A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Muslims in Australia: 19th century |
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| amatullah |
| 09/07/03 at 11:21:37 |
| GOSSE EXPEDITION It was Kamran who, with William Christie Gosse in July 1873, was the first recorded non-indigenous person to see the great rock, Uluru, named for the then Governor of South Australia Sir Henry Ayers.[1] Gosse at least had the grace to name a "Kamran's Well" between Uluru and Lake Amadeus for his leading Afghan cameleer and "Allanah Hill" 28 miles southeast of Uluru for the other Muslim on the team. [1] Stevens, Christine. p.39 GILES EXPEDITION Saleh, who physically led the Giles Expedition of 1875-76 across the Nullabor Plain and then to Perth and back via Geraldton to South Australia, was given the honour of having "Saleh's Fish Pond" named for him near Mount Gould on the way back east from Geraldton. A suggestion of the type of intolerant superiority these Muslims had to cope with is indicated. "Saleh faithfully performed his lone daily prayers, regularly teased by the others. Sometimes he would ask Giles the direction of east and the leader would playfully point the other way. On these occasions Saleh was more likely to have been facing closer to Mecca for, from Australia, the Holy City was not eastwards but north-westwards."[2] Of course Saleh from Afghanistan would have been used to the qiblah facing west and no doubt had prayed in many mosques in Australia. For an experienced cameleer and bushman not to have know his directions or the qiblah rather stretches the imagination. This has the ring of a smart story from Giles rather than truth. These expeditions were not just brave manly exploits. They had economic motives. Giles was being supported by the major importer of camels Thomas Elder and on this expedition had agreed to survey country near Fowlers Bay for a prospective English squatter, a friend of Elder's.[3] The expedition that Saleh accompanied some years later in 1886, surveying the Queensland-Northern Territory Border, took prospecting parties with it, hoping to find new mineral wealth. [4] [2] Stevens, Christine. p.42 [3] Stevens, Christine. p.40 [4] Stevens, Christine. p.44 HORN EXPEDITION With camels from Marree and Farina, Moosha Balooch and Guzzie Balooch accompanied the 1894 Horn Expedition, named for the director of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company who financed it. He wanted it to seek out minerals between the Macdonnell Ranges and Oodnadatta and to study new biological, botanical and ethnological material. CALVERT EXPEDITION Another two famous cameleers, Bejah Dervish and Said Ameer accompanied the 1896 Calvert Expedition. Two of the European members managed to get lost and starve to death. The willingness of the Afghans to search for days in terrible conditions and the offer from the major camel owner Faiz Mahomet to send his camels and men to the search, impressed contemporary opinion. Larry Wells, the leader of the expedition, named a landmark in the sandy desert "Bejah Hill" and gave Bejah Dervish his compass.[5] Years later Nora Bejah, daughter-in-law of Bejah, still had that compass. She also recalled that Bejah had been given the name "the Faithful".[6] [5] Stevens, Christine. p.52-53 [6] Fuller, Basil. The Ghan: the story of the Alice Springs Railway. Rigby. 1975 p.19 MADIGAN EXPEDITION Abdul or "Jack" Dervish, the son of Bejah, was most significant in getting the Madigan Expedition across the Simpson Desert in 1939. This was the last major exploration of the interior. Afghan Muslims had been on all of them since 1860. The second Afghan on this expedition, "Nurie", Nur Mohamed Moosha, was the son of Moosha Balooch who had accompanied the Horn Expedition over forty years earlier. However things had changed. "By the 1930s the second generation of cameleers ate the same meat as the Europeans. The Muslim faith had diluted and halal-killed meat was no longer a requirement to the younger men."[7] [7] Stevens, Christine. p.56 [Ref: Bilal Cleland, Muslims In Australia: A Brief History] |
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