Petra: A Traveller's Guide

by Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood

"The vast site is delineated in detail and walks within it are clearly described -- all good and useful", The Weekend TelegraphThe ancient city of Petra, one of the world's most spectacular and popular travel destinations, was, in Nabatean times, a great commercial and cultural centre. Enriched by the lucrative trade in incense, the inhabitants carved lavish funeral monuments into the rose-red cliffs to protect their embalmed remains and immortalize their memory.

This updated and revised edition includes comprehensive tours of monuments, tombs and ancient religious sites, detailed maps of walks around the city, frank, practical advice on where to stay and what to take and a complete account of the city's Nabatean, biblical and Roman history.

Genres: Travel

223 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Ruqaiyyah Waris Maqsood (Rosalyn Rushbrook/Kendrick) is the author of some forty books on Islam and other subjects. She gained her honours degree in Christian Theology at the University of Hull in 1963, and Post Graduate Teaching Certificate in 1964, with distinctions in theory and practice. Her professional life was spent as Head of Religious Studies at various tough UK inner city secondary schools, until she retired in 1996, to concentrate on writing and lecturing. She has since made the GCSE course in Islamic Studies available to students and converts to Islam of all ages, especially to those who have not had the opportunity to study it at school.

She grew up a devout Christian, but converted to Islam in 1986. Already established by then as an author of books on Christian and educational topics, she has since devoted her time to writing on Islam and doing dawah (explaining the faith) work to both Christian and Muslim audiences. She regularly addresses school and church groups, explaining Islam and educating in the basics of Islam, with a keen interest in presenting Islam as a world faith. She strives to raise the awareness both of non-Muslims and also of born Muslims of the traditional immigrant ethnic backgrounds living in the UK, that these numerous varieties of cultural backgrounds, tastes and emphases are all part of Islam, including cultures that are not limited to the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and North Africa.

Reviews

[C.L. Francisco]

An extraordinary guidebook, with more depth than many academic and popular books on Petra. It offered marvelous detail (both accurate and entertaining) on the layout of the city, its history, archaeology, and the relationships among the different sites. I can't imagine visiting Petra without it!