Muslim Devotional Art in India (2nd Edition) 9781138354180, 9780429424984

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Muslim Devotional Art in India This book highlights the history of Islamic popular devotional art and visual culture in 20th-century India, weaving the personal narrative of the author’s journey through his understanding of the faith. It begins with an introductory exploration of how the basic and universal image of Mecca and Medina may have been imported into Indian popular print culture and what variants it resulted in here. Besides providing a historical context of the pre-print culture of popular Muslim visuality, the book also explores the impact the 1947 Partition of India may have made on the calendar art in South Asia. A significant portion of the book focuses on the contemporary prints of different localised images found in India and what role these play in the users’ lives, especially in the augmentation of their popular faith and cultural practices. The volume also compares the images published in India with some of those available in Pakistan to reflect different socio-political trajectories. Finally, it discusses why such a vibrant visual culture continues to thrive among South Asian Muslims despite the questions raised by the orthodoxy on its legitimacy in Islam, and why images and popular visual cultures are inevitable for popular piety despite the orthodox Muslims’ increasing dissociation from them. This work is one of the first books on Indian Muslim poster art, with rare images and simple narratives, anecdotes about rituals, ceremonies and cultural traditions running parallel to research findings. This second edition contains a new A erword that discusses challenges to religious plurality arising on account of changing political landscapes, economic liberalisation, technology and new media, and socio-religious developments. It will appeal to the lay reader as well as the specialist and will be especially useful to researchers and scholars in popular culture, media and cultural studies, visual art and performance studies, and sociology and social anthropology. Yousuf Saeed is an independent filmmaker and researcher, and project director of Tasveer Ghar, a digital archive of South Asian popular visual culture. Starting his career

in educational television in 1990 by co-directing Turning Point, a science-based TV series for Doordarshan, India’s public broadcaster, he moved on to directing documentary films on a variety of subjects, such as Ladakh, Sufi heritage, and India’s syncretic cultural traditions. His documentary films Basant, The Train to Heaven, Khayal Darpan, Khusrau Darya Prem Ka, and Campus Rising have been shown at numerous national and international film festivals as well as on TV channels. He has worked at the Encyclopaedia Britannica (India) as image editor on many of its India-specific publications. He has also been a Sarai Fellow (at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi, 2004), an Asia Fellow (at the Asian Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok, 2005) and a Margaret Beveridge Senior Research Fellow (at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, 2009) for various research-based projects on media and popular art. He has made lecturing tours in Europe and America, where he has shown his films as well as images from his extensive collection of popular Muslim devotional art. He also co-edited Visual Homes, Image Worlds: Essays from Tasveer Ghar (2015) besides contributing to several recent publications.

‘The breadth of coverage of issues related to Muslim popular visual culture . . . for insights, as well as the extraordinarily rich collection of images that will serve as a comprehensive reference for many years to come, this book is highly recommended to scholars and other readers alike.’ Sandria Freitag, Indian Economic Social History Review ‘Saeed takes us on a journey throughout India, where we encounter visual art [in Islam] in the form of calligraphy, chromolithographs of Sufi saints, architecture, items of clothing, and ritual paraphernalia in abundance, especially within and around the compounds of the many dargahs that dot the landscape of India.’ Frank J. Korom, Religious Studies Review ‘Yousuf Saeed’s delightful book provides readers with a rare glimpse into the visual culture of Muslim communities in South Asia. Drawing on the author’s personal experiences and extensive research, it sensitively explores diverse aspects of Muslim devotional life through a vivid and vibrant tradition of popular art. Masterfully narrated and beautifully illustrated, this unique book is “a must read” for anyone interested in the popular religion of South Asia.’ Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA ‘In this welcome volume, Yousuf Saeed surveys significant examples of the colourful lithographs and other images that form a part of the devotional experience of many Indian Muslims. The work is historical, with a ention to the importance of technological innovations in photography, print and transportation. It also takes into account central themes in cultural and political history, including the impact of Partition, and devotional and reformist currents that alternately encouraged and disapproved of many of these images. This is a vivid account on a subject that will be of wide interest to lay and specialist readers alike.’ Barbara D. Metcalf, Professor Emeritus of History, University of California, Davis, USA ‘Yousuf Saeed writes with passion and verve, taking his readers along the alleys of his own experience and observations of Islam as practised in South Asia. He explores the South Asian Muslims’ appetite for images in their everyday religious piety, together with an incisive discussion of its context. In the process, he raises several significant questions to enable us to appreciate the distinctive features of

indigenous Muslim culture. He also shows how the recent melee of “Arabisation” and pristine purity threatens to affect and disfigure the nuanced beauties of its icons.’ Muzaffar Alam, George V. Bobrinskoy Professor in South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago, USA ‘This highly original and indeed path-breaking study of Muslim devotional art in India is full of visual beauty and intellectual surprises. It is destined to become the most important precedent and source for future studies on the important and hitherto-neglected subject of Islamic visual culture in South Asia.’ Faisal Devji, University Reader in Modern South Asian History, University of Oxford, UK

Muslim Devotional Art in India

YOUSUF SAEED Second Edition With a new A erword

Second edition published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Yousuf Saeed The right of Yousuf Saeed to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or herea er invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. First edition published in India by Routledge 2012 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-138-35418-0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-42498-4 (ebk) Designed and typeset by Sanjog Sharan for Karmic Design Typeset in Palatino Linotype by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of Figures

ix

List of Plates

xiii

Introduction: The Duller the Better

1

1. The Image of Mecca in India

13

2. The Popular Culture of Indian Muslims before Print

39

3. Heroes, Portraits and Miraculous Powers

57

4. Images of Use and the Use of Images

89

5. Images of the Two Nations

111

6. Postscript: Why Do Popular Images Thrive in the Muslim World Despite . . .?

155

Afterword to the Second Edition: Challenges to Religious Plurality

183

Glossary

193

Bibliography

201

Index

211

List of Figures

i. ii. 1. 2.

Quran Sharif, a devotional poster depicting the Qur’ān and the shrines in Mecca and Medina Women pilgrims praying at the Sufi shrine of Ajmer

xvii xviii

3. 4.

North Indian Muslims venerating ‘alams during Muharram ‘ashura Roz-e mehshar ke jān gudāz buad, a religious tughra used in Muslim homes Poster showing Mecca and Medina, with additional decoration Ya Karim, an Islamic image for a decorative calendar

2 5 6 11

1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. 1.7. 1.8. 1.9. 1.10. 1.11. 1.12. 1.13. 1.14. 1.15. 1.16.

Macca, a colour poster Image of the Mecca and Medina shrines on a greeting card Mecca and Medina icons on printed tiles Photo postcard of the shrine in Mecca Pencil drawing of the Masjid-e Nabawi in Medina Naqsha-e Haram-e Madinah Munawwarah, a postcard Naqsha-e Masjid Khif-o-Mina, a photo postcard Makka Muazzema, a colour print Naqsha Karbala-e Moula, a colour print Wall murals of Islamic shrines in a Jaipur mosque Early 20th-century photograph of the Ka’ba Illustration of the Ka’ba from a calendar catalogue Poster of a praying Muslim woman, with icons of Mecca and Medina Poster showing doves longing to visit Mecca and Medina Women tying threads of mannat (vows) on a tree at a Sufi shrine Devotees visiting a Sufi shrine with colourful iconography on it

12 15 17 19 21 22 23 25 27 29 30 31 32 33 36 38

2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5. 2.6. 2.7.

3.1. 3.2. 3.3. 3.4. 3.5. 3.6. 3.7. 3.8. 3.9. 3.10. 3.11. 3.12. 3.13. 3.14. 3.15. 3.16. 3.17. 3.18. 3.19. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3.

x

Calendar image of Muslims praying before the Ka’ba framed in a crescent Poster depicting oil lamps at the shrine of Madholal-Husain in Lahore Sayyad bāba ki jai, a placard for a roadside Sufi shrine in Mewat, Haryana Burraq-un Nabi, a colour poster 19th-century engraving showing a Muharram procession in north India Ya Hussain, a popular poster showing Zuljinah Nagaur Sharif, a poster depicting the mausoleum of Syed Shahul Hamid Qādri at Nagore, Tamil Nadu A small Sufi shrine atop a hill in Ajmer, Rajasthan Poster showing a collage of Arab and Iranian shrines Popular poster showing the Bait ul-Muqaddas shrine in Jerusalem Map of Moinuddin Chishti’s shrine in Ajmer, Rajasthan Naqsha Pahād Haji Malang Shah Bāba, a colour poster Poster depicting the shrine of Haji Ali Shah Bāba in Mumbai Poster depicting a meeting of six Sufi saints Poster showing a miracle of the saint Abdul Qādir Jeelāni Poster of Bāba Sailāni, a saint from Maharashtra Poster showing a map to reach Bāba Sailāni’s shrine Poster depicting a meeting or competition between Shah Madār and Shah Mina Portrait poster of Tājuddin Bāba Photograph of Tājuddin Bāba Image depicting the shrine and portrait of Haji Wāris Ali of Dewa Shabihe Hazrat Amir Khusrau, a photo collage Cover of a chapbook entitled Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed Portrait of Saeeduddin Khānun Chishti in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh Poster depicting calligraphed Āyat al-kursi Collage of various talismans depicting Shi’a-related icons Bismillah ir-Rahmān ir-Rahim, an Arabic tughra Poster with ‘Muhammad’ wri en in a large calligraphic size A poster with ‘Kalima-e Shahādat’ in calligraphy, and shaped like a praying man

41 43 45 46 48 51 56 58 63 64 65 66 67 69 70 71 73 74 76 76 77 78 79 80 87 88 90 91 92

4.4. 4.5. 4.6. 4.7. 4.8. 4.9. 4.10. 4.11. 4.12. 4.13. 4.14. 4.15. 4.16.

5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 5.5. 5.6. 5.7. 5.8. 5.9. 5.10. 5.11. 5.12. 5.13. 5.14. 5.15.

Hold on strongly to the rope of Allah, a colour poster. Poster showing gates with the miracles of different Biblical prophets Poster depicting a collection of tāviz (talismans) Shrines of Mecca and Medina shaped out of the 99 names of Allah and Muhammad Dukān aur makān ki khair-o barkat ke liye, a printed talisman Naqsh-e taksir-e jinna, a talisman to safeguard against jinns and evils Mashhur-Ālam Jantari, an almanac used by Hindus and Muslims Photograph of a shop selling religious images and artefacts near a Sufi shrine in Delhi Urs of Saint Dānish Ali Shah, a poster announcing a Sufi ceremony Lo Tikat Yāron Ajmer ka, the cover of a devotional audio-casse e Savāneh Hayāt-e Ghausul A’zam, the cover of a devotional audio-casse e Poster depicting a praying Muslim boy Poster showing Saint Shah Jamāl of Lahore, Pakistan, in a dancing posture A 1941 calendar from the Delhi Calendar Mfg. Co. showing an Islamic image Calendar image featuring Indian leader Maulana Azad Three Leaders, a calendar image showing prominent Indian leaders Calendar image showing Nehru and Gandhi being blessed by Lord Vishnu Message of Love, Bhārat Māta framed by religious and political leaders Calendar image depicting Gandhi, Jesus and Buddha blessing a cross-section of Indians Poster showing a Pakistani Sufi shrine Photograph of a lit-up Sufi shrine in Lahore, Pakistan Photograph of a paper model of the mosque in Medina Portrait of Moinuddin Chishti Poster portrait of the saint Abdul Qādir Jeelāni riding a horse Poster showing the saint Nau Lakh Hazāri of Shah Kot, Pakistan Poster portrait of the shrine keepers of the tomb of Mehr Ali of Golra Sharif, Pakistan Grand collage of 52 saints of South Asia Photograph of a decorated truck on a Pakistani highway

93 94 96 97 98 99 101 102 103 104 105 109 110

112 114 115 117 118 119 122 123 124 126 127 128 130 131 132 xi

5.16. Poster showing Pakistan’s national leaders, soldiers and martyrs 5.17. Pakistani poster protesting the demolition of the Babri mosque in India 5.18. Pani ke bādshah Hazrat Khwaja Khizr, a poster of Prophet Khizr 5.19. Photograph of the tomb of Bāba Shamsher Shah in Lahore, Pakistan 5.20. Poster of a praying Muslim woman, with icons of Mecca and Medina 5.21. Poster of an Indian Muslim boy in stereotypical a ire 5.22. Popular poster showing Muslim men praying together 5.23. Oh God bestow me with more knowledge, a poster emphasising the importance of knowledge 5.24. Still from the movie Khwaja ki Diwāni 5.25. Calendar image depicting a Muslim woman in a praying posture 5.26. Poster of Indian film actor Salman Khan in ‘Muslim’ a ire 5.27. Poster depicting the evolution and expansion of the shrine in Mecca 5.28. Photograph of an old man selling devotional ephemera outside a shrine 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 6.5. 6.6. 6.7. 6.8.

Pencil sketch of the Ka’ba Tombs in the Jannat ul-Baqi’ cemetery in Medina (ca. 1900) Photograph of a pilgrim si ing on a hill in Arafat near Mecca Photograph of escalators in the newly expanded Masjid al-Haram, Medina Photograph of the tombs in the Jannat ul-Mu’alla cemetery in Mecca (ca. 1900) Photograph of a young pilgrim reading prayers outside a cemetery in Medina Image of a Muslim sister and brother reading the Qur’an Yaseen, an image of a calligraphed passage from the Qur’an

133 135 139 140 141 142 143 144 146 147 148 152 154 159 162 163 164 165 171 180 182

 Every effort has been made to contact owners of copyright regarding the visual material and illustrations reproduced in this book. Perceived omissions if brought to notice will be rectified in future printing. The publishers apologise if inadvertently any source has remained unacknowledged.

xii

List of Plates

1

2

2 3

4

4

5 5

A popular poster showing Mecca and Medina with many additional icons serving a decorative purpose. Artist: Kishore. Publisher unknown [India], 1995. From the author’s collection. Macca, a colour poster from the 1930s. Published by Ajanta Art Calendar Mfg. Co. Delhi/Madras. From the collection of Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger. Used with permission. The icons of Mecca and Medina on a cluster of printed tiles on the wall of a Sufi shrine in Lucknow, U ar Pradesh. Photograph by the author, 2007. A poster depicting bleeding-heart doves longing to visit Mecca and Medina. Artist: Balkrishna. Publisher unknown, ca. 1995. From the author’s collection. Naqsha-e Haram-e Madinah Munawwarah, a photo postcard showing the Masjid-e Nabawi in Medina, framed by text in Urdu giving details about the place. Published by H. A. Mirza and Sons, ca. 1907. From the Fouad Debbas Collection. Used with permission from the Archives for Historical Documentation, Boston, MA. Makka Muazzema, a colour print published by Anant Shivaji Desai, Bombay. Printed by Ravi Varma Fine Art Litho Works, Karla-Lonavla, ca. 1930. From the collection of Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger. Used with permission. Burraq-un Nabi, the Prophet’s stead which had taken him to heaven during his mi’rāj. Artist unknown. Published by I. P. Co, ca. 1940s. Ya Hussain, a popular poster showing Zuljinah, the horse of Imam Hussain in Karbala. Artist: H. R. Raja. Publisher unknown, 1995.

 6

 7  7

 8  9

 9

10

11

11

12 13

13

14

xiv

Naqsha Pahād Haji Malang Shah Bāba, a map showing the arduous route to the shrine of Haji Malang atop a hill near Kalyan, Maharashtra. Artist unknown. Published by Jothi, 1995. From the author’s collection. A poster depicting a collage of Arab and Iranian shrines visited by Shi’as during ziyārat. Published by Brijbasi, ca. 1995. From the author’s collection. Bait ul-Muqaddas, a popular poster depicting the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem. Artist and publisher unknown, ca. 1995. From the author’s collection. A portrait poster of Tājuddin. Artist unknown. Published by J. B. Khanna, 1995. From the author’s collection. A poster depicting a meeting of six saints (along with their shrines on the margins of the image), clockwise from top right: Abdul Qādir Jilāni (Baghdad), Bu Ali Sharf (Panipat), Nizamuddin Aulia (Delhi), Bāba Farid (Shakar Ganj), Qutbuddin (Delhi), and Moinuddin Chishti (Ajmer). Artist and publisher unknown, 1995. From the author’s collection. A poster showing a miracle of the saint Abdul Qādir Jilāni (right), alongside his shrine in Baghdad visited by a devotee (le ). Artist unknown. Published by Brijbasi, 1995. From the author’s collection. Hold on strongly to the rope of Allah and remain united, a colour poster showing a knot that signifies unity among Muslims, alongside religious and other icons. Artist unknown. Published by Brijbasi, 1995. A poster depicting calligraphed Āyat al-kursi, a potent passage from the Qur’ān, used as a talisman. Publisher and artist unknown, ca. 2001. From the author’s collection. A poster with ‘Muhammad’ wri en in large calligraphic size incorporating other text from the Qur’ān in smaller size within. Artist unknown. Published by Brijbasi, 1995. From the author’s collection. A 1941 calendar from Delhi Calendar Mfg. Co. showing an Islamic image. A poster showing the portrait and shrine of Sufi saint Bāba Farid from Pakpa an, Pakistan. Publisher unknown, 2004. From the author’s collection. A poster showing Saint Shah Jamal of Lahore, Pakistan, in a dancing posture commonly associated with him. Notice the cut-and-paste elements used for the production of this poster by artist Sarwar Khan. From the author’s collection, 2005. A poster portrait of the saint Abdul Qādir Jeelāni riding a horse, produced in Lahore, Pakistan. Artist and publisher unknown, ca. 2004.

15

15

16

A popular poster showing Muslim men of different social strata praying together – an image that emphasises Islam’s egalitarianism. Artist unknown. Published by Brijbasi, 1995. Oh God bestow me with more knowledge, a poster emphasising the importance of knowledge and education, showing various icons associated with knowledge and the sciences. Artist unknown. Published by Brijbasi, 1995. Poster of a Muslim boy in stereotypical a ire reading the Qur’an. Artist unknown. Published by Brijbasi, 1995.

xv

Fig. i. Quran Sharif, a devotional poster depicting the Qur’ān and the shrines at Mecca and Medina. Published by Brijbasi, New Delhi, ca. 1960. From the author’s collection.

Fig. ii. Women pilgrims praying at the Sufi shrine of Ajmer that has a wall mural depicting (from the top) the shrines of Mecca, Medina and Ajmer. Photograph by the author, 2005.

INTRODUCTION

The Duller the Better

As a child I believed that Muslims were of two kinds — those who prepared

halwa (fudge) on the occasion of Shab‑e Barāt1 and those who didn’t. Ours was a family that didn’t, much to the disappointment of my cousins and I, who satiated our cravings somehow with the platefuls of halwa sent by our neighbours. They used to make, and still do, so many varieties of them on Shab‑e Barāt — the dried hard cakes of suji ka halwa (fudge made of flour) or the soft chane ki dāl ka halwa (fudge made of gram pulse, oil and sugar) — both extremely irresistible, especially since they were not being cooked in our house that day. Our elders would provide solace in the declaration that by not preparing the halwa we were being better and purer Muslims compared to those who did. And since by doing that we had a surer chance of going to paradise, we would get even more delicious varieties of halwa there.

This used to be somewhat puzzling to me: Why should someone be declared a flawed Muslim for preparing a sweet delicacy and distributing it around? And what really is this difference that made us better? I started noticing other dividing lines too: our neighbours used to observe customs such as Muharram or Eid‑e Milād un‑ Nabi (the Prophet’s birthday) with much fervour and élan, while we sat at home, simply watching from our terrace the noisy and colourful processions pass by the street below. They made some grand ta’zias (replicas of the martyrs’ tombs) and

‘alams (flags) on the occasion of Muharram in the densely populated town of Moradabad in north India, where I spent a part of my childhood in the 1970s. For hours I would watch the boys cut green paper frills and screens and paste them around long bamboo skeletons, giving them the shape of beautiful towers that would be carried in the processions, accom‑ panied by the loud drumming of brass cymbals and kettledrums play‑ ing a marching beat that still echoes in my ears (Fig. 1). Often the proces‑ sions carried large paintings of revered Islamic icons such as Burrāq or Zuljinah, or even a model of Med‑ ina’s green‑domed mosque. On the Prophet’s birthday, candles were lit on the façades of our neighbours’ houses and a neyāz (blessing/prayer) was of‑ fered on sweetmeats before distribut‑ ing them. Women and grown‑up girls would gather at homes to sing milāds and nā’ts (songs in praise of the Prophet).

Fig. 1. Shi’a and Sunni Muslim men and women venerating ‘alams during Muharram ‘ashura in a village in Uar Pradesh, India. Photograph by the author, 2009.

Members of our family, however, kept themselves aloof from all this. If my cousins and I were ever found standing on the road, watching the boys prepare the ta’zias, we were quickly dragged inside and scolded by an uncle, as if in so doing we might have picked an infectious disease from the street urchins. Sometimes even the boys indulging in these activities were harshly scolded or asked to take their paraphernalia someplace else. I noticed our elders using words like bid’ati or Barelvi to deplore our neighbours and their activities, while the terms Deobandi or Wah‑ hābi were used to refer to our family’s religious affiliation.

2

Muslim Devotional Art in India

Although I still could not follow the exact significance of this difference, some amount of prejudice had been ingrained in me for the so‑called Barelvis, and natu‑ rally, pride for ourselves on being Deobandis. We were made to understand, as we grew older, that the culture and religious practices of Indian Muslims have been corrupted due to centuries of intermingling with Hindus. Rituals such as visiting the graves of local saints, celebrating their urs (death anniversaries), using tāviz (amulets), or saying a neyāz over food prepared in the memory of deceased family members, are all bid’ats or innovations that have no sanctity in true Islam, which is canonised in the Qur’ān, the hadis and shari’a (religious laws in Islam).

D

eoband and Bareilly are names of two towns in north India’s Uttar Pradesh, often associated with two divergent factions among South Asia’s Sunni Muslims (although the followers do not necessarily come from these towns). While Deoband is famous for a madrasa or seminary named Dārul‑Uloom (established in 1866), preaching a more reformative Islam, some‑ times labelled as Wahhābism, Bareilly is known for an Islamic scholar named Ahmed Raza Khan (b. 1856), whose followers have over the years inculcated a more syncretic and pantheistic Islam, involving ‘innovations’ or local religio‑cul‑ tural practices. While this division may not be very strict in all places and at all times (nor is it the only way to describe the complexity of Sunni Muslim society), the hostility between the Deobandis and the Barelvis in South Asia (especially Pakistan) has often grown to the extent of the two sects having different mosques, neighbourhoods and even violent confrontations over minor issues. But ironically, in much of the Arab or Pan‑Islamic world today, where Wahhābism is being re‑ placed by an even stricter doctrine, Salafism,2 the South Asian term ‘Deobandi’ is interpreted differently — Salafis find no difference between Deobandis and Barelvis, as they think that both, having an Indian origin, have a soft corner for Sufism and other pseudo‑Islamic folklore and rituals.3 However, when this book uses the words ‘Wahhābi’ or ‘Wahhābism’, most often it connotes the larger atti‑ tude of rigid, puritan Muslims, not necessarily only what Mohammad ibn Wahhāb (b. 1703) or his followers advocate.

Introduction

3

Since this realisation about a ‘cleansing’ of one’s faith, for me as well as others, came at a time when one was already discovering the benefits of education, moder‑ nity, hygiene, economic prosperity, and so on, the liberation from the ‘decadent’ cultural practices seemed very natural. The result was a new generation of 20th‑ century educated Muslims abhorring all traces of innovation in their religious prac‑ tices and embracing a sanitised Islam, the awareness of which had newly been imported from Arabia.4 More importantly, by not mingling with the lower mid‑ dle‑class bid’ati Muslims of the locality, our family had assumed a higher status, a sort of elite class among the Muslims. Often, the disapproval of old customs was so severe that we were reprimanded even for kite‑flying, pigeon‑keeping and laugh‑ ing loudly in public.5 While old cultural practices may have been full of colour, celebration, sounds, and beauty, they looked pale and corrupted before the polished modernity of new television sets, glossy magazines and ballpoint pens. Many a time, while passing through streets with Sufi shrines on them, I might have looked with disdain at people selling or buying brightly coloured posters of shrines, saints or strange figures, some of which I didn’t even know were Islamic. The only images to be found in our own house, if any, were framed photographs or calendars depicting the shrines of Mecca and Medina, or Qur’ānic āyāt (excerpts) or Urdu poetry in decorative calligraphy (Fig. 2). I do not remember any discussion on what kind of images were allowed in our house, but we certainly didn’t have any posters of Sufi saints, their shrines, or of a pious Muslim woman reading the Qur’ān, although ‘sceneries’ or secular images of nature were an exception. ‘Angels do not enter a house which has an image or a dog’, was a hadis we were often told. Thus, from an orthodox family background such as this, to my present pastime of collecting and studying the popular Islamic art of India, it has been a long journey, involving the crossing of many ideological hurdles, some of which I try to explore through this book.

About this Book The popular art of Indian streets and calendars is usually overlooked by many as cheap ephemera used by the poor and rural folk for devotion, decoration, or infor‑ mation. Only recently have some sociologists, art historians and collectors started taking it seriously. Enthusiasts such as Delhi’s Patricia Uberoi (along with sociologist J. P. S. Uberoi), among others, have been collecting old calendars and popular printed ephemera for many decades, and have even written about it.6 Similarly,

4

Muslim Devotional Art in India

Fig. 2. ‘Roz‑e mehshar ke jān gudāz buad, awwalien pursish‑e namāz buad’, a popular Persian verse meaning ‘On the day of judgment, when the souls would be melting, the first interrogation [of people] would be about the prayers’ — commonly used as a tughra inside mosques and Muslim homes all over South Asia and the Persianate world. Calligraphy: M. A. Munawwar Raqm, ca. 1980. From the author’s collection.

scholars such as Partha Mitter,7 Kajri Jain,8 Christopher Pinney,9 Jyotindra Jain,10 and many others, have highlighted in detail the development of Indian popular art with Hindu and nationalistic themes. The printed Islamic images of South Asia, however, have largely remained an unexplored area, with the exception of recent works by Jürgen Wasim Frembgen11 and Sandria Freitag.12 Sadly, the richness and plurality of the Indo‑Islamic popular visual culture, which this book tries to celebrate, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. There are very few varieties of popular Muslim posters being produced in India today. And even they lack the fer‑ vour they used to have till probably the end of the 20th century (Fig. 3). My guess is that most urban Muslims born in India after the 1980s may not have seen the public use of many images featured in this book. This vibrant industry had a short lifespan not because Muslims don’t need images any more; they still do, but their ‘visual need’ is probably being fulfilled now by the 24‑hour telecasts of religious TV sermons, where the icons of Arabic calligraphy, the holy Qur’ān on a bookstand and the shrines of Mecca and Medina appear in their new three‑dimensional ani‑

Introduction

5

mation avatars with futuristic music. The New Age Muslim no longer dec‑ orates his walls with fluttering calen‑ dars showing Sufi miracles. His favourite screensaver is a digital Ka’ba, and azān13 the ring‑tone of his cellphone. However, the purpose of this book is not merely to criticise the new Islamic orthodoxy or to roman‑ ticise India’s cultural syncretism, which is one of the trends today. This work is a multidisciplinary survey to understand how the Muslim cultural practices of visuality transformed with the arrival of print and new media in India, and how the printed image in turn affected popular Mus‑ lim piety and the devotional gaze. How did events such as the Partition of India influence the Muslim print culture in the country, and what is replacing the older visual culture today. The book is not about ‘classi‑ cal’ forms of Islamic art, such as ar‑ Fig. 3. A popular poster showing Mecca and Medina with many additional icons serving a decorative chitecture, geometric patterns, purpose. Artist: Kishore. Publisher unknown [India], miniature paintings and portraiture, 1995. From the author’s collection. textiles, book illuminations, or callig‑ raphy, which were largely patron‑ ised by the elite in pre‑modern times, though these might have inspired some popular prints presented here. Although the focus here is mostly the Muslim visual culture of 20th‑century north India, some of my findings may apply to Muslim cul‑ tures anywhere in the world (in fact, even to non‑Muslims, since some of them too buy Islamic images). Having said that, I also do not wish to club all Muslims in a single monolithic entity, and am aware of the diverse ways in which devotional im‑ ages are treated in different parts of the Indo‑Muslim world.

6

Muslim Devotional Art in India

It should be noted that most of my analysis and findings are not geared towards a purely academic theorisation, nor are these the result of a formal ethnographic survey, which is often expected of such a study. I have simply tried to use my long‑ term observations of images and cultural trends to write a personal narrative that could hopefully be enjoyed both by lay readers as well as specialists. I also hope and wish that this small effort will trigger some healthy debate and more elaborate research on the areas I touch upon. Some readers may argue that it is inappropriate to highlight these popular de‑ votional posters (and their associated hybrid culture), since they do not represent ‘true Islam’ and are in fact an anomaly that should be rectified. One Muslim friend even commented that in today’s age, when many Muslims are trying to be progres‑ sive, peace‑loving and unobtrusive in order to shun the tag of terror, fundamental‑ ism and backwardness, I am unnecessarily raking up a dirty, hybrid past that has no relevance. Well, it is true that the image practices mentioned here have hardly any sanctity in Islamic scriptures or jurisprudence. But they are a part of a living culture that has evolved with the influence of local cultures on the faith and prac‑ tices of Indian Muslims. Due to their sheer scale, they cannot be wished away (nor could they have been in the past), even if we want to.14 Islamicists, however, would point out that social anthropologists are at fault if they study only the ‘apparent culture’ of Muslims and not the scriptures.15 It is true that the contemporary culture of Sufi shrines in South Asia is full of decadence, superstition and exploitation, in contrast with the emerging sanitisation of the Arab or global‑Islamic world, a di‑ rection which many progressive Muslims today feel they must ideally follow. But is cultural cleansing or a homogenous Arabisation the only way to become a good Muslim? Are there no ingredients from our local histories that could help South Asian Muslims build modern yet culturally diverse identities that they could be proud of? These are some of my crucial questions. The book is divided, roughly, into five broad sections: The first one is an intro‑ ductory exploration of how the basic and universal icons of Mecca and Medina may have been imported into Indian popular print culture and what variants it resulted in here. The second section goes back into the past, trying to reconstruct the popular visual culture of Muslims in pre‑modern India, to understand the context in which print culture may have arrived. The third section, which is the bulk of the book, ex‑ plores the contemporary prints of the different localised images found in India and what role they play in the users’ lives, especially in the augmentation of their popular

Introduction

7

faith and cultural practices. Also related to this is a section on the use of the word as a sacred image in popular prints and the role of these prints in healing and talismanic practices. The fourth section briefly compares the Muslim visual culture of India with that of Pakistan, as different trends in both countries significantly reflect their different socio‐political trajectories. The last section is a short introspec‐ tion on why a vibrant visual culture continues to thrive among South Asian Mus‐ lims despite the questions raised by the orthodox regarding its legitimacy in Islam, and why images and popular visual cultures are inevitable for popular piety despite orthodox Muslims’ increasing dissociation from them. This book uses many words and terms that are often debated for their interpre‐ tation — and even spellings. The word ‘Mecca’, for instance, is increasingly being spelled by the Muslim world (and officially by Saudi Arabia) as ‘Makkah’, not only to Arabise the ‘colonial’ spelling, but also to differentiate it from two American towns (besides a casino and a trademark!) called Mecca, and from its generic use in a phrase such as ‘the mecca of shoppers…’ With no intention of hurting anyone’s sentiments, I am inclined to use the conventional English spelling not only because it continues to be the standard usage in works such as the Oxford English Diction‐ ary (which has had no entry for Makkah until now), but also because Mecca for me conveys more than just a set of buildings in the town of Makkah; it is something more personal. For spellings of many Arabic/Persian words (such as hadis, Ramazān), I have preferred the age‐old Indian pronunciations. I am also aware of the debates on the usage of words like Islamic, Islamicate, Muslim, popular culture, bazaar art, and folklore, which I use here in the conventional sense, but with caution. The ideas and ingredients for this book began accumulating many years ago, and in collaboration with some friends and colleagues who I am indebted to. While researching in 1995 for a documentary film on the mediaeval poet Amir Khusrau, my colleague Iffat Fatima and I collected a few of the initial bunch of Islamic posters that are a part of my collection (many of which are unavailable in the market now) and held discussions on at least some of the issues elaborated in this book. My travels to Saudi Arabia in 1998 and 2001, although not connected to this book, opened many vistas of thinking for me. I started taking these images seriously (and collecting many more) as a Fellow of Sarai–CSDS (Centre for the Study of Devel‐ oping Societies), Delhi, in 2004. Since then I have intensified my research, written

8

Muslim Devotional Art in India

and published a bit, curated small exhibits, and spoken at various symposia in India and abroad about Muslim popular visual culture. I am grateful to all the friends and institutions that helped in various ways with this work, including Shuddha‐ brata Sengupta (and his colleagues at Sarai), Vazira Zamindar, Jyotindra Jain, Sandria Freitag, Savyasachi, F.‘Nalini’ Delvoye, Sunil Sharma, Jüergen Wasim Frembgen, and Shohini Ghosh, among others. Although acknowledgements for most of the images used are given along with their captions, I would like to espe‐ cially thank Fr Carney Gavin of the Archives for Historical Documentation in Brighton, MA (USA), Sophie Couëtoux of Musée Albert‐Kahn (France), Priya Paul (Delhi), Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger (Austria), for allowing me to use images from their priceless collections. Thanks are also due to Mohammad Ar‐ shad and Atmaram Bhakal for reading the manuscript and giving valuable sugges‐ tions. I am grateful to Sumathi Ramaswamy and Christiane Brosius at the Tasveer Ghar initiative for their support. And finally, I would like to thank my parents, my wife Sadia Fatima and my sisters for all their help during the creation of this work.

Notes

1.

A special night of prayer and festivity that comes a few days before the Islamic month of Ramazān.

2.

An extreme ideology followed by some Muslims who believe in the literal interpretation of the Prophet’s ahādis, and none of the later interpretations or developments in Islam.

3.

Sajid Abdul Kayum, The Jamāt Tableegh and the Deobandis: A Critical Analysis of their Beliefs, Books and Dawah, AHYA Multimedia, 2001, http://www.ahya.org/tjonline/ (accessed 20 De‐ cember 2010).

4.

However, reformative Islam is not altogether a new phenomenon; it has existed in India (parallel to the hybrid practices) since much before the 20th century, through the efforts of scholars like Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi (b. 1564), Shah Waliullah (b. 1703) and others. The word ‘Wahhābi’ has started being used for it only recently, say, after the 1950s.

Introduction

9

5.

While such a strict attitude was found in my home, it may not necessarily have been the hall‑ mark of all ‘educated’ families, although punishment and harsh beating by the elders has been reported as a regular ‘reformative’ practice in many Indian homes and educational in‑ stitutions since the colonial period.

6.

Patricia Uberoi, Freedom and Destiny: Family, Gender and Popular Culture in India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006.

7.

Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India, 1850–1922: Occidental Orientalism, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

8.

Kajri Jain, Gods in the Bazaar: The Economies of Indian Calendar Art, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

9.

Christopher Pinney, Photos of the Gods: The Printed Image and Political Struggle in India, London: Reaktion Books, 2004.

10. Jyotindra Jain, Indian Popular Culture. 'The Conquest of the World as Picture’, an exhibition at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, 2003, http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/body_city/ culture.html (accessed 20 December 2010). 11. Jürgen Wasim Frembgen, The Friends of God: Sufi Saints in Islam, Popular Poster Art from Pak‑ istan, Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006. 12. Sandria B. Freitag, ‘South Asian Ways of Seeing, Muslim Ways of Knowing: Indian Muslim Niche Market in Posters’, Indian Economic Social History Review, 2007, 44(3): 297–331. 13. A call to prayer given out loudly in Arabic by a muezzin in every mosque, five times each day; also referred to as adhān. 14. Imtiaz Ahmed, ‘Introduction’, in Imtiaz Ahmed (ed.), Ritual and Religion among Muslims in India, New Delhi: Manohar, 1984, pp. 7–11. 15. According to the Indian scholar Zakir Naik, ‘Islam should not be judged on what Muslims do and what Muslim society is like. Instead, look to the Koran’ (quoted in Jonathan Dow, ‘Scholar Clears the Air about Islam “Labels”’, Te Waha Nui, Auckland, 6 September 2004, p. 4).

10

Muslim Devotional Art in India

Fig. 4. Ya Karim, an Islamic image for a decorative calendar produced in India, ca. 1940. From the Priya Paul Collection, New Delhi. Used with permission.

Fig. 1.1. Macca, a colour poster from the 1930s. Published by Ajanta Art Calendar Mfg. Co. Delhi/Madras. From the collection of Erwin Neumayer and Christine Schelberger. Used with permission.

CHAPTER 1

The Image of Mecca in India

The

most common icons found in almost every Muslim household are the im‐ ages of two famed Arab shrines, the Ka’ba, a cubical structure draped in black and situated in Mecca, and the Gumbad‐e khizra, the green dome in Medina over the mausoleum of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon Him) (Fig. 1.1). Although one is not supposed to worship them or their images, the reverence for and the desire to make a ziyārat (pilgrimage) to them is strongly instilled in the mind of every be‐ lieving Muslim. Even qibla, the direction to Mecca, acquires a centrality in a Mus‐ lim’s daily life. Besides offering the customary five‐times‐a‐day namāz (prayers) strictly facing the Ka’ba, some Muslims even find it disrespectful to lie down with their feet towards it. Frequent mentions of Mecca and Medina, along with the seerah (biography) of Prophet Muhammad and Islam’s early history, remain an integral part of every Muslim’s upbringing. These have also been referred to in much of de‐ votional Islamic literature, in prose and poetry, in countless vernacular languages. Thus, for an Indian or a non‐Arab Muslim, situated thousands of miles from these holy shrines that he or she may probably never see in real life unless fortunate enough to make a pilgrimage, simply gazing at the images of the Ka’ba and Medina fills an ocular void and further arouses the desire to visit them.

T

he Hajj became obligatory for Muslims at the time of Prophet Muham‑ mad in 632 AD, although the Ka’ba had existed as a centre of pilgrimage and prayers for many centuries before the advent of Islam. Some Mus‑ lims believe it was originally built by Adam, the first Prophet, although it later got destroyed in the great flood at the time of Noah. The existing shrine, it is believed, was constructed or renovated by Prophet Abraham (early 2nd mil‑ lennium BC) when he came to settle in the region after being driven out from Iraq, Syria and Palestine for practising and preaching his new faith. Following this, Mecca became a great centre of pilgrimage and trade, attracting thousands of pilgrims from in and around Arabia. Many existing rituals and sacred sites of the Hajj pilgrimage still reflect events from the life of Abraham, his wife Ha‑ jira (Hager) and son Ismail (Ishmael), including the miraculous springing of the water‑well called Zamzam1 near the Ka’ba. According to Islamic belief, Abraham had advocated the concept of one God and iconoclasm, but over time pagan rituals and idolatry began to be practised around the Ka’ba, until the ar‑ rival of Prophet Muhammad a few centuries later, who cleansed the shrine of idols and reinstated monotheism through Islam. Although he was born in Mecca, Prophet Muhammad had to migrate to Medina after facing fierce resistance from his own tribe for preaching the new faith. He returned to Mecca towards the end of his life, to perform Islam’s first Hajj pilgrimage with his supporters. Ever since, millions of Muslim pilgrims from all over the world have been annually travelling to Hijāz, the region in the Arabian peninsula parallel to the Red Sea where the towns of Mecca and Medina are situated. Visiting at least once in their lifetime, in caravans on foot, camels, ships, motor vehicles, and airplanes, pilgrims also spend time in the nearby sites of Mina and Arafat as a requirement of the Hajj, as well as Medina (400 miles north of Mecca) to pay their obeisance to the grave of Prophet Muhammad. Some pilgrims, especially Shi’as, extend their ziyārat to many shrines outside of Hijāz, such as in Iraq and Iran. Over centuries, the Hajj has emerged as one of the largest annual movements and congregations of people in the world, resulting in a significant exchange of cultures and ideas, a trading of goods and a strengthening of religious bonds. An important catalyst for cre‑ ating a global Muslim identity has certainly been the circulation of the images of Arab shrines.

14

Muslim Devotional Art in India

Fig. 1.2. A collage of the Mecca and Medina shrines on a greeting card. Publisher unknown (India), 1995. From the author’s collection.

The mass‑produced pictures of the Ka’ba and the mosque at Medina have ex‑ isted outside Arabia, and especially in India, since long, in a variety of forms and formats — from simple etchings and oil paintings to coloured photographs and computer‑based graphics — on calendars, posters, pilgrimage guides, chapbooks, prayer rugs, ceramic tiles and, more recently, stickers, lampshades, digital clocks, and other ‘showpieces’ with blinking lights, adorning millions of Muslim house‑ holds (Fig. 1.2). In a typical calendar image, the two Arab shrines, flanked by their minarets, can be seen superimposed or surrounded by the names ‘Allah’ and

The Image of Mecca in India

15

‘Muhammad’ in Arabic calligraphy and a crescent and a star. Even if the theme of an image is localised (that is, showing a local Muslim shrine or a saint), the iconic Mecca and Medina are often inserted in the top corners. An Indian artist of these images, who may not always be Muslim, often improvises or adds local hues to them, some of which are even from non‑Islamic iconography — not surprising given that many of these artists are involved in the production of images of all religions.

Mecca in the Early Print Culture of India How did the earliest images or illustrations of the Ka’ba and other sacred sites of Hijāz arrive in India, and get disseminated, prior to the age of photography and mass production? It may be difficult to pinpoint an exact date for the arrival of the first image, but there are several references that give us an idea. Muslims from India have been travelling to Mecca for pilgrimage ever since Islam arrived in this region, besides Arabs themselves having trade links with India since even earlier. Some of the channels through which the image of Mecca may have been imported into India are (i) ephemera such as prayer mats, rugs, cloth hangings, ceramic tiles, and other image objects brought by Indian pilgrims returning from the Hajj; (ii) non‑visual accounts, either written or oral, about the shape and size of the sacred buildings and the scenes of Arabia described by travellers or pilgrims, and passed down the generations to those who could not visit Mecca or had no access to its image; (iii) miniature paintings and illustrated books from Central Asia or Iran arriving with the travellers/conquerors; and (iv) lithographs of European origin brought by the British or the Portuguese. One finds plenty of illustrations, originating in Arabia, Iran and Turkey, depict‑ ing the pilgrimage to Mecca and other related themes, which could have been the earliest sources of the Ka’ba’s image for the outside world, although most of these were commissioned for consumption by the ruling elite and seldom made public.2 Many Arabic and Persian sources, some dating as early as 900 AD, have described the measurements of the Ka’ba, which have changed often since the pre‑Islamic times.3 One of the earliest comprehensive accounts is by al‑Azraqi (d. 837 AD), who provided architectural details about Mecca’s sacred buildings in his Kitāb Akhbār Makka.4 Some of these descriptions or illustrations found their way into a collective imagination about the shape of the Ka’ba in South Asia.5

16

Muslim Devotional Art in India

Fig. 1.3. The icons of Mecca and Medina on a cluster of printed tiles on the wall of a Sufi shrine in Lucknow, Uar Pradesh. Photograph by the author, 2007.

The Ka’ba has been depicted in a variety of forms in the early images (Fig. 1.3). Due to their reference from illustrated prayer rugs or illuminated books, many early paintings of the shrine show its boundary as a flat vertical rectangle made up of inner arches, small domes, few minarets, and outer gates, often labelled with names. The middle portion of the rectangle has the black‑draped cube surrounded by other smaller buildings and structures, of which hardly two (Hateem and Maqām‑e Ibrahim) exist today, the rest having been demolished during the shrine’s expansion post‑1960. But besides this top‑view scheme, many side views have also been made in Persian/Arab miniatures or European engravings. Two folios of Dalā'il al‑khayrāt, a prayer book for pilgrims published in India in the 19th century, contain coloured paintings of the Mecca and Medina shrines in detailed perspective and border dec‑ oration.6 Earlier versions of this book, attributed to Muhammad ibn Sulayman al‑ Jazuli, and published in Arabia and Egypt, contain detailed illustrations of pilgrims on their way to Mecca, as well as images of Islamic festivities, displaying a rich cul‑ ture of devotional visuality. A number of European or Christian travellers made or claim to have made pil‑ grimage to Mecca, some disguised as Muslims, while a few others after embracing Islam, and wrote detailed accounts of their travels. Most famous among these

The Image of Mecca in India

17

travellers are De Varthema (b. 1465), Aly Bey (b. 1766), Burkhardt (b. 1784), Richard Burton (b. 1821), and Snouck Hurgronje (b. 1857).7 Some of their travel accounts published between the 18th and the early 20th centuries include lithographs show‑ ing the Ka’ba and other shrines, besides drawings of Muslim prayer posture and pilgrim caravans on their way to Mecca. Charles Hamilton Smith, an English officer, drew a wide view of the Meccan shrine in the early 19th century, showing long‑ winding queues of pilgrims coming from far horizons, although he probably never visited Arabia and may have sourced his information from others’ descriptions.8 It is hard to say if any of these illustrated books, published mainly for the Western reader, ever made it to India before the middle of the 19th century, but they certainly recorded and showed to the outside world the shape of Islamic shrines. Some of them also include incorrect information, such as some authors assuming the Ka’ba to be the grave of the Prophet whom Muslims worship!9 But the images circulating in Europe and America aside, the larger Islamic world was also not without its own popular print culture early on. Worth noting here is a quote from a British traveller named Eldon Rutter (who visited Mecca and Medina in 1925) about the publication and circulation of the literature and images of Mecca in the 19th‑century Turkey. According to Rutter, one of the last Ottoman Sultans, Abd al‑Hamid (d. 1918), who got the railways between Istanbul and Med‑ ina completed for the convenience of pilgrims, was a wonderful exponent of the power of advertisement... The printing presses of Constantinople worked at high pressure upon the printing of the Qur’ān and books of prayers in many Muslim languages; and to this day, from Java to Morocco, it is a Mus‑ lim’s pride to possess a Stambuli Qur’ān. Pictures of the Holy Places, drawn with such startling perspective that they compelled attention, were strewn about the world, from Algeria to China, from Serbia to Sumatra. All this activity aroused great enthusiasm among the Muslims, and was the means of enormously increasing the numbers of hajjis at the annual pilgrimage, and also the numbers of the permanent population of the Holy Cities.10

Incidentally, Sultan Abd al‑Hamid also ordered an extensive photographing and cataloguing of the holy sites of Arabia — at least 80 such photographs from the 1880s have been compiled in an album.11 Whether these Turkish images really helped in increasing the number of pilgrims or not, a few images certainly arrived and were appreciated in India, as Indian Muslims, especially the Mughals, were

18

Muslim Devotional Art in India

greatly enamoured by the Turkish Empire — they even emulated Turkish attire, for instance, the elongated cap. At least some printed portraits of Ottoman sultans have found their way into the early popular poster art in India. The objects and memories brought by Indian pilgrims returning from Arabia could certainly have been a significant vehicle for the arrival of Mecca’s image in the country (Fig. 1.4). The completion of a Hajj, a lifelong ambition for any believing Muslim, not only changed their lives, but also elevated their spiritual and social status in society. The return of a pilgrim used to be (and still is) a cause for a big celebration in the neighbourhood. In many Indian towns (as in the rest of the Mus‑ lim world), the house‑façade of a returning pilgrim would be newly whitewashed and painted with the images of Mecca and Medina, Arabic calligraphy, and some‑

Fig. 1.4. A photo postcard of the shrine at Mecca. Published by H. A. Mirza and Sons, Chandni Chowk, Delhi, ca. 1907. From the Fouad Debbas Collection. Used with permission from the Archives for Historical Documentation, Boston, MA.

The Image of Mecca in India

19

times even a picture of a sailing ship or an airplane, depending on how they travelled, thus determining the grade of their status.12 I have vivid memories of a very long wall of our family cemetery in Moradabad, which was turned into a public mural after the return of my taya (grand‑uncle) from the Hajj, with different sections of the aqwāl‑e zarrin, or golden quotations of moral teachings, written on it in Urdu for the benefit of our neighbours and passers‑by, but no images (not even of the Ka’ba) except for some floral borders. Lengthy descriptions of the rites involved in performing the Hajj, the historic sites in Mecca and Medina, and other inspiring ‘sights’, including that of their sea journey, were narrated for months by my tayi (grand‑aunt) to a small audience that sat in awe before her. I have no recollection of any printed images of Mecca brought by them, but they must have got prayer mats with such images, besides dates, the holy Zamzam water and tasbeeh (rosary) that most pilgrims bring as souvenirs. For the first time, we heard the names of sacred places such as Safa, Marwah, Mina, Arafat, and so on. The returning pilgrims could also obtain, until the early 20th cen‑ tury, a Hajj certificate printed with the image of the Ka’ba, Qur’ānic calligraphy and blank space for the name of the pilgrim and two witnesses.13 These certificates, some of them showing labelled diagrams of Mecca’s sacred sites, also acted as pil‑ grimage maps for the actual travellers as well as their relatives back home. Once brought to a pilgrim’s home and typically framed and hung on the walls, the cer‑ tificates or other images would inspire awe and reverence among all. Scholar Jürgen Wasim Frembgen showed me a few hand‑drawn paintings of the Shi’a shrines of Arabia made on flimsy paper, that he had bought in Rajasthan from someone who said they were brought by pilgrims returning from their ziyārat, suggesting that artists in Arab marketplaces might be quickly drawing these and selling to the pil‑ grims. This practice could be compared to that of 19th‑century scroll painters sitting outside the Kalighat temple in Calcutta, India, making and selling Hindu images for pilgrims. (Most of these Bengali artists, incidentally, were Muslim.) In the pre‑ modern times, images or schematic drawings of the Meccan shrine were also hand drawn on ceramic tiles produced in Iran and Turkey. Square tiles with printed icons of Mecca and Medina are produced even today in India. I recently found out that when an arts teacher named Rasheed Ahmed from Ahmedabad, Gujarat (who also taught in a Delhi school where I studied), visited Arabia in 1955 for his Hajj, he took his sketchbook along and drew over 20 pencil illustrations of the key sites, including the Ka’ba, the mosque at Medina and scenes

20

Muslim Devotional Art in India

from his sea journey, although he was careful not to depict any human figures (Fig. 1.5). His illus‑ trations could probably be seen as an artist’s personal homage to Mecca and Medina — a rare feat for an Indian pilgrim. His draw‑ ings also show that many smaller structures and older shrines imme‑ diately surrounding the Ka’ba were intact then, suggesting that they might have been demolished after 1955. In those days, the local Arabs were probably too relaxed to raise an objection to a pilgrim making drawings, which is unimaginable in today’s Hijāz. For Rasheed sahab and his children, these drawings are a prized possession. Besides bringing images, there has been a rich practice of return‑ Fig. 1.5. A pencil drawing of the Masjid‑e ing Indian pilgrims writing their Nabawi in Medina by an Indian artist–pilgrim Hajj travelogues, many of them in Rasheed Ahmed, 1955. Used with permission. Persian and Urdu, with detailed and often emotional accounts of their sojourn in Arabia. While a short pilgrimage report compiled in 1354 by Shamsul ‘Arifin, a disciple of Nizamuddin Aulia (b. 1238), could arguably be the first Indian Hajj account,14 more prominent travelogues appeared in the Mughal period, such as Anis‑ul‑Hujjāj by one Safi ud‑din Qazwini, who made his Hajj pilgrimage in 1676–77.15 While Gulbadan Begum, the daughter of Mughal ruler Babur, who took seven years to complete her Hajj journey, did not write much about it in her memoirs, Nawab Sikandar Begum of Bhopal became the first Indian woman to publish, in 1870, an account of her pilgrimage,16 although it contains no images of the holy shrines. An Urdu guidebook for pilgrimage to Mecca called Ziyārat al‑Arab, published in 1883 in Delhi, contains 22 lithographed illustrations, many of them of Indian Muslim shrines and only a few of Mecca and

The Image of Mecca in India

21

Medina, suggesting that Indian pilgrims also visited local Indian shrines on their way to or back from Mecca. One of the first Indian Hajj accounts to use photographs was published in 1868 in UrduP When looking for the early photographs of Mecca and other Arab shrines, one finds a pleasant surprise from an Indian's perspective. While some of the earliestknown photographs of Arabia's holy sites were probably taken by an Egyptian colonel, M. Sadek Bey (1832- 1902), a near-contemporary Indian photographer and publisher of picture postcards, H. A. Mirza, produced a series of postcards showing pilgrimage sites in Mecca and Medina in black and white photographs, which went far and wide as visual references for these shrines. Fourteen of Mirza's postcards are preserved within bordered frames in an album belonging to a historian, Fouad Debbas of Beirut, with commentaries and devotional couplets in Urdu on the decorated borders (Fig. 1.6). According to Ali Asani and Carney Gavin, who refer to this album:

Fig. 1.6. Naqsha-e Haram-e Madinah Munawwarah, a

J.;.(hi;---.!,;lj}fJ..-~1 '/

22

JJf(ij;~

Muslim Devotional Art in India

photo postcard showing the Masjid-e Nabawi in Medina, framed by text in Urdu giving details about the place. Published by H. A. Mirza and Sons, ca. 1907. From the Fouad Debbas Collection. Used with permission from the Archives for Historical Documentation, Boston, MA.

evidence from Holland (1908) and Paris (1912) indicates that Mirza's camera work, even in picture postcard format, had caught the eye of diplomats in Jedda. On 17 May 1908, only 8 months after its publication in Delhi, postcards depicting Mirza's photographs of Arafat were sent by Scheltema, Holland's consul in Jedda, to C. Snouck Hurgronje, the renowned Dutch Orientalist in Leiden. At least six Mirza photographs were found printed on postcards that once belonged to the collections of Het Oosters Instituut in Leiden_18

While his were not the first photographs of the Arab shrines, their wide mobility by post within a short period suggests that Mirza's postcards may have played the much-awaited role of allowing a larger non-Arab world, especially India, to 'see' the shrines in photographic clarity (Fig.l.7). ThoughAsani and Gavin provide 1907 as the year of publication for these, another book featuring a couple of the Mirza photos (from the Debbas collection) dates them to 1890, hinting that Mirza may have started publishing them earlier than the 1900s.19 Not much else is known about Mirza's business, H. A. Mirza and Sons, except that they also produced from Chandni Chowk, Delhi, a large variety of coloured or colour-tinted postcards

,._;,;__}t; .L;.;