Finnish explorer, orientalist, and professor (born 1811)

Georg August Wallin

Georg August Wallin, also known as Abd al-Wali, 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.