Hafiz Ahmad Hassan

A first edition copy of Pilgrimage to the Caaba and Charing Cross.

• Hafiz Ahmad Hassan (Indian).
• London: Allen, n.d. [1871].
• Octavo.
• 174 pages.
• Photographic frontispiece.
• Bound in fine original green decorative cloth gilt, beveled boards, edges red.

The author was treasurer and advisor to the Nawab of Tonk, a principality in the northwest of India, now part of the Indian state of Rajasthan. When the Nawab was deposed in 1867, Hafiz Ahmed Hassan accompanied him into exile, first to Benares and then in 1870 on the Hajj. Having visited the Holy Cities, the author traveled to England where he spent a short sojourn before returning to India. His account of the pilgrimage provides a valuable record of the conditions and practices of the time, with descriptions of Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, as well as his fellow pilgrims and the treatment they received at the hands of Bedouins and tax collectors. A useful adjunct to the works of Richard Burton and Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje.