From Drury Lane to Makkah
Abu-Alwafa
From Drury Lane to Makkah
Abdul-Hakim Murad
12/05/2003
History has not recorded the name of the first British Muslim to carry
out the rites of Hajj. Rumors abound of converted Crusaders who made
the trip in medieval times, and of British Muslims in Ottoman naval
service who visited the hallowed precincts in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. But the first detailed account of the Hajj by an
English Muslim had to wait until the Edwardian era, when the artist
Hedley Churchward became the first recorded British 賎uest of God.'
Like many Anglo-Muslims of his day, Churchward was the conservative,
gentlemanly scion of an ancient family; indeed, his ancestors
possessed the second oldest house in Britain . His father ran a
successful business in Aldershot , and was well-received in regimental
circles, enabling the young Churchward to meet Queen Victoria and the
philanthropist Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Showing an early artistic
talent, Churchward studied art and became a recognized painter,
specializing in the then highly prestigious field of theatrical scene
painting. A familiar figure in London's West End in the 1880s, he
worked closely with celebrities as varied as Tennyson, Millais, Lord
Leighton, and the most famous of all Victorian 壮upermodels', Lily
Langtry.
A leisurely trip through Spain opened the young scene-painter's eyes
to the glories of Moorish architecture, and he was tempted to venture
across the Straits to Morocco . Here, in a world still untouched by
Western influence, he quickly fell in love with the gentle and
beautiful lifestyle of Islam. After several visits, he gravely
announced to his startled family that he had become a Muslim.
Churchward traveled on to Cairo , where he studied for several years
at Al-Azhar, the Muslim world's highest seat of learning. His
scholarship developed apace, enabling him to preach Friday sermons at
a small mosque, and even landing him an appointment to the prestigious
post of lecturer in Sira (the Prophet's biography) at the Qadis'
Academy - no small achievement for a convert.
In need of more lucrative work, Churchward then sailed for South
Africa , where his art and his elegant drawing-room manner soon won
him the favor of Cecil Rhodes, who made him the gift of a rare pink
diamond. Moving effortlessly between the Muslim community and the
Transvaal 's white elite, it was thanks to Churchward's earnest
intercession that President Paul Kruger granted permission for the
erection of the first mosque in the Witwatersrand goldfields.
On his return to Cairo , Mahmoud Churchward married the daughter of a
prominent Shafi訴 jurist of Al-Azhar, and continued his Arabic
lecturing. But both his head and his heart told him that his Islam was
not yet complete: the magnetic pull of the Fifth Pillar was becoming
impossible to resist. As he later recorded: 前ne evening, as I strode
along the looming Pyramid in the sunset, and saw the jagged skyline of
Cairo behind the dreamy African dusk, I decided to carry through what
I had intended to do ever since I turned a Moslem - I would go to the
Ka'aba at Makkah.'
As an Englishman he realized that this ambition might prove hard to
fulfill: there was a danger that the Caliphal authorities at Jeddah
might distrust the sincerity of his claims to be a Muslim, and
unceremoniously turn him away. He therefore petitioned the senior
繕lema (scholars) for a letter of recommendation. In the awe-inspiring
presence of the Chief Qaadi (judge) of Egypt, together with Shaykh
al-Islam Mehmet Jemaluddin Efendi (the Ottoman Empire's highest
religious authority, who happened to be on a visit to Cairo), he
submitted to a three-hour examination on difficult points of faith.
Passing with flying colors, he received a beautifully-calligraphed
testimonial signed by the scholars present. This religious passport
was to serve him well in overcoming the bureaucratic obstacles which
lay ahead.
In 1910, after a further year in South Africa , the would-be Hajji
packed his trunks and set out from Johannesburg for the Holy Land .
Steamers in those days were slow, and Churchward faced the added
impediment of having to travel via Bombay , where he spent weeks in
frustrating negotiations with shipping-clerks, officials, and an
urbane Lebanese Christian who was the Ottoman consul. At last he found
an elderly pilgrim ship, the SS Islamic, and this vessel, captained by
an irascible Scotsman and armed with cannon against the threat of
pirates, chugged slowly across the shimmering heat of the Indian
Ocean, visiting the poverty-stricken Arabian Gulf before wending its
leisurely way up the Red Sea.
The days passed slowly, and the time for Hajj was fast approaching.
Steaming at six knots, halting at small ports to deliver sacks of
mail, which had to be handed over with six-foot tongs because of the
fear of plague, there was little to do except watch the dolphins, eat
curry, and pray on deck with the Indian pilgrims.
Landing briefly at the Sudanese port of Suakin , Churchward dropped in
on the British Consul, who airily told him that his plans to visit
Makkah were doomed. 閃y dear chap,' he told him, sipping an iced drink
on the Consular veranda, 奏o begin with you will not be allowed to
land at Jeddah.'
But two days later, the Islamic steamed into the roadstead of the
Arabian port. 前n the Indian deck,' he recorded, 奏here started a
great packing of pots, portable stoves, babies and sacks of rice.' It
proved necessary to row ashore in a small dinghy, plunging through the
hot spray past a Turkish battleship that had been moored for so long
that the coral had grown up around it, immobilizing it forever. Once
his little boat was beached on the sands, a short conversation with
the Ottoman officials established that all was well, and Churchward
went into the town to make contact with the local representative
(wakil) of Sharifa Zain Wali, a rich businesswoman of Makkah who ran a
large organization of mutawwifs - pilgrim guides. Naturally, she could
not attend him here in person - as Churchward later observed: 前wing
to the immense numbers of pilgrims, hundreds of thousands, who reach
Jeddah each year, it is as impossible for these much-respected
dignitaries to escort their customers personally as it would be for
Mr. Thomas Cook to chaperone every Cockney globe-trotter through
Europe. Like all her colleagues, she employed a considerable staff,
who saw that the Hajis carried through the ritual prescribed by the
Prophet.'
The Wakil took Churchward to his beautiful Arab house, and explained
how to don his Ihram clothing before letting him settle down for the
night. 詮inding a level place on the irregular stones I lay down
anew', he wrote. 禅his time a thousand million mosquitoes hovered over
me.' The following day, he telegraphed most of his money through to
Makkah, and entrusted, as was the custom, the remainder of his funds
to the Mutawwif. That evening, 層hile the lamps of Jeddah glowed in a
tropic sunset, two donkeys arrived.' The road beyond Jeddah was
little more than a camel track, but the Wakil confidently led the
small party towards the nocturnal east, with Halley's Comet hanging
splendidly among the stars above. 羨gainst the stars I saw rock faces;
we seemed to be trotting through a kind of canyon. Saving the fall of
our donkeys' feet there was nothing to be heard, not even a jackal.
... Bang! Explosions suddenly rang from some place high in the dark
hills. No mistake, those were rifle shots ... The growing brightness
showed a very picturesque old building, a kind of tower several
hundred feet above the road. From the steep path serving the structure
some fez-adorned figures ran down. They wore uniforms and held guns in
their hands.'
An Ottoman officer came up, and politely explained that his men had
successfully chased off a band of robbers. In those days, attacks by
desert Arabs on pilgrims were distressingly common; but Churchward and
his party rode on, trusting in Allah. In the oven-like heat of the
early afternoon, after several stops at roadside coffee-houses, they
passed the stone pillars which indicated the beginning of the sacred
territory into which no non-Muslim may intrude.
前n entering here my guide signed to me that we should say the proper
prayer. Touching his heart and forehead he muttered the Fatiha
(opening chapter of the Qur'an) and held his hands together as if to
receive Heaven's blessing. Then he said, Hena al-Haram (Here is the
Holy Ground).'
全ome pigeons, wild doves and other birds were the first specimens of
desert fauna I came on. They appeared perfectly tame, and fluttered a
few inches from our faces. Some sat on the hard stones and allowed the
donkeys to go right upon them. Very carefully the Wakeel led his beast
around the little creatures, for no man will dare to kill a living
thing here.'
In the Holy City at last, after almost two days on the road,
Churchward and his companions entered the tall mansion-cum-hotel of
the Sharifa. This pious and aristocratic lady, a direct descendent of
the Holy Prophet, had family connections in Cape Town , where her
company of pilgrim guides had been recommended to Churchward.
Unpacking his goods, he sent her a gift of a Gouda cheese, which was
borne up to her unseen presence by excited servants. The Sharifa
herself shortly called to him from behind a wooden mashrabiya screen:
閃ubarak! Welcome to my house.' 選 replied that I felt proud to live
in her house, whereat she answered that she was proud of me. 禅he
Kafirs make good cheese,' declared the lady, 奏hey must have many
cows.''
The English pilgrim struggled up seven flights of stairs, bathed, and
slept on the roof. He was awoken before dawn by the strange lilting
sound of Ottoman bugles, and after prayers and a breakfast of melons
he set off behind the Mutawwif towards the Sacred Mosque. Taking care
to scuff their feet disdainfully on some well-worn flagstones, which
the Mutawwif declared were some former idols of Quraish which had been
cast down there by the Prophet to be humiliated, Churchward and his
companion finally entered the House of God. The first stage of a
five-month journey had finally come to an end.
http://islamonline.net/english/journey/jour46.shtml
Abu-Alwafa
From Drury Lane to Makkah
Abdul-Hakim Murad
12/05/2003
History has not recorded the name of the first British Muslim to carry out
the rites of Hajj. Rumors abound of converted Crusaders who made the trip in
medieval times, and of British Muslims in Ottoman naval service who visited
the hallowed precincts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the
first detailed account of the Hajj by an English Muslim had to wait until
the Edwardian era, when the artist Hedley Churchward became the first
recorded British 'Guest of God.'
Like many Anglo-Muslims of his day, Churchward was the conservative,
gentlemanly scion of an ancient family; indeed, his ancestors possessed the
second oldest house in Britain . His father ran a successful business in
Aldershot , and was well-received in regimental circles, enabling the young
Churchward to meet Queen Victoria and the philanthropist Baroness
Burdett-Coutts. Showing an early artistic talent, Churchward studied art and
became a recognized painter, specializing in the then highly prestigious
field of theatrical scene painting. A familiar figure in London's West End
in the 1880s, he worked closely with celebrities as varied as Tennyson,
Millais, Lord Leighton, and the most famous of all Victorian 'supermodels',
Lily Langtry.
A leisurely trip through Spain opened the young scene-painter's eyes to the
glories of Moorish architecture, and he was tempted to venture across the
Straits to Morocco . Here, in a world still untouched by Western influence,
he quickly fell in love with the gentle and beautiful lifestyle of Islam.
After several visits, he gravely announced to his startled family that he
had become a Muslim.
Churchward traveled on to Cairo , where he studied for several years at
Al-Azhar, the Muslim world's highest seat of learning. His scholarship
developed apace, enabling him to preach Friday sermons at a small mosque,
and even landing him an appointment to the prestigious post of lecturer in
Sira (the Prophet's biography) at the Qadis' Academy - no small achievement
for a convert.
More on this story
http://islamonline.net/english/journey/jour46.shtml
jackkincaid
>
> first detailed account of the Hajj by an English Muslim had to wait until
> the Edwardian era,
The first Muslims in Britain arrived much earlier than that.
We know that Cromwell, being a Puritan and therefore with a higher
regard for Islam than for Catholic Christianity, would ahve allowed
Muslims to live in England. If he did, they would have arrived in the
17th century. A hundred years later Voltaire, I think it was,
recorded that, unlike the Paris of his time, London allowed pious
Muslims, Jews and Christians to work and worship together. That was in
the mid-to-late 18th century.
Legends of even earlier British Muslims go back further than the
crusades (some crusaders did convert to Islam, though they were more
often than not Knights Templar who had remained in Jerusalem after the
crusaders had left, and who came under coercion to convert. They would
probably have been French - most KT were - but some may have settled
in Britain). The first significant openly Jewish community in Britain
followed William the Conqueror from Normandy in 1066. They had earlier
found refuge in the Langue d'Oc, in the south of France, alongside
Muslims who had remained after the defeat of the Moorish armies by
Charles Martel in the 8th century.
The Frankish kings had begun to persecute the Jews of the Langue d'Oc,
but they were given refuge by the Anglo-Norman kings, and so settled
in England (to be persecuted 200 years later by William's descendent,
Edward I). It doesn't take a huge leap to imagine that some Muslims
travelled with them, which would mean that the earliest Muslims in
Britain would have arrived in the 11th century (although there is no
evidence for them, and they would almost certainly have converted to
Christianity, as eventually successive waves of Muslim immigrants
tended to do).
The largest part of Britain's Muslim community came in the 1950s and
60s, from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The wetsrenbmost of these
lands were conquered by Arabs in the 11th century - at the same time
the Catholic Normans conquered England. Islamic rule over most of
India was secured by the Mughals, who invaded in the 12th-15th
centuries - at the same time as the Crusades, and the expelling of the
caliph from Spain and the Ottomans from Europe. The Mughals were
defeated by the British at roughly the same time as the British were
defeated by the Americans, and the partition of India occured at the
same time as the partition of the holy land and the settlement of
Israel. There's obviously a pattern to it all.
Most of the Muslim majority countries now causing us trouble -
Pakistan/India/Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq etc. - had borders created by
Britain according, in part, to cultural changes made by Arab invasion.
Britain itself has internal borders partly created by the Roman
emperor Hadrian - who many believe was Arabic. History is full of
irony.