 |
| .................................... |
 Another Inconvenient Truth >> Aki Nawaz “Go Join Hezbollah!" >> Amina Nawaz So, You Wanna Change the World? >> Sarah Waseem 10 Books To Read Before Going To University >> Mujadad Zaman Still Learning to Tread on Hallowed Ground >> Omar Fraser A Prophet for All >> Abdul-Rehman Malik Emerging from the Rubble: A Letter from New York City >> Zeeshan Suhail and Muntasir Sattar Istanbul’s Illuminated Ramadan Nights >> Abdal Hakim Murad The Pain of Panjshir >> Chris Sands A People Coming Apart at the Seams >> David Lepeska A Cynical Plan to Rebuild Islam >> Louay Safi Suffer The Little Children >> Tasneem Osgood Dangerous Denial on Darfur >> Muhammed Abdelmoteleb Is the Glass Half Full of Hope or Despair? >> Fozia Bora The Mother of All Muslim Organisations >> Mullah Charles Bala Subramaniam Narasimha Rao A Pious Mole >> Mudasser Ali Living on the Edge >> Tauhid Pasha The Silly Season >> Dal Nun Strong Walk in the Old Paths >> Daoud Rosser-Owen A Modern-Day Ibn Battuta - A tribute to Thomas Omar Abercrombie (1930-2006) >> Shiraz Sheikh “How can you hear a million words from a million mouths at the same time?” >> Shan Khan A Triumph of Myth >> Abdul-Rehman Malik The Timbuktu Charter: “We will be like ferocious lions” >> Muammar al-Gaddafi Updike’s Terrorist: An(other) American Folly >> Raneem Azzam A Crooked Commission >> Sunny Hundal Aural Remembrance Whitewashing White Terror Veil-Gate - The End of Tolerance? Organic Iftars, Unholy Garbage iPod vs iMuslim Formula One Fatwas Vox Populi |
.. |
A Modern-Day
Ibn Battuta Page 15 It was in art class during my sophomore year in high school that I first came across Tom Abercrombie’s photographs. Creating collages out of photos clipped from old magazines, my fellow budding artists and I voraciously cannibalized piles of Time, People, and National Geographic. It was then I saw a special feature on Saudi Arabia in the July 1972 issue of National Geographic. It immediately caught my full attention, since growing up in a small town in southern Ontario, I was rarely if at all exposed to anything Islamic, especially in the mainstream media. On the cover was a picture-portrait of a young dark-skinned man, swathed in white, his face haunting, emotionless. His eyes drew me in, even though it was the face of a person completely unfamiliar. I found myself staring at my own reflection as though in a mirror. When I think back, I believe it was that day I came to the realisation of a wholly other dimension of my life that had remained untapped till then. It was an epiphany of sorts. I was hooked. No doubt there are many, many others who have been similarly moved by this incredible photographer’s work, whose monumental career at National Geographic spanned almost 40 years. Unfortunately, it is the ummah, which I feel has benefited the most from Abercrombie’s work and yet is the least aware of the debt it owes to this incredible man. Thomas J. Abercrombie was born in Stillwater, Minnesota in 1930. Although an avid photographer in his early years, his eyes were set on a career in the army. Thanks to a case of foot fungus, which prevented him from donning the uniform, Abercrombie turned to journalism. He began working for National Geographic in 1956, and his first assignment was in Lebanon to report on the breakout of conflict there. Soon after he was dispatched to the South Pole, and is considered to be the first journalist to ever go there. There it is said his plane froze, and he was stranded in the icy wasteland for over three weeks. This was not the only time Abercrombie put his life at risk for the perfect shot. Conjuring up images of scenes from Indiana Jones, there was the plane crash he survived while covering the civil war in Yemen, nearly falling off a yak into a bottomless chasm in the mountains of Afghanistan, and his brush with a Cambodian death squad who would have surely killed him because he was American, but luckily was able to escape by convincing them he was French. Abercrombie was fluent in German, French, Spanish, and even Arabic. Indeed, his worldly travels would soon take on a spiritual dimension. After 1965, he frequently photographed Saudi Arabia and subsequently converted to Islam, adopting the name Omar. He became National Geographic’s leading expert on the Middle East. He describes his first encounter with Muslims in a village mosque in Lebanon: “After the service I mingled with the people, drifting with the human current out the door past a long line of beggars and down the narrow street. Walking and talking with them, I had a warm feeling of belonging; they seemed to accept me as one of their own.” A devout Muslim and dedicated to the Sufi path, Omar performed the hajj four times, and is considered to be the first western journalist to cover the annual pilgrimage to Makkah. Indeed, for many non-Muslims the first images of the Kaaba were seen through his lens. His crowning achievement was no doubt his re-enactment of the famous journey through the Silk Road made by the medieval Muslim traveller Ibn Battuta. Recorded in the December 1991 issue of National Geographic, the article states that Abercrombie “journeyed the length and breadth of the area where Islam still thrives today, from south of the Sahara to Tashkent and Samarkand, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and China.” The greatness of Thomas Abercrombie lay in his ability to present the Muslim world to the West with all its orientalist trappings in real human terms. It is in today’s world of sub-rate journalism and misinformation, that the loss of Thomas Abercrombie is greatly felt. Now on the verge of completing a Doctoral degree in Middle Eastern Studies, and having done some of my own travels (albeit nowhere on the same scale as Sidi Omar’s), I wonder how much of a debt I owe Thomas Omar Abercrombie. I very much regret that such an extraordinary life can now only be celebrated posthumously. A man who spent the best years of his life exploring the Muslim world and uncovering its many mysteries for millions to see, has sadly yet to be discovered by the vast majority of Muslims. Shiraz Sheikh |