the roads where they had never walked before still remain in the Islamic world of today. That is why I would like to pay attention to them and their journeys.

한국어

이 글은 먼저 이슬람의 여행 전통을 하나의 커다란 그림으로 그려보고, 그 속에서 각각의 여행자들이 지니는 의미에 대해 살펴볼 것이다. 이 과정에 서 우리는 문인의 신분으로 여행을 떠났던 많은 사람들의 존재를 확인하게 될 것이며, 또한 그 가운데서도 특히 여행을 직업으로 삼고자 했던 문인들의 존재에 주목하게 될 것이다. 이 글에서는 이와 같이 수십 년 동안 낯선 땅을 오가며 평생을 여행가로 살았던 이들을 특히 “문인 여행가”라 칭하고, 그들의 여정과 삶을 한층 더 자세히 살펴보고자 한다.