Finding Love in Damascus, or, Begum Sarbuland Jang's Travels in the Middle East

The first Muslim Indian woman to write a travel account of her journeys abroad was likely Sikandar Begum, Queen of Bhopal State, who wrote in 1864 her Pilgrimage to Mecca. Although she fulfilled a religious obligation while on Hajj, she returned from Arabia with no love lost for the people she encountered there; she betrays no sense that she had any affective ties to them, whether through Islam or otherwise. Her distaste for the Middle East contrasts immensely with an account written by another Muslim of state, Begum Sarbuland Jang, on whom this paper will focus. Jang was the wife of the prime minister of Hyderabad State, and she made an extended tour of the Middle East in the 1930s. On her return, she composed a moving account of the journey called Duniya Aurat ki Nazar me.n, or, The World in the Eyes of a Woman. This paper will offer a critical reading of this now-forgotten work, focusing on the way that Jang foregrounds her experience and observations as a Muslim woman. Unlike Sikandar Begum, Jang finds her heart swells with “Islamic love” as she interacts with her co-religionists, and as she seeks to create as many bonds with them as her language skills will allow. Traveling with her husband, yet often navigating their itinerary independently of him, she charts her own spiritual journey, consciously exploring what it means to be a Muslim woman in the early twentieth century.