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Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah

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Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah
Born
Bessie Louise MacKenzie[non-primary source needed]

14 October 1892[non-primary source needed]
Colmonell, Ayrshire[non-primary source needed]
Died15 August 1960 (aged 67–68)
Other namesMorag Murray Abdullah
Occupation(s)Writer, traveller
SpouseSirdar Ikbal Ali Shah
ChildrenAmina Shah, Omar Ali Shah, Idries Shah, Osman I.H. Shah[citation needed]
Parent(s)Charles Mackenzie; Bessie Margaret Bloxham[non-primary source needed]

Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah[1][2] (née Bessie Louise MacKenzie;[non-primary source needed] 14 October 1892[non-primary source needed] – 15 August 1960) was a Scottish writer who wrote under the pen name Morag Murray Abdullah. She met the Pashtun author, poet, diplomat, scholar, and savant Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and wrote a fictional account of her marriage and travels in the North-West Frontier Province of British India and the mountains of Afghanistan.[3][4]

Life and work

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Bessie Louise Mackenzie[non-primary source needed] – later Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah – was born in Colmonell, Ayrshire.[5][non-primary source needed] Her father, Charles MacKenzie, was a gamekeeper on the estate of Hugh Hamilton.[6][non-primary source needed] Her mother, née Bessie Margaret Bloxham, had been in domestic service to the Hamilton family.[7][non-primary source needed] Bessie went to school first at Assel Primary School, Girvan Parish, and aged 13 moved to Pinwherry Public School.[8][non-primary source needed] Her future husband, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, was descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. During World War 1 Bessie met him in Edinburgh, where he was studying medicine at Edinburgh Medical School.[1][9] Overcoming the resistance of both their families, they married, and travelled a great deal, including some brief visits to India.[10][page needed] They had four children, the Sufi writers and translators Amina Shah (b. 1918), Omar Ali-Shah (b. 1922) and Idries Shah (b. 1924), and Osman Ian H Shah (b. 1929).[citation needed]

Writing under the pseudonym of "Morag Murray Abdullah", her first book, entitled My Khyber Marriage: Experiences of a Scotswoman as the Wife of a Pathan Chieftain's Son[11] was described as an autobiography of meeting her husband, falling in love and leaving behind her family and her safe middle-class Scottish family life, to travel to the war-torn North-West Frontier Province of British India and her chieftain husband's ancestral homeland in the high mountains of the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. It described a Protestant woman learning and adapting to a Muslim culture, laws and rigid codes of honour. The author depicted a journey from the predictable into the unknown.[3][12]

Her second book, Valley of the Giant Buddhas,[13] was a study of the people and customs of the Afghan people whom she encountered in her travels, accompanying her husband on diplomatic missions and journeys into the valleys and into the remote mountain regions.[4][14] The statues referred to in the book are the Buddhas of Bamyan which were blown up by the Taliban. The Weekend Telegraph described the work as "a book for connoisseurs of the unexpected."

She also wrote a paper, The Kaif System, in New Research on Current Philosophical Systems, London: Octagon Press, (1968).

Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah died on 15 August 1960, in Hampstead, London. Her grave is marked by a tombstone in the Muslim section of the cemetery at Brookwood, Woking, Surrey, England.[15] Her husband died on 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco, as the result of a motor accident.[16]

Further reading

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  • Green, Nile (2 July 2024). Empire's Son, Empire's Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-1324002413.

References

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  1. ^ a b Moore, James (1986). "Neo-Sufism: The Case of Idries Shah". Religion Today. 3 (3): 4–8. doi:10.1080/13537908608580605. Archived from the original on 24 July 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2009.
  2. ^ Idries Shah, 72, Indian-Born Writer Of Books on Sufism, New York Times, Retrieved on 2009-01-03
  3. ^ a b Description of My Khyber Marriage, Octagon Press Archived 14 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
  4. ^ a b Description of Valley of the Giant Buddhas, Octagon Press Archived 28 September 2008 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
  5. ^ MCKENZIE, BESSIE LOUISE; F, 1892, 582 / 1 / 26; COLMONELL from Scotland's People; at Laigh Aldens, Colmonell, Ayrshire
  6. ^ 1881 Census of Scotland, Parish: Colmonell; ED: 5; Page: 6; Line: 6; Roll: cssct1881_181
  7. ^ 1881 Census of England, Class: RG11; Piece: 102; Folio: 106; Page: 29; GSU roll: 1341023
  8. ^ Admission Register for Pinwherry Public School in Colmonell Parish, CO3/10/7/71/8, Ayrshire Archives
  9. ^ Octagon Press authors' biographical details Archived 14 October 2008 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
  10. ^ Green, Nile (4 July 2024). Empire's Son, Empire's Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-1324002413.
  11. ^ Morag Murray Abdullah, My Khyber Marriage, Octagon Press, ISBN 0-86304-055-1.
  12. ^ Description and biography of My Khyber Marriage at Amazon Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
  13. ^ Morag Murray Abdullah, Valley of the Giant Buddhas, Octagon Press, ISBN 0-86304-065-9.
  14. ^ Description and biography of Valley of the Giant Buddhas at Amazon Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
  15. ^ Photographs of the Shah family gravestones Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
  16. ^ The Times, Obituary, Saturday 8 November 1969.
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