“Preface” in “A Journey to Mecca and London: The Travels of an Indian Muslim Woman, 1909–1910”
Preface
What is life? It is a journey. We have long been traveling on this journey, we continue on it now, and we will remain on it until we reach our destination, though there is no knowing if we will manage to reach our True destination.
What is the story of our life? It is a travelogue, a travelogue we have long been writing through our actions, which we are writing now, and which we will continue to write until our life’s journey concludes. When it does, our entire life will appear as though it were nothing more than a dream or a story.
The present travelogue contains one interesting chapter from the story of my life. I was young then, and my husband, my lord, Nawab Sarbuland Jung, chief justice of Hyderabad (Deccan), was still alive. This travelogue relates a period when my life was still pervaded by the intoxication we call “life.” Now, as I put these scattered pages into order, Nawab Sarbuland Jung, by whom I traveled the East and the West, has left this world. He is in the spiritual plane while I drown in the inundations of this material world. Though I am still surrounded by life’s physical luxuries, my soul’s tranquility departed with him.
I am deadened now to the pleasures of life. Even still, my soul grows restless when I recall the lattice that surrounds the tomb of the Ruler of Medina [the Prophet Muhammad], when visions of its green dome appear before my eyes. My heart yearns to travel to the Land of the Beloved, to return to the soil of Medina and press it to my eyes.1 Just my lord’s tomb, its lattice, and me. I would grasp the lattice and cry out, “My lord! My master! Why did you leave me in India to suffer without you? Oh, Father, are you angry with me? Yes, I am a sinner, but I belong to you. I am base, but I am yours. Summon me. Summon me to you. Living far away in India leaves me distraught.” I would speak these words and shed these tears, and then I would hear his voice intone, “I am yours, and you are mine.” I would hear these words and fall unconscious, unconscious forever more.2
Only the memory of Medina soothes my heart now. This travelogue began from my pilgrimage to Medina, and the journey of my life will conclude with my recollections of the Lord of Medina. These are the provisions of my life, and this is my travelogue. Before I had traveled, and before I had made a pilgrimage to the Land of the Beloved, I had longed to see it. And now that I have made not just one but two pilgrimages there, my separation from it fills me with sorrow. The pull of the Prophet’s land drew me from India toward itself. Then, by the grace of the Prophet, I also saw Egypt, the Levant, and Iraq.3 I visited Italy, France, and England. As I traveled, I went on recording my emotions and feelings.
In my travelogue you will find neither literary merit nor poetic flights of fancy. I am an emotional human; here you will find nothing but emotions. I have simply recorded my emotions in broken, ill-fashioned words. I myself do not know what I have written. The truth is that I did not write this travelogue with the intention of publishing it. This is not really a travelogue, so much as a private, personal diary I kept to preserve my memory or to assuage my emotions.
Children love their parents and everything about them, so it is no wonder that my children love this diary of mine too.4 It is through their insistence and effort that my travelogue, or diary, has been published. In my opinion it is too lacking in literary finesse and style to be put before the nation.
Alongside my heartfelt emotions, in this travelogue you will also find sketches of the cultures and societies of women from other nations. From them you will learn to what extent the women and men of other countries differ from the people of India and just how distant their societies are from ours. There were many things in these foreign countries that I did not like at all. I also saw much that should be adopted by Indians, and which Indian bibis in particular should adopt.
Unfortunately for India, Western culture is spreading here. The women of India are charging madly toward Western freedoms. The thing I felt most strongly after traveling abroad was that the same blind freedom that is now destroying India has already plundered the peace and true repose of the West. This blind freedom and this foreign culture have made the visible aspects of their lives appear very attractive and pleasant. Yet inwardly their lives are not so pleasant at all but seem rather to be devoid of any spiritual contentment.
After closely examining the situation in India and other foreign lands, I have concluded that the best life for women is the one once lived by the Muslim bibis of the earliest centuries [of Islam]. The bibis of the first Islamic centuries did not remain shut up in their houses chewing paan and frittering away their time in useless chatter. Nor were they objects for men’s entertainment, like Western women. They were responsible members of the household. They raised their children and maintained their homes. There were also women among them who, like Hazrat Ayesha, even went out to the battlefield to tend to the wounded.5 There was no excess then, as today. This is why the generations that they raised in their laps soon conquered half of the world.
My message to my sisters is this: After reading my travelogue, please consider the conditions of women in these many countries and reflect on your chosen direction on the battleground of life.6 I do not claim that my travelogue contains a vast wealth of new information, but I do believe that my heartfelt emotions will provide some guidance to my sisters.
The Dweller of the Dust of Medina,
Begum Nawab Sarbuland Jung
Daryaganj, Delhi
Notes
- 1.A gesture of veneration and humility.
- 2.As Begum Sarbuland surely knew from her second trip to Medina in 1934, her vision was no long possible in reality. Under Saudi rule, such forms of devotion as clinging to the lattice surrounding the Prophet’s tomb were strictly prohibited and heavily policed. Saudi regulations, though, had no effect on her written expressions of devotion. See Majchrowicz, “Early Indian Responses.”
- 3.The diary mentions Iraq twice, including on the title page, but she never visits any location that could conceivably be considered part of Iraq. The closest she reaches is Damascus.
- 4.This line suggests that the diary was read by and known to her family, not a “private diary” in the restricted sense of the phrase.
- 5.Ayesha (614–678), or Aisha, was the Prophet’s third wife. She is acclaimed among Sunni Muslims particularly as a scholar, intellectual, and leading figure in the spread of Islam.
- 6.This sentence suggests, perhaps intentionally, that women were Begum Sarbuland’s intended readership. This was a common assertion in travel writing by women authors in Urdu. Language of this kind may have helped address questions of propriety surrounding publication for a general readership, but it may also be that Begum Sarbuland wished to speak primarily to sharif women like herself. Majchrowicz, “Malika Begum’s Mehfil,” 871.
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