In 1870, Begum Nawab Sikandar of Bhopal became the first Muslim woman to publish an account of her pilgrimage to Mecca. She travelled with a retinue of a thousand, visited Jeddah and Mecca, performed the requisite rituals and observances, then returned to India and wrote her witty and acerbic impressions of her visit. Sikandar Begum’s critical and often surprising description provides unique insight into the factors that went in to writing this quintessentially Muslim journey in a colonial environment.
