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 Finnish orientalist, explorer and professor remembered for his journeys in South-West Asia during the 1840s. The Finnish translators of Wallin's letters state that Wallin has become a kind of "patron saint of Finnish oriental research". Among other things, the Finnish Oriental Society holds its annual meeting on his birthday. Internationally, it has been estimated that Wallin was one of the most capable Europeans to set foot in Arabia. His qualifications have been compared to those of U. J. Seetzen and J. L. Burckhardt, because he has been characterized as an Arabian scholar as the first modern explorer to prepare carefully for his mission, with no intention of leaving anything new to be said to his future. Wallin's notes were detailed, but he did not carry other research tools with him. Kaj Öhrnberg notes in his book that Wallin's international reputation was at its highest right after his research trips. He was the first to collect Bedouin poetry and make observations of Bedouin dialects; his observations of Arabic phonetics remained important until the 20th century; he was the first to delve into the study of spoken Arabic. Today, however, Wallin has become a footnote to textbooks after research has gone past him.