I have not seen and I have not heard from Damascus to Mecca

Following the French occupation of Damascus, in the early 1920s, and the issuance of a death sentence against him, Farah Deen Al-Zerkali fled from the Umayyad capital as a refugee to Palestine, and from there to Egypt, where he received an invitation from Al-Hussein bin Ali to visit Hejaz. This book is the diaries of that journey from Damascus to Mecca. The traveler traces the course of his trip, narrating its events and incidents and the impressions arising from his observations in various regions, using narration and description and sometimes diaries from previous travelers and researchers. Al-Zerkali — who is a poet and encyclopedic intellectual — was keen to provide comprehensive knowledge of the nature of the place, its history, its names, and its inhabitants. For example, in Hejaz, he records observations and information about the King's palace and the traditions usually followed inside it in food, sitting in the council, and entering the king by the subjects, and how to resolve disputes among people and judge them. The observant traveler’s eye does not only present these scenes and rituals, but also depicts the personality of the king and his children. As a writer, he devotes a wide space to discussing urban and desert literature, detailing its types and what characterizes its poets in spontaneity, improvisation, and memorization, in addition to the differences between Bedouin poetry and urban poetry.