Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah (''née'' Bessie Louise MacKenzie; 14 October 1892 – 15 August 1960) was a

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

writer who wrote under the pen name Morag Murray Abdullah. She met the

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

author, poet, diplomat, scholar, and savant Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah and wrote fictional accounts of her marriage and travels in the

North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ) was a province of British India from 1901 to 1947, of the Dominion of Pakistan from 1947 to 1955, and of the Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Pakistan from 1970 to 2010. It was established on 9 November ...

of British India and the mountains of Afghanistan.Description of ''My Khyber Marriage'', Octagon Press
Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
Retrieved on 2008-11-14.

Life and work

Bessie Louise Mackenzie – later Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah – was born in Colmonell,

Ayrshire Ayrshire (, ) is a Counties of Scotland, historic county and registration county, in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. The lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area of Ayrshire and Arran covers the entirety ...

. Her father, Charles MacKenzie, was a gamekeeper on the estate of Hugh Hamilton. Her mother, ''née'' Bessie Margaret Bloxham, had been in domestic service to the Hamilton family. Bessie went to school first at Assel Primary School, Girvan Parish, and aged 13 moved to Pinwherry Public School. Her future husband, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, was descended from the Sadaat of

Paghman Paghman (Dari/Pashto:پغمان) is a town in the hills near Afghanistan's capital of Kabul. It is the seat of the Paghman District (in the western part of Kabul Province) which has a population of about 120,000 (2002 official UNHCR est.), main ...

. During World War 1 Bessie met him in Edinburgh, where he was studying

medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

Edinburgh Medical School The University of Edinburgh Medical School (also known as Edinburgh Medical School) is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It was esta ...

.Octagon Press authors' biographical details
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. Overcoming the resistance of both their families, they married, and travelled a great deal, including some brief visits to India. They had four children, the

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

writers and translators

Amina Shah Amina Maxwell-Hudson (born Amina Shah; 31 October 1918 – 19 January 2014) was a British anthologiser of Sufi stories and folk tales, and was for many years the Chairperson of the College of Storytellers. She was the sister of the Sufi writer ...

(b. 1918),

Omar Ali-Shah Omar Ali-Shah (, ; 19227 September 2005) was a prominent exponent of modern Naqshbandi Sufism. He wrote a number of books on the subject, and was head of a large number of Sufi groups, particularly in Latin America, Europe and Canada. Early lif ...

(b. 1922) and

Idries Shah Idries Shah (; , , ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, Indries Shah, né Sayyid, Sayed Idries el-Hashemite, Hashimi (Arabic: ) and by the pen name Arkon Daraul, was an Afghans, Afghan author, thinker and teacher in ...

(b. 1924), and Osman Ian H Shah (b. 1929). 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 Pashtuns (, , ; ;), also known as Pakhtuns, or Pathans, are an Iranic ethnic group primarily residing in southern and eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan. They were historically also referred to as Afghans until 1964 after the ...

Chieftain's Son''Morag Murray Abdullah, ''My Khyber Marriage'', Octagon Press, . 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

of British India and her chieftain husband's ancestral homeland in the high mountains of the

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central Asia, Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the wester ...

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.Description and biography of ''My Khyber Marriage'' at Amazon
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. This account was described by Saira Shah, one of her grand-daughters, as a 'lightly fictionalized' account. Evidence cited by Nile Green suggests that some key elements in the book – such as whether her parents-in-law lived near the Khyber Pass on the border with Afghanistan, or in the plains just north of Delhi – are not supported by available evidence of her travels. Her second book, ''Valley of the Giant Buddhas'',Morag Murray Abdullah, ''Valley of the Giant Buddhas'', Octagon Press, . was a study of the people and customs of the Afghan people whom she said that she had encountered in her travels, accompanying her husband on diplomatic missions and journeys into the valleys and into the remote mountain regions.Description and biography of ''Valley of the Giant Buddhas'' at Amazon
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. The statues referred to in the book are the

Buddhas of Bamyan The Buddhas of Bamiyan (, ) were two monumental Buddhist art of Bamiyan, Buddhist statues in the Bamyan, Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan, built possibly around the 6th-century. Located to the northwest of Kabul, at an elevation of , Radiocarbon da ...

which were blown up by the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

. The ''Weekend

Telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...

'' 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.Photographs of the Shah family gravestones
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. Her husband died on 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco, as the result of a motor accident.''The Times'', Obituary, Saturday 8 November 1969.

References

External links

Octagon Press
(Archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:Shah, Saira Elizabeth Luiza 1892 births 1960 deaths 20th-century Scottish writers British expatriates in Afghanistan Indologists Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah Writers from Edinburgh Burials at Brookwood Cemetery 20th-century Scottish women writers

Life and work

Further reading

References

External links