John Gordon Lorimer, his Family, and the Genesis of the Gulf’s Gazetteer and its Arabic Translations: A Historical and Critical Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 PhD in Modern History - Independent Scholar

2 History Department, College of Arts and Social Studies, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman.

Abstract

There is a considerable position for John Gordon Lorimer’s Gazetteer amongst primary sources of Arabic and Western modern Gulf history writings. Considering the Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf’s historical and academic reputations there was an academic necessity for the Gulf’s historians to shed light on the author and his family’s biographies in varied aspects in addition to critically studying the genesis of the Gazetteer.
The study aims to collect various historical data relevant to J. Lorimer and his family’s backgrounds. Furthermore, the original Gazetteer’s physical form is subject to a descriptive editing process and critical- comprehensive review for all its five volumes and a slipcase. Another critical review is applied to two types of selective publications; first of which are those studies that are interested in the biographies and the Gazetteer’s formation; secondly are three Arabic translations of the Gazetteer’s which are compared in terms of their translations’ accuracy via an elected chapter of the Gazetteer. The study is based on four methods for approaching its issues: descriptive method, analytical comparison and critical methods, and codicology method.
Several results and two recommendations are concluded. The most significant outcomes are unveiling new biographical information about J. Lorimer and his family in different matters. Besides, incoming conclusions are connected to the Gazetteer’s genesis regarding purposes, process as well as publishing consequences within the British Raj in the early 20th century. As regards the three Arabic translations, the study demonstrates how authentic they are compared to each other.

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