The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi

Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 - 1890) was asked in 1849 by the Indian Navy and the Royal Geographical Society of Great Britain to investigate the region of the unknown Somali Country in East Africa. In 1850 The East India Company gave permission for an expedition to ascertain the productive resources in the region. After many obstacles and delays the expedition began in 1854. The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi is a long poem written by "Haji Abdu El-Yezdi," who was an invention by the true author Sir Burton. The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi translates to "Lay of the Higher Law". The Kasidah was a distillation of Sufi thought. Burton hoped to bring the ideas of Surfism to the West. This book has a biography for the assumed author as well as notes on the poem itself.