Can you recommend pre-modern travel narratives by "non-westerns" travellers?

by Luftzig

I'm aware and reading/have on my reading list the accounts of Evliya Çelebi, Ibn-Battutah and of course Marco Polo. But are there notable accounts of travellers originating in east Asia or Africa who travelled and reported on life in European or Muslim world?

(my interest is to get inspired for fiction writing, so fictional accounts are also of interest to me)

y_sengaku
  • Not technically the translation of the medieval primary text itself, but as its paraphrase, Morris Rossabi, Voyager from Xanadu: Rabban Sauma and the First Journey from China to the West, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1992; rep. Berkeley: U of California Pr., 2010, introduces the travelogue of East Asian Nestorian monk who took a journey from now Beijing to Jerusalem, then further to Rome, Paris and Bordeaux in the late 13th century. I suppose this is the closest one OP is looking for.
  • Two 12th century (corrects:) Iberians - or those who came from al-Andalus (so geographically "westerners") observe the changing power balances in the contemporary Mediterranean:
  • Broadhurst, Ronald J.C. (trans.). The Travels of Ibn Jubayr: being the chronicle of a medieval Spanish Moor concerning his journey to the Egypt of Saladin, the holy cities of Arabia, Baghdad the city of the Caliphs, the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Norman kingdom of Sicily. London: Cape, 1952: tells us the society of Kingdom of Jerusalem in the eve of the 3rd Crusade as well as the Muslim community in Palermo in Christian kingdom of Sicily, but it might be a bit difficult to find out of the decent university library (his travelogue is translated into other European language as well).
  • Adler, Marcus Nathan (trans.). The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela: Critical Text, Translation and Commentary. New York: Phillip Feldheim, Inc., 1907: is the well-known travelogue of Iberian Jew across the Mediterranean to the Middle East, but the main focus of his narrative is the situation of Jewish community, not either in Christian or in Muslim society surrounding them. Anyway, the old translation is easily available online: https://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/tudela.html
  • Another 12th century Iberian Jew, Abu Hamid al-Gharnati (about 1080-1168?) records his travel, or his movement from the Iberian Peninsula to the Mediterranean, then to the Eastern Europe in Arabic work Tuhfat al-albab. AFAIK only the excerpt on the Volga river and Hungary section of his work is unfortunately translated and available in English, as a part of collection of Arabic geographic work in: Paul Lunde & Caroline Stone (trans.). Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness: Arab Travellers in the Far North. London: Penguin, 2012. In French, you can refer to the fuller translation as: Jean-Charles Ducène (trad.). De Grenade à Bagdad: La relation de voyage d'Abû Hâmid al Gharnâtî (1080-1168). Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006.
  • Also not technically "on European world", Syrian local (and Muslim) aristocrat author of Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades, trans. Paul M. Cobb. London: Penguin, 2008: sometimes comments the Christians in the kingdom of Jerusalem. I'm sure you can find some reference on his work in the previous post section by /u/WelfOnTheShelf: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/profiles/welfontheshelf
  • I cannot read Turkish by myself, but by chance you can read it (as surmised by your mention of Evliya Çelebi), according to some introductory study in my native language, a few early modern captivity accounts (either in Christian Mediterranean or in Europe) of the Ottomans have been edited and published in modern Turkish:
  • Kreutel, Richard F. Die Autobiographie des Dolmetschers ʻOs̲mān Aġa aus Temeschwar: der Text des Londoner Autographen in normalisierter Rechtschreibung. Cambridge: EJW Gibb Memorial Trust, 1980.
  • (German Translation) Kreutel, Richard F. & Otto Spies (trans. & annotated). Der Gefangene der Giauren; die abenteuerlichen Schicksale des Dolmetschers’ Osman Aǧa aus Temeschwar, von ihm selbst erzählt. Graz: Verlag Styria, 1963.
  • (French Translation) Osmân Agha de Temechvar; Frédéric Hitzel, trans. Prisonnier des infidèles: un soldat ottoman dans l’Empire des Habsbourg. Arles: Sindbad-Actes Sud, 1998.
  • İz, Fahir. 1970. “Macuncuzade Mustafa’nın Malta Anıları.” Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı Belleten 18 (1970): 69–122.
  • Sahillioğlu, Halil. “Akdeniz’de Korsanlara Esir Düşen Abdi Çelebi’nin Mektubu.” Tarih Dergisi 13(17) (1963): 241–256.
  • (Added): I forgot to mention the availability of the travel account 1st Japanese Mission to Rome (1580s) in the initial version of this post, but the general availability is not so hopeful out of Japanese. IGAWA Kenji, "Classification of Historical Sources about the First Japanese Mission to Rome." WASEDA RILAS JOURNAL 8 (2020): 357 - 363 (generally in Japanese, but sometimes annotated in English or other European languages): introduces the extant sources, and according to Igawa, the majority of travel accounts is not written by the Japanese envoys themselves, but by the Jesuits like Guido Gualtieri (linked to the Italian original). A bilingual letter (in Japanese original and in Italian) by the envoy himself is certainly extant and published in the source collection in Japanese, however (Igawa 2020: 362, note 18).