After having
completed my training abroad when I returned to
Pakistan, I joined Pan Islamic Steamship Company as a
Cadet and thereafter commanded all the Pilgrim Ships in
1970s. I was fortunate as young person to be posted on a
pilgrim ship as cadet which afforded me opportunity of
performing my first Hajj in 1963.
The experience
was extremely rewarding and paved the way for clean
life. As a young cadet I was surprised to see most of
the pilgrims weak, fragile old and travelling by sea was
a very tough task, however devotion and the will to make
the holy land was the only target before them. It was
also shocking to see many of the pilgrims dying at sea
and being buried at sea with full merchant marine
honour.
Having witnessed the devotion of pilgrims
which belied Marx that religion is opium of life; on the
contrary religion is the only driving force which
inspires you to take any adventure, irrespective of age.
All pilgrims were dedicated and found preparing
themselves for Hajj. The voyage time was useful in
training to perform the rituals of Hajj and recitation
of the Holy Quran whose sheer beauty of language is
reputed to have been a frequent instrument of conversion
in its own right. Humans are spiritual creatures, and
spirituality matters. Humanity's sense of beauty, and
decency our power to love, our creativity and seek
blessings of our creator have been ingrained in our
genes.
Having seen the hardships of pilgrims, I
was inquisitive to trace the history of pilgrimage by
land and Sea, so that we make present generation aware
of the fact that how our fore fathers took pain in
performing Hajj.
Visit to the sacred centre of
Islam, the Centre to which every Muslim turns his face
in prayer, seems too many of the pilgrims like a visit
to heaven. They seek God's mercy, and in the hope of His
acceptance, they seek to renew that covenant with Him
and to be purged of their sins, casting off their past
life as a man casts off an old suit of clothes, knowing
that, in the words of the Prophet, he whose pilgrimage
is accepted will return hope: free from sin as on the
day his mother bore him'. The pilgrims find peace and
the sense of purpose which they could find in no other
place.
Travelling to Makkah and Madina was always
difficult in the past. In the early days Muslims from
all over the world travelled by foot, horses, donkeys,
camels and by boats across the Red Sea.
During
the long journey some dies of sickness, some were caught
by desert storms, and some were looted on the way by
organised armed bandits. Those who survived the extremes
of heat and cold, hunger and thirst or attacks by
Bedouin marauder often succumbed to the plague.
Survivors performed the Hajj and it would take years for
them to return back home safely.
With the passage
of time and advance in technology, new mode of
transportation came into being. Travelling by land
gradually became easier with roads being constructed and
more and more road transport available. At sea, Boats
were replaced with steamships which moved faster and
carried greater number of passengers.
The opening
of Suez Canal in 1869 brought regular steamer traffic
from Europe and Africa through the Red Sea to the Port
of Jeddah, some 55 miles from Makkah, thus reducing the
passage time significantly over the previous route. With
steamer traffic, it became commercially viable for
shipping lines, throughout the world to operate for
Hajj, not withstanding that this trade was relatively
short seasonal one and that these ships were generally
put to other use during the "Off season". Blue funnel
line played a major role.
SUB-CONTINENT
PILGRIM SHIPS HISTORY:
Before the advent of
steamships, sailing vessels owned by Indians catered for
this traffic and the Muslim rulers had given adequate
support to this business.
During Mogul times and
until the 18th century, pilgrims from India had the
option of travelling to Makkah either by overland
caravan or by sailing ships. The land route via the
north-west of India was long, difficult and hazardous
and also involved crossing hostile territories. The
Indian pilgrims generally preferred to go by sea,
primarily through the Red Sea, and occasionally through
the Persian Gulf. However, rampant piracy and a strict
Portuguese control over the Indian Ocean in the 16th
Century made passage through the Red Sea a dangerous
trip. Most ships travelling from India to the Red Sea
were forced to carry a Portuguese cartaz or
pass.
The earliest visit by Indians to Makkah for
Hajj is a matter of conjecture but it is very likely
that such visits pre-date the Muslim conquests of Sindh
in 664-712 AD.
Because of the location of the
Jeddah Port as the gateway to Makkah as well as a
leading port for Red Sea trade, it attracted merchants
and pilgrims alike in large numbers every year. The
people of Hejaz were fascinated by India's spices,
pearls, precious stones, silk, Sandalwood perfumes and
looked forward to the arrival of Indian ships.
In
British India, Hajj continued to get attention. In 1885,
the British government appointed the famous tourist
agency Thomas Cook as the official travel agent for the
Hajj Pilgrimage. The British government affirmed that it
had special obligations to protect the stream of
"Muhammadan pilgrims going to the sacred places at
Makkah and Karbala". In 1927, a 10 member Hajj Committee
was constituted, headed by the commissioner of police,
Bombay, which was replaced by the Port Hajj Committee in
1932.
The largest shipping line operating from
Indian ports was the Mogul Line, which was founded in
1888 and managed by the British company Tumer Morrison.
The oldest of the Mogul Line ships was SS Alawi (built
in 1924), followed by SS Rizwani (built in 1930). These
ships were scrapped in 1958 and 1959 respectively. Other
early Mogul Line ships were SS Saudi (capacity 999) SS
Muhammadi and SS Muzaffari (capacity 1460), SS Islami
(capacity 1200) MV Akbar (capacity 1600), SS Noorjehan
(capacity 1756) and SS Nicobar (capacity 1170)
In
1927, Mogul Line ships carried nearly 20,000 of the
36,000 pilgrims arriving from India. In the late 1930s,
over 70 percent of pilgrim ships from India were Mogul
Line vessels.
Mogul Line had the monopoly of the
Hajj pilgrim traffic. For about 6-7 months of the year,
it carried pilgrims from India, Pakistan, Ceylon,
Bangladesh and Burma to Jeddah, while the rest of the
year, the ships were deployed for carrying cargo cum
passenger service from India to the Red Sea ports
including Aden and Djibouti.
But soon the Haji
Committee and certain sections of the Muslim community
approached the Scindia Steam Navigation Company for
berthing its steamers to carry this traffic as some of
the Bengali Muslims were dissatisfied with the services
of the agents of Mogul Line for trying to induce the
Indian Government to close the Calcutta port for pilgrim
traffic. The Scindia Steam Navigation Company on the
other hand was also tempted to get into this lucrative
market. They built two new steamers at the cost of over
Rs 50 laks and started services in 1937.
The
entry of the Indian line into this traffic received
tremendous support and the new steamer EL Medina proved
very popular. The Mogul Line soon started a rate war and
fierce competition followed between the two companies in
which the Scindia Steam Navigation Company incurred
heavy losses as they were practically carrying pilgrims
free. The Mogul Line too began to carry the Pilgrims
free of charge, providing them incentives like an
umbrella and a container for carrying holy water.
Several representations were made by leaders both
outside and inside the Central Legislature to arrest
this rate war.
Finally, Sir Muhamed Zafarullah
Khan, the then commerce member intervened and bought
about a settlement between the two companies by which
they agreed to quote not less then Rs 115 as the return
passage fare. Despite this agreement Mogul Line
continued to charge low fares whenever the Scindia Steam
Navigation Company's steamer was on berth.
Representations were made again in the Legislature which
led to the fixation of uniform, stable and economic
rates. But with the outbreak of World War II, pilgrim
traffic closed down.
After the war, Scindia Steam
Navigation Company was unable to cope with the meager
share of hajj traffic and soon withdrew. They strongly
felt that the Indian Government had treated them
unfairly by allotting a meager share of 25 percent of
the traffic and 75 percent to Mogul Line. Thus another
attempt by an Indian company to enter overseas trade was
thwarted and abandoned. Meanwhile, Mogul Line acquired a
new ship Islami in 1936 and two more modern ships
Mohammadi in 1947 and Muzaffari in 1948.
After
nationalisation in 1962, control of the Mogul Line
passed to the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) and
finally, in 1987, it merged with SCI. The Saudi company
Haji Abdullah Alireza & Co Ltd was the agent of the
Mogul Line in Jeddah.
However, most shipping
companies operating Hajj service throughout the world
had second-hand ships and the conditions of majority of
the pilgrim ships were pathetic and deplorable. The
overcrowding of pilgrims on board the ships was common
as some greedy ship owners sought to make the most of
the short but profitable season. There were only
pilgrims on board, so many that the ship could hardly
contain them.
The shipping companies... had
literally filled it to the brim without caring for the
comfort of the passengers. On the decks, in the cabins,
in all passageways, on every staircase, in the dining
rooms of the first and second class, in the holds, which
had been emptied for the purpose and equipped with
temporary ladders, in every available space and corner
human beings were painfully herded together with great
humility, with only the goal of the voyage before their
eyed, they bore all that unnecessary
hardship.
Passenger ships "Empire Orwell" and
British India "Sardhana" and Bombay based Mughal Lines
vessels "Islami" and "Muhammadi" were chartered in 1958
for Pakistan- Jeddah run. The Sirdhana made some pilgrim
voyages from both East & West Pakistan Ports to
Jeddah. After that the Pan Islamic Steamship Co Ltd in
1960 and later Crescent Shipping in 1975 played a vital
role in carrying the pilgrims for Karachi and Chittagong
to Jeddah. Their main operation was carrying the
pilgrims but they also had some cargo capacity and were
used as cargo cum passenger ships during off Hajj
season.
In early 1980's the number of sailings
started falling due to the competitiveness of air
travel, with low cost flights, and sea borne trade
started declining. Pakistani pilgrim ships became more
and more old and required heavy repairs and maintenance.
It was thus commercially not viable to run them any
more.
The last ship to perform Hajj service was
MV Shams (1994) (under PNSC) before it was scrapped.
Thus the sea borne pilgrimage runs effectively ended.
All the Shipping companies in Pakistan and India have
been liquidated due to supremacy of aviation sector.
Some of the Pakistani passenger ships which carried
pilgrims to Jeddah were as follows:
Executive Committee Meeting of
Master Mariner Society of
Pakistan will be held at 17.30
Hrs. at Room No 18, Old Ralli
Brothers Building, Talpur Road,
Karachi.
Annual
Dinner
2011:
Master Mariners society of
Pakistan is holding it's Annual
Dinner 2011
TO HONOUROUR SENIOR
Members in recognition of their valuable
services to Pakistan Merchant Navy and to
promote professional competence to Maritime
Fraternity.
