Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich, better known by his pseudonym and nom de plume Ali Bey el Abbassi, was a Spanish explorer, soldier, and spy in the early 19th century.
Background
Badía y Leblich was born in Barcelona on April 1, 1767. After receiving a liberal education, he devoted particular attention to the Arabic language, which he learned in Vera, Almería, where his father was a military accountant, and in London.
Career
He supported the French occupation of Spain and worked for the Bonapartist administration, but he is principally known for his travels in North Africa and the Middle East. He witnessed the Saudi conquest of Mecca in 1807. He also made a special study of the manners and customs of Arabian lands.
Under the assumed name of Ali Bey el Abbassi, Badía y Leblich spent the two years from 1803 to 1805 in Morocco, entertained by its king while pretending to be a descendant of the Abbasid caliphs.
He then went to Mecca—then under the possession of the Wahabites—in order to perform the hajj. On his way, he stopped in Tripoli, Cyprus, and Egypt.
On his way back, he visited Jerusalem and Syria before reaching Constantinople in the autumn of 1807. Returned home in 1807 or 1809, he declared his support for King José I. He was appointed intendant of Segovia and then Cordoba.
On the abdication of King José following the French defeat at Vitoria in 1813, Badía y Leblich fled to France.
In 1814, he published a French account of his travels in three volumes. An English translation was published in 1816. There was much mystery about Ali Bey, since the account was written from his persona.
He set out on a second journey in 1818 under the assumed name of Ali Othman.
He was said to have been acting as a French agent and, when he suddenly died at Aleppo on August 30, it was credited by some to poisoning. He was denied an Islamic burial because a cross was found in his vest.
Carrer Ali Bei, a street in Barcelona, is named after him. Bibliography
Badía y Leblich, Doctorate.F.J. (1814), Voyages d"Ali Bey el Abbassi en Afrique et en Asie pendant les Années 1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, et 1807, Volume
I, II, & III, Paris: P. Didot l"Ainé.
(French)
Badía y Leblich, Doctorate.F.J. (1816), Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, and Turkey, Between the Years 1803 and 1807, Volume I & II, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown. "Domingo Badia y Leblich", Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th educated, Volume
III, New York: Charles Scribner"s Sons, 1878, pp.
227–228.
"Ali Bey", Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th educated, Volume I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911, p.