The collections held at the Royal Geographical Society are in one sense deeply apolitical. These photographs, maps, diaries, etchings, logbooks, objects, books, astrological charts and hand-written travelogues have been produced largely by European explorers, anthropologists, geographers, photographers, business people, colonial civil servants – all of whom are primarily adventurers in spirit rather than politicians.

This is what makes the archive such an exciting and potentially useful source for those wanting a deeper understanding of the historical relationship between Muslim cultures around the globe and the West. The iconic headdress of T. E. Lawrence, photographs of Englishmen and Afghanis playing football in Kabul in 1906 and the diaries of Harry St. John Philby (or Sheikh Abdullah) the Arabist, who converted to Islam are surprising and useful traces of a long, complex and intimate relationship between Britain and Muslim countries, some of which are routinely demonised as 21st century ‘hearts of darkness’ today.

The materials are slightly ‘innocent’ and unself-conscious, they often betray the Orientalist perspective typical of the nineteenth century and the colonial endeavour. But searching out examples of Islamophobic or Imperialist thinking would be a dull and reductive use of this varied and nuanced material.

But the unrelentingly European perspective on ‘foreign’ Muslim cultures does grate at times, the silence of the Muslim ‘natives’ in these collections is a loud and problematic one. So I used a contemporary travelogue of sorts by a British Muslim journeying to Muslim lands, to accompany and ‘guide’ me through the archive.

Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim’s Journey to Guantanamo and Back is the autobiography of Moazzam Begg, a British citizen who was captured in 2002 by US forces in Afghanistan where he was developing education projects. He was falsely accused of being a terrorist and incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba till 2005 when he was released without explanation.

Begg is a 21st century kind of British explorer, his travels to Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Turkey and Pakistan were motivated by a desire to support Muslim humanitarian causes and further his spiritual development. But he was in part motivated by a universal curiosity about ‘foreign lands’ and the long military tradition of his family – his forebears had been soldiers in the British army since the 19th century. He writes of his schooldays,

“My favourite subject then was geography; by the time I was ten I had memorized the name of every country in the world and its capital city. I hoped someday to visit some of them.”

Begg travelled to Kabul in 2001 to start a girls’ school with his wife, which they managed despite the Taliban policy against women’s education.

A hundred years ago another Englishman in Afghanistan, Ernest Thornton observed resistance to education in Leaves from an Afghan Scrapbook – The experiences of an English official and his Wife (1910)[MG NO7 / 22H] ‘The moolahs, and Sirdar Nasarullah, who are fanatics, hate Amir Habibullah’s (the Amir) new educational scheme very bitterly, since by its working enlightenment must gradually spread, and rob them of their power over people.’ Amir Habibullah is keen to see ‘young men of Kabul taught other things besides the Koran, although he enforces the teaching of that sacred book before all else.’ Thornton applauds the modernising influences but sees Afghanistan as a country ‘shut away as it is from the world by chains of mountains’ where ‘women are kept in a complete obscurity behind the purdah, and regarded as creatures existing for man’s pleasure alone.’

Religious fanaticism thriving in remote mountains, the oppression of women’s rights symbolised by the veil, Islam in conflict with secular education – deeply controversial images and concepts that resonate uncannily today. Although it was disturbing to realise how deeply rooted these very specific constructions of Islam are, this hundred year old journal is so absorbing because it brings alive the long and deep intimacy between the British and Afghani Muslims: a well-established matter of historical fact but a very under-imagined story of Empire.

Reading this vivid personal depiction of everyday life featuring Muslims who take an ‘occasional tipple’, an ex-pat Christmas dinner, friendships between Mullahs and Englishmen, as well as tribal warlords, poverty and injustice, I realised that Forster and Kipling created a ‘cultural backstory’ of India in the British imagination, but there isn’t one for Afghanistan, leaving a blank space in which oversimplified versions are free to take root. The Thorntons saw Kabul as a great work opportunity and their home from home, living there on and off for years, socialising with other ex-pats but not exclusively, deftly negotiating local politics and learning about the culture. Religion is part of the backdrop of their lives in Afghanistan but no more so than the landscape, food, language, climate or pastimes, like football and even fashion.

‘Two days later a letter arrived from the Sirdar (Inyatullah Khan (Amir’s brother)) saying that he was very much pleased with the new ball, but as he had no knowledge of how to play the game of football, would I come and teach him? It is taken for granted out in the East that Englishmen can play any kind of game. Being an old enthusiast at the sport, I was not at all loath to renew my acquaintance with it, so attiring myself correctly, I turned up at the appointed hour ready for my pupil, and showed him how to drop-kick, punt etc.’
Chapter xx The Moinasaltanat as Footballer

Although the items relating to Afghanistan I examined were often poorly described, they were potent imaginative tools. A photo album from 1879 called Kabul and it’s Environs is a rather raw piece; it’s unclear who took the photographs or why but somehow the unfinished nature of the item allows the viewer to imagine their own captions to the bleak landscapes depicted. Another series of photographs by T R J Ward from 1919 are more illuminating, the caption of Bridge Platform (091048) reads, ‘Kabul river. Bridge platform building at Muchni being replaced by a bridge.’ The clothing worn suggests very cold weather and the work looks hard – a complicated engineering job is being performed by Afghanis supervised by British soldiers suspended over a river on a half-built bridge. The sharp silhouette of the pith helmets contrast pleasingly with the long white beard and turban of the surly-looking elderly Afghani.

In the current climate of deep anxiety about Muslims living in the West, any historical examples of benign interactions between non-Muslims and Muslims are heartening. But going through the collections I found even records of relatively hostile interactions transgressive and exciting, simply because they are so old and detailed they create a picture of the relationship between Britain and Afghanistan, rather than a blank space. In such descriptions of Muslim cities in particular, religion has a place but it’s not generally fetishised as the most or only noteworthy element of the culture.

For instance the following passage about Bagram in Cabool – A personal narrative of a journey to and residence in that city, in the years 1836, 7 and 8. by the late Lieut-Col. Sir Alexander Burnes, C. B. &c. of the India Company’s Service [control no: 360808 BG].

‘After a delightful tour we turned our steps towards Cabool, taking the ancient city of Begram by the way. … A citadel of natural strength and in a commanding position overlooks the low land of Kohistan, and the three rivers in one wash its base. It is called by some ‘Kaffir Killa,’ the infidel fort; and by others Abdollas tower (boorj).’

Bagram today is synonymous with the US Air Base where Moazzam Begg was held prisoner for a year before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. It’s hard to imagine it as anything else, but having read lyrical descriptions of the natural beauty of the area by this British soldier in 1836 it is seems more like a place in its own right, not just the backdrop of a grim news bulletin.

However, for some, like James Rennell, the author of Memoirs of a map of Hindoostan or the Mogul Empire (1793) [control no 331738 class no mg667D N07/17PQ] Muslims and their culture were simply the enemy. In Chapter 11, he describes the Mughals as:

‘…the vilest and most unworthy of all conquerors: for such the Mahomedans undoubtedly were, considered either in respect to their intolerant principles; contempt of learning and science; habitual sloth; or their imperious treatment of women: to whose lot, in civilised societies, it chiefly falls, to form the minds of the rising generation of both sexes; as far as early lessons of virtue and morality may be supposed to influence them.’

Over two hundred years later, another Briton, the young Moazzam Begg, growing up in Birmingham and feeling not quite English but neither Indian was being weaned on stories of the Mughals, who embodied so many of Begg family values – physical bravery, adventure, migration and military prowess. Like Saladin, his other childhood hero – they were successful over their adversaries and represented a high point in Muslim civilisation. His father told him, ‘ “We are the descendants of Tatars, Mongols who settled in Central Asia and established the great Mughal Empire in India”. Even the names of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan were mentioned with a certain reverence in our house, and sometimes my father called me “Temujin”, the Great Khan’s real name.’ It was in part these stories that led him to travel to Afghanistan as a grown man, with his own family in tow.

More Information

You can read a longer version of this essay at the Royal Geographical Society next year, and there will also be education materials online. For further information call 020 7591 3052 or email crossingcontinents@rgs.org

Early in 2006 we looked for places where you can find Afghani history in London - find out more here