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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.
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.
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On
his return to
Cairo
, Mahmoud Churchward married the daughter of a prominent
Shafi‘i 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: ‘One 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 ‘Ulema (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. ‘My dear
chap,’ he told him, sipping an iced drink on the Consular
veranda, ‘to 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. ‘On the Indian deck,’ he recorded, ‘there
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: ‘Owing 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.’
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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. ‘Finding a level place on the
irregular stones I lay down anew’, he wrote. ‘This 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, ‘while 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. ‘Against 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.
‘On
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).’
‘Some
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: ‘Mubarak! Welcome
to my house.’ ‘I replied that I felt proud to live
in her house, whereat she answered that she was proud of me.
‘The Kafirs make good cheese,’ declared the lady, ‘they
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.
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