المعدان : عرب الاهوارMa'dan: Arab al-Ahwar

Translated to Arabic, 'Marsh Arabs'(1964), the work by Wilfred Thesiger (1910-2003, Mubarak bin London), the British explorer and travel writer. This work is on his life and adventures during a seven-year stay (1951-58) among inhabitants of the Tigris-Euphrates marshlands in Iraq. From dramatic to touching to comedic, this account pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people.

From the English Edition:
During the years he spent among the Marsh Arabs of southern Iraq Wilfred Thesiger came to understand, admire and share a way of life that had endured for many centuries. Travelling from village to village by canoe, he won acceptance by dispensing medicines and treating the sick. In this account of his time there he pays tribute to the hospitality, loyalty, courage and endurance of the people, describes their impressive reed houses, the waterways and lakes teeming with wildlife, the herding of buffalo and hunting of wild boar, moments of tragedy and moments of pure comedy, all in vivid, engaging detail. Untouched by the modern world until recently, these independent people, their way of life and their surroundings have suffered widespread destruction under the regime of Saddam Hussein. Wilfred Thesiger's magnificent account of his time spent among them is a moving testament to their now threatened culture and the landscape they inhabit.