Mirza Itisam ud-Din came to Britain in 1766 as an emissary of the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam, to petition King George III over disagreements on tax and revenues between the Nawab and the East India Company. However, Lord Clive instead delivered the letter of protest and Itisam never met the King. He travelled and resided with Archibald Swinton before extensively journeying around Britain. Itisam’s refinement created quite an impression amongst the English. Unfamiliar with educated Indian elite, their images of South Asians were largely shaped by vagrant Lascars. The emissary was considered ‘a great man of Bengal if not the brother of a noub (nawab)’. For others his exotic otherness had a distinctly feminine quality that they though reflected the ‘dress of the Harem and delicate females’. He became a popular sight and was visited by hoards of curious onlookers. But the observer had become the observed and after an invitation to an evening of music and dance at an assembly room, he remarked ‘I, who went to see a spectacle, became myself a sight to others’. Itisam visited the theatre and enjoyed the privileges of the Georgian ruling classes which, he concluded, reflected their superior status. He remarked that ladies who could neither dance or sing was a reflection of ‘mean parentage’ and that as a result they had little chance of marring as they were considered ‘inferior’. As a religious man, his writings reflect his concerns that Georgian society was in wilful neglect of its religious observances, noting that Britain’s inhabitants attended Church on Sundays only. Itisam admired the newly developing architecture of London and was particularly impressed with St Paul’s Cathedral. He also observed the effects of the Enlightenment and its impact on English intellectualism, replacing the traditions and teachings of religious Prophets, which he compared with the rise of Muslim rationalists and materialists.

The desire to learn Eastern languages had become a career essential in eighteenth century Britain. As a result, munshis were found in regular employment. Munshi Ismail was brought to England in 1772 under the patronage of Claud Russell of the East India Company and was employed as his Persian language tutor. The munshi was based in London, presumably at the private residence of Russell, where he found the unusual uniformity of London’s architecture rather unsettling to the point that he feared losing his way in the bland similarity of the Georgian capital. Another munshi, Mohamet Saeed, teacher to Mr Frederick Stewart, advertised his skills in ‘Persian and Arabick (sic) languages’ in a London newspaper of 1777. After the East India Company opened a company college in Haileybury, Hertford, a number of munshis like, Mirza Khaleel, were employed to teach oriental languages.

Mir Muhammad Hussain was a scientist who visited Britain in 1776 in his quest for new developments in anatomy and astronomy. He believed that Britain’s prosperity and global dominance was not, as others had assumed, attributed to its naval supremacy. Rather, he believed the discovery of the ‘new world’ had helped to advance scientific ideas in geometry and astronomy. Hussain acknowledged that the Enlightenment had advanced learning beyond traditional Greek sciences which, he predicted, ‘might cause immense amount of bewilderment’ amongst many scholars. As an educated man Hussain’s interaction with the English would have presented an interesting anomaly compared to the many destitute Indian’s wandering the streets of prosperous Georgian cities.

Abu Talib Khan’s visit to Europe, Britain and Ireland between 1799 and 1803 produced a two-volume work detailing his experiences. Travels of Mirza Abu Talib Khan, in Asia, Africa and Europe, was translated into English in 1810 but with many omissions from the original Urdu. Emanating from Lucknow in India, Khan enjoyed his status as a celebrated ‘other’ being dubbed the ‘Persian Prince’ by the popular press. He was often a guest of royalty and his engagements where regularly announced in the newspapers. ‘Nobility vied with each other in their attention to me’ revels Khan, who considered English hospitality as ‘one of their most esteemed virtues’. Travels documents Khan’s fascinating visit to Britain, including access to the King’s private library, where he saw many Persian and Arabic manuscripts. He recalls visiting the ‘poor houses’ around the country established by Parish relief missions and even took part in a fox hunt with hounds! But Khan was critical of English society and he catalogued a number of English traits. He considered the English attachment to materialism, their frivolous nature, arrogance and contempt for other civilisations, even those far more progressive or superior to their own, as some of the more unpleasant British characteristics. However, Khan also enjoyed much of the lavishness of Georgian society courting the company of artists, actors and writers. Describing London as the largest city he had ever visited, he commented on the geography of the city’s numerous squares exclusively inhabited by the rich. In Oxford, Kahn likened the sandstone buildings with those of ‘Hindoo temples’ in India. The bustling cities of Europe, with their pollution and over-population, produced a deafening noise from the thousands of horse-drawn carriages.

He was impressed with Britain’s industrial progress and linked it directly to the fortunes of the British East India Company in South Asia. He believed that the country’s maritime domination was the key factor in her entrepreneurial success. Whilst Khan praised British society’s apparent positive role with regards to women and was impressed by the division of labour, which seemed to protect women from more labour-intensive jobs, he could not help notice complete areas of female exclusion in society. For example, the absence of legal status for women and property and inheritance rights, denied any real equality to women. Unlike Muslim women of Indian, noted Khan, who had enjoyed such equality as an unchanged and unchallenged divine right whereas property and inheritance rights were only granted to British women after the Married Women’s Property Act of 1882, almost one hundred years after Khan’s visit.

Sake Dean Mahomet (Shaykh Din Muhammad) was born in 1759 into a noble family who were administrators to the Mughal Empire. At the age of ten he joined the Bengal regiment of the East India army and in 1772, motivated by his desire to visit Britain, he accompanied his army captain, Godfrey Baker to Ireland. He travelled to Cork via Dartmouth in 1784 to be employed in the Baker residence as a House Manager. Mahomet’s wife, Jane Daly, was a local woman from a wealthy Irish family and the couple met whilst Mahomet was studying English. After eloping together, possibly because the Jane’s family would not consent, they were married. When Abu Talib Khan was visited Baker in 1799 he met Mohamet and his family. Like Khan, Mahomet published a book of his adventures, Travels of Dean Mahomet, in 1794. Travels, believed to be the first account in English of an Indian to Britain, challenged the British accounts of the occupation and colonisation of India.

Mahomet moved to London in 1807 and applied his skills as an Indian ‘Shampooer’ (aromatherapist) establishing a vapour bath at the home of returnee nabob, Sir Basil Cochrane in the fashionable Portman Square. Later, Mahomet became the owner of the first Indian restaurant in Britain and is recorded in The Epicures Almanak,1809, as proprietor of the Hindosatnee Coffee House, 34 George Street, London, a place ‘for the nobility and Gentry where they might enjoy the Hookha with real Chilm tobacco and Indian dishes of the highest perfection’. The nabobs could relive their colonial experiences in an ‘authentic’ setting with real Indian cuisine. Unfortunately, the venture was short-lived and Mahomet was forced into bankruptcy within two years of the enterprise. In 1814, after falling on hard times, supported only by his son William, a postman, Mahomet moved to Brighton and revived his shampooing business at the Devonshire Place Bath House. The move was fortuitous as Brighton was becoming a popular retreat for the rich and bathing by the sea a favourite pastime. The Brighton Pavilion, patronised by the Prince of Wales, King George IV, reflected the British fascination with all things oriental and it provided an ideal setting for Mahomet’s new Indian vapour baths. Marketed as a treatment for rheumatic Illnesses, his venture was first met with scepticism. However, after significant reported successes, in 1822 he became the ‘shampoo surgeon’ to George IV and the appointment was continued by William IV. Mahomet capitalised on his royal patronage and illuminated his premises during official occasions as an opportunity to exert his distinctly British identity. His popular treatment book, Shampooing or Benefits Resulting from the use of Indian Medical Vapour Bath, published in 1822 became a bestseller and the trend soon caught on with exotic Indian and Turkish baths established nation-wide.

Sake Dean Mahomet’s children continued the family business after their father’s death. A branch was opened by Dean Mahomet at 7, Ryder Street, London and Arthur Akbar Mahomet continued the bath’s in Brighton whilst Frederick Mahomet opened a fencing academy in Brixton. Mahomet’s Grandson’s had more mixed fortunes with Frederick Akbar Mahomet (1849-1882), becoming a doctor of medicine at Guy’s Hospital in the 1870’s contributing two major developments to medical practice; the sphygmomanometer, the first ‘blood pressure measuring instrument’ and the data collation system known as ‘collective investigation’, still used by doctors today. Another Grandson, James Deen Kerriman, became an Anglican vicar and a graduate of Keeble College, Oxford.

Despite the diverse reasons for their visits to Britain, all the eighteenth century Muslim travellers became aware of their ‘difference’ because of their religion and race. Similarly, all were subjected to various degrees of ‘othering’ through their exoticisation by the indigenous population and whilst a few apparently enjoyed the attention brought upon them by alterity, others simply turned their difference into economic enterprise. Though removed by more than three hundred years, one cannot help noticing distinct similarities from amongst experiences of racism and exclusion faced by British Muslims today.

Source: (Q-News, No. 352, December 2003/Ramadan 1424, pp. 18-19.)