A Princess's Pilgrimage: Nawab Sikandar Begum's A Pilgrimage to Mecca

by Nawab Sikandar Begum, Siobhan Lambert-Hurley (Editor)

In 1863, the Nawab Sikandar Begum, a Muslim woman and hereditary ruler of the princely state of Bhopal in colonial India, traveled to Mecca with a retinue of a thousand people. On returning, she wrote this witty, acerbic account of her journey. In it, we glimpse a process by which notions of the self could be redefined against a Muslim "other" in the colonial environment. Sikandar Begum emerges as a genuinely complex individual, crafting an image of herself as an effective administrator, a loyal subject, and a good Muslim. Siobhan Lambert-Hurley's critical introduction and afterword make this edition a comprehensive resource on travel writing by South Asian Muslim women, colonialism, and world history.

Genres: Islam, India, History, Religion, Travel

250 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2007

Reviews

[SISTERS Magazine · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for an emotional narrative of a woman’s journey to Makkah and their Hajj, this is not it. Fortunately, SISTERS has created the ultimate women’s guide to Hajj and along with practical information, it includes many thoughtful, inspiring and even amusing personal stories, so please check out HerHajj.com for some of that. If you are looking for an interesting and rare historical travel memoir this, A Princess’s Pilgrimage, may delight you.

Sikandar Begum and her party of about a thousand pilgrims from Bhopal, India (yes, this Nawab’s (Muslim ruler) entourage was a thousand people) travelled to Makkah by ship in 1863 for a fourmonth-long pilgrimage. The narrative includes many passages attesting to how dangerous and complicated it was to travel at that time. On the loss of some of her party, Sikandar Begum says, “On the pilgrimage, I lost eight altogether, four of whom died on board ship and four at Mecca and Jeddah… Two persons also disappeared out of my suite and never found again: one woman whom we lost on the pilgrimage, and the other a water-carrier who went to Medina. I do not know what became of them.” A portion of Sikandar Begum’s suite separated from her to go to Medina, amongst them “a great many people died.” An entire chapter of the book details the extent she went to procure a safe passage to Medina and explains why she eventually passed the opportunity up.

The Nawab appears to have been a pragmatic ruler, which is reflected in her detailing the practical aspects of the pilgrimage throughout the book. There is nearly an entire chapter devoted to her struggles with paying taxes on the goods she carried to Jeddah, including items for her personal use, gifts for the Sherif and Pasha’s families and sadaqah to be distributed to the poor. It
takes little reading between the lines to pick up on the frustration Sikandar Begum had with the way her mother, Nawab Dowager Begum, distributed the ample sadaqah she had brought. Nawab Dowager Begum openly and seemingly without much plan distributed her wealth to the poor in Makkah, immediately creating an enormous reputation for herself which made moving about more complicated as she and her generosity were then continuously sought out. Sikandar Begum notes that even prior to being aware of the elder Nawab’s generosity, the Bedouins along the route from Jeddah to Medina had tried to kidnap the elder Nawab. Not knowing Arabic or being able to distinguish potential robbers from locally hired help, Her Highness only thought they were feeble-mindedly separating her from her travel companions, remaining oblivious to the danger she was in until much later.

Communication breakdowns and culture clashes are recurring themes in this short book. Sikandar Begum’s exchanges, both verbal and in gift-giving, with her Arab hosts and their Turkish employees result in several faux pas, sometimes with violent repercussions! Staying in a hired (or was it gifted? There were also many confusions with regard to which services were freely hosted and which were hired) home of the Sherif (noble leader), Sikandar Begum eventually had to place a firm commandment that peoplewho could not communicate directly with her and her guests without interpreters be barred from all personal living quarters and sitting areas. The male employees of the Sherif frequently barged in on the mostly female entourage of the Nawab, and further created a great deal of confusion and fitnah by relaying erroneous, misinterpreted information back to the Sherif. The book could easily be made into a slapstick production with all the misunderstandings Sikandar Begum experienced and spent much time trying to fix.

I know that it should go without saying, and I feel nearly naïve to have felt so, but some of Sikandar Begum’s accounts are saddening, considering the setting of Hajj - the racism, the poverty, the brutishness and so on. It was only Sikandar Begum’s constant level-headedness and wit that remind readers of the importance to remain firm to the business at hand as she did - Hajj! The book’s introduction is very helpful, placing the greater setting of when and why A Princess’s Pilgrimage was written and published, but the afterword is also a treasure. Siobhan Lambert-Hurley offers a collection of further reads with her ‘Muslim Women Write Their Journeys Abroad.’

An excerpt of A Princess’s Pilgrimage is on page 96 of this issue of SISTERS magazine. A Princess’s Pilgrimage is available through Kubepublishing.com, Amazon and other retailers.

**This review was written by Brooke Benoit for issue #71 of SISTERS magazine, Brooke enjoys reading a wide selection of non-fiction material, especially travel memoirs and especially, especially Muslim women’s travel memories.

[فیصل مجید · Rating 4 out of 5]

‎سفرنامہ حج
‎تحقیق، مقدمہ، حواشی از زیف سید
‎
‎ڈھائی سو کے قریب صفحات پر مشتمل اس کتاب کو بک کارنر، جہلم نے احسن انداز سے شائع کیا ہے اور اسکی قیمت پندرہ سو روپے ہے۔
‎زیف سید کے مقدمہ کے بعد کسی بات کی ضرورت نہیں رہتی۔ مختصراً یہ کہ نواب سکندر بیگم آف بھوپال کا سفر حج اس دور میں کسی انقلاب سے کم نہیں تھا۔ اور اس سفر کی روداد کو بغیر کسی لگی لپٹی کے درست انداز سے بیان کیا ہے۔ جس میں ہندوستانی معاشرت اور عربی معاشرت کا موازنہ جابجا ملتا ہے۔ ایسا لگتا ہے ان دنوں مکہ کی انتظامی سہولیات بھوپال سے کمتر تھی۔ اور امن و امان کی خرابی کے باعث مدینہ منورہ کا سفر انہوں نے نہیں کیا۔ اسی طرح کی بہت سی باتوں سے آگاہی ملتی ہے جس سے آپکے نظری تقدس پر ضرب لگتی ہے۔ یہ سفرنامہ ایک طرح سے تاریخی دستاویز ہے جس کو بک کارنر، جہلم نے محفوظ کرلیا ہے اور ہم تک میسر آگیا ہے جس کے لئے ہم زیف سید کے بھی مشکور ہیں۔
‎
‎از Faisal Majeed
‎

[آية · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the editor's work in putting this memoir together and providing a very illuminating introduction. If I were rating this just based on the editor's work, I'd give it 5 stars. But unfortunately, I have to agree with the editor that the memoir itself contains no spiritual aspect of the hajj, and uses very imperialistic language to describe Makkah and its people.

This memoir is mostly about the logistics of a princess leading a hajj group from India in the nineteenth century. Some of it was really as fascinating as it sounds--the logistics of hiring enough camels, getting everyone's luggage where it needed to go via ships and land travel, corresponding with the Arab shaykhs and Turkish pashas to ensure housing and travel routes were available, etc. However, none of this includes any of the personal, spiritual, or religious importance of the hajj--in fact, it often felt like the princess was just writing a list of complaints on delays, her miscommunication with the Arab or Turkish-speaking officials, and so on.

It was surprising to me--though perhaps it shouldn't have been, since, as the editor notes, the princess's intended audience were the Europeans who commissioned this memoir--that it often read like the average 19th century European memoir, complete with huge generalizations (the Turks, for example, were all dirty) and ethnocentric judgments (for example, she dismisses Arab architecture as inferior simply because homes had their kitchens built close to their bedrooms, something that was contrary to the architecture back in India apparently).

I specifically disliked her harsh and disrespectful tone of Makkah (which, according to the princess, has a "dreary, repulsive aspect" and whose inhabitants are "miserly," "awkward and stupid"). It's possible there were things lost in the translation, but the overall tone of the memoir is similar.

Nevertheless, I did find the insight into normal Meccan customs at the time interesting. It was especially interesting that the sherif and pasha in Mecca didn't seem to treat the princess differently or with any less respect than the male rulers/officials coming on pilgrimage--at least the princess didn't mention being treated differently by them on account of her gender. They often visited her, invited her to their homes, and exchanged gifts and other diplomatic gestures.

But I wouldn't really recommend it as an enjoyable/time-passing read, but it is undeniably an excellent primary source for scholars interested in this region/period/genre.

[Abidah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Quite boring if u want to read it for spiritual purposes... It is more a book about how people were treated at that time etc.