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Six Months in the Hijaz: Journeys to Makkah And Madinah 1877-1878

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John Fryer Thomas Keane was a Yorkshire clergyman's son who went to sea at the age of twelve. In 1877, still only 23 but having had his share of adventures, `Jack' Keane took it upon himself to visit Makkah and Medina.

In the 19th Century, the Hijaz was a very different place. Makkah was an exotic, forbidden city as far as Westerners were concerned. In 1877 the only Englishmen who had previously seen Makkah and left behind significant accounts were Joseph Pitts and Sir Richard Burton. Pitts was a sailor who was captured by Barbary Pirates at the age of 17 and sold into slavery. He visited Makkah with his master in 1680. His accounts of the experience are not particularly complimentary, which is not surprising under the circumstances. Burton's travels to Arabia in the mid 19th Century provide the primary account of the period and need no further description.

Burton was of course an intellectual - his original goals included anthropological, equestrian and hydrological research - and this is reflected in his writings. Jack Keane, on the other hand, was an `ordinary sailor'. Although not educated to Burton's standards, he was extraordinarily observant and thoughtful. He describes everything in detail, be it the lamp fittings in the Holy Haram or the boils on his neck. Not given to flowery prose, he tells things plainly as he saw them.

Some of Keane's experiences are quite extraordinary. In Makkah he witnesses a great flood and the strange sight of pilgrims swimming around the Holy Kabba. He is denounced as a suspected Christian by schoolchildren (who later get their comeuppance at the end of a teacher's cane) and is stabbed during his pilgrimage to Medina. Most surprisingly of all, he discovers a supposedly British lady living alone in the middle of Makkah (in 1877!). Exactly who she was and how she got there is not entirely certain to this day. This would make an interesting research project for anyone brave enough to undertake it.

Keane was subject to the cultural prejudices of his time and has some remarks to make about ethnicity that would not be tolerated from a modern writer; yet when he speaks from personal experience instead of parroting received Victorian opinion, he more often than not expresses admiration and respect for the people whom he meets.

On his return to England, Keane published two books about his visit to the Hijaz. These were Six Months in Meccah (note the transliteration of tah-marbuta) and My Journey to Medinah.