A traveller from Maghreb in 17th century: Al-Ayyashi and his Travel to Haramayn in his travel book

Abu Salim al-Ayyashi was an intellectual figure known as a sufi, scribe, and traveller who shaped the political, social and religious life of the 17th century Moorish history. Ayyaşi showed great importance to the small monastery that his father founded and that made him very popular in Morrocco and its neighbourhood. The first period of his life can be identified as growing up in Maghreb and the second part is his three travels to the Hijaz area in which he developed his scholar identity and completed his spiritual maturation. In this context, we aimed to study Haramayn in Abu Salim Al-Ayyashi's pilgrimage travel book to study travel books within a non-literature study although they are still not accepted as historical records in our country. Since he has not been involved in a detailed study before, we also examined Al-Ayyashi's biography, educational background and the importance of the monastery in building his identity. We tried to show the efficiency of scholarly environments and monasteries in 17th century Moroccon history on the example of al-Ayyashi. Then we examined his pilgrimage with his travel book called Rihla al-Ayyâshi. We had the opportunity to determine where a sufi from outside the borders of the Ottoman arriving on the Haramayn region stopped during his pilgrimage travel, the social status of Egypt, the activities of the Ottoman Empire in Haramayn region, visiting places in the region and especially how al-Ayyashi saw Mecca and Medina and made use of his experiences there.