Georg August Wallin

Georg August Wallin (Finnish: Yrjö Aukusti Wallin), also known as Abd al-Wali (Arabic: عبد الولي; 24 October 1811 – 23 October 1852), was a Finland Swede orientalist, explorer and professor at the University of Helsinki, remembered for his journeys across the Arabian Peninsula in the 1840s. He was the first Western scholar to study spoken Arabic systematically, the first European to record Bedouin poetry and dialects in the field, and among the first Europeans to reach several locations in northern Arabia. Internationally he has been ranked among the most capable European explorers of Arabia, and was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1851.

Early life and education

Wallin was born in the municipality of Sund, Åland, in 1811, and his parents were civil servant Israel Wallin (1777–1839) and Johanna Maria Ahrenberg (1779–1854). He attended Cathedral School of Åbo in Turku and moved to Rauma with the school after the Great Fire of Turku in 1827. The following year, however, he left school and continued his studies privately. In 1829, he enrolled to study Oriental languages at the University of Helsinki, graduating with an MA after seven years of studies. He then began writing a dissertation about Arabic and Persian, while working as a librarian in the university library. In 1839, he travelled to St. Petersburg, where he studied at the Institute of Oriental Languages, under the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under the Egyptian sheikh Muhammad 'Ayyad al-Tantawi in 1841–1842. Al-Tantawi, whose accounts of Egypt and the Arab world made a deep impression on Wallin, is considered to have had the single greatest influence on Wallin and his decision to travel to the Middle East.