Riding through the Kenyan countryside on the modern standard gauge railway one comes across a peculiar sight. Not very far from the largest national park in the country, the ominously named ‘Tsavo’, which to the Kamba people means ‘a place of slaughter,’ lies a small and unassuming town called MacKinnon Road with a population of less than 10,000.1 In this very town in the dry heart of Kwale county, there lies a tomb belonging to a descendent of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ – a saint from the Punjab2 who died here, in the African wilderness, in the 19th century.
In the year 1887 during the ‘scramble for Africa,’ the Imperial British East Africa Company founded by Scottish businessman Sir William MacKinnon3 devised a plan to, among other things, out-do the French and consolidate British holdings in East Africa. The idea: build a 675-mile railway line from the medieval Islamic city of Mombasa in present day Kenya, all the way to the shores of Lake Victoria4 in present day Uganda.
But what does Victorian era colonialism in Africa, have to do with the tomb of a Punjabi Muslim saint? This unlikely pairing was brought together via the need for cheap and skilled labour. The British quickly found that local communities in Kenya5 were uncooperative and hostile towards them, not to mention unskilled in modern industry.6 However, India in the preceding decades under the British, had already seen the construction of railways lines and industrial development7 through the exploitation of native labour. And so an estimated 1.9 to 3.5 million indentured Indian labourers were moved halfway across the globe, mostly involuntarily, to once again help advance the colonial project.8
To quote one writer, “they played their roles as cogs in the wheels of the imperial machinery, toiling on sugar plantations, building roads and buildings, clearing jungle.”9 The first rail was laid in Mombasa on 5 th August 1896.10
Sayyid Baghali Shah
Enter our saint. Born in the village of Moinuddinpur some one and a half miles from the town of Gujrat in modern day Pakistan, Baghali Shah, a purportedly very strong youth disappeared from his family without a trace. Hailing from a pious family descended from the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, the young man had seen his father, a virtuous farmer fall into financial crisis.11 Letters (which now form historical documents) from his extended family have suggested that the dutiful son voluntarily signed-up to toil on the East African railway in order to support his family. One letter suggests that his parents and siblings attempted to deter him from the perilous venture, but to no avail.12
His adventure in East Africa, would not be an easy one. What is now known famously as ‘The Lunatic Express’13 due to the expense and difficulty in constructing it, may have been built by employing the wonders of European technology, but its fuel was the blood and sweat of colonial subjects. Hardship, and in some cases, death, was the fate of many of those who laboured in its constriction. Aside from the difficult labour conditions, the African wilderness was another challenge to contend with. The following is extracted from a poem written in 1899, entitled, I, Roshan, in a Strange Land14 composed by a chief labourer who witnessed the horrors of the railway.
“Now from the town of Mombasa, a railway line extends unto Uganda;
In the forests bordering this line, there are found those lions called “man-eaters,”
And moreover these forests are full of thorns and prickly shrubs.
Portions of this railway from Mombasa to Uganda are still being made, and here these lions fell on the workmen and destroyed them.
Such was their habit, day and night, and hundreds of men fell victims to these savage creatures, whose very jaws were steeped in blood.
Bones, flesh, skin and blood, they devoured all, and left not a trace behind them…
Because of the fear for their lives, [labourers] would sit in their huts, their hearts full of foreboding and terror.
Every one of them kept a fire burning at night, and non-dared to close his eyes in sleep; yet would some of them be carried away to destruction.
The lion’s roar was such that the very earth would tremble at the sound, and where was the man who did not feel afraid?“
British railways really, really did not aid the conquered. 2,493 workers died during the construction of this particular railway between 1895 and 1903 at a rate of 357 annually.15 Some died of disease or due to difficult labour conditions, whilst others succumbed to the feral elements of the wilderness. But Sayyid Baghali Shah had another story to tell.
Tales began to spread along the railway grapevine about a youth with Herculean strength, mystical gifts and remarkable piety. It was reported by many, including English officers,16 that Sayyid Baghali possessed an ability to levitate metal laden karais17 consisting of heavy building material two or three feet above his head as he went about his labours. Others would say that he could easily run at pace carrying three maunds18 over his head, a feat of strength no other foreman could even come close to accomplishing. Word spread regarding his adherence to prayer and other tenets of Islam, as well as his honesty and magnanimous generosity to the needy and weak (of which it can easily be imagined, many of the labourers were).
Even more fascinatingly, it was reported that he possessed the ability to speak with animals. On one occasion when labourers were clearing a bush, a huge python appeared. Some of the labourers were ready with their sticks, while one of the Englishmen raised his rifle to shoot. Sayyid Baghali was reported to fall on his knees and begged them not to harm the animal; he then faced the snake and pleaded it to leave in peace. The snake backed down and slithered away. It was also believed that Sayyid Baghali’s prayers kept the lions at bay and the labourers in his camp safe.19
It is no wonder then, that his death was met with great sadness. He died following an accident in which the trolley he was riding on lost control. He was buried where he fell, on MacKinnon Road (named after the financier of the Lunatic Express), The grave was dug right beside the railway line, by the British officer in charge, who had great respect for Sayyid Baghali.20 Oral legends tell us that his body was too heavy to carry away to a suitable graveyard by the other foremen, and thus the reason for such a strange location.
Months turned to years and the railway line was finally complete, but the grave of Sayyid Baghali Shah remained a simple one, surrounded by bush. Many a weary traveller would stop by the grave to offer prayer and salutation to the Sayyid. They would then attribute their safe journey to the blessings of God through this saint. In the 1940s, the grave acquired a dome and people began to settle around it. Mackinnon Road thus became a town in the wilderness, a haven for travellers to stop at.
Today, this stop has become a part of the culture of the country, and not only for Muslims. It is customary for travellers heading towards Mombasa, the largest port in East Africa, to visit the town first. Also part of the custom is for trains and buses to slow down when passing the town, to pay homage to the Punjabi foreman of East Africa.
***
Something unusual happened during the construction of a railway line in the wilderness of East Africa. The strange tales associated with a man from the Punjab, which continue to be told all these decades after the reported events, eclipse any sort of colonial ‘achievement.’
How often is it that the faceless worker is remembered over and above the mighty overlord? While few today will habitually remember Sir William MacKinnon, the founder of the company responsible for the railway line, with any sort of fondness (or if at all), Sayyid Baghali Shah, is visited by thousands. Though the road may be named after MacKinnon, it is the humble saint the crowds are there for, and it is to him that they attribute their safety, instead of the modernity and progress brought on by the so-called civilising forces.
Sayyid Baghali Shah had the defiant last laugh. He serves as a reminder for us that, even under unspeakable hardship, spiritual labour, rather than physical, is what endures.
The following piece was written by poet Sonya Kassam21 and dedicated to Sayyid Baghali Shah.
veiled by bougainvillea within sacred alabastrine walls
travellers pause, seek fragrant blessings for onward journeys
the iron snake tracks through unforgiving terrains
yet you walk as though treading on rose petals
stone laden karai floats over you in reverence, a halo?
the python consents to your prayers
even the man-eaters daren’t cross perimeters
forgive my impertinence
my persistence, my obstinance
O Mystic of Mackinnon Road, I discovered
a secret divine within the Lunatic Line’s shrine…
those who dare transcend the limits of possibility
remain indifferent to accusations of insanity
This article is part one of the Saints of the Savannah series. Read part two: The Great Cleric
Footnotes
1 The population was 8000 in the 1999 census.
2 The Punjab is a region shared between Northern India and Pakistan. Whilst Sayyid Baghali Shah has been documented as hailing from the portion which now constitutes modern day Pakistan, it would be historically anachronistic to refer to him as Pakistani.
3 1 st Baronet of Strathaird and Loup.
4 The naming of the largest lake in Africa after the famous British monarch is indicative of how the British saw the East African frontier as rightfully theirs.
5 At the time still referred to as British East Africa.
6 Cynthia Salvadori, Settling In a Strange Land: Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, pg. 18, 88.
7 Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India, pg. 177-183.
8 Ibid, 163.
9 Ibid.
10 Cynthia Salvadori, Settling In a Strange Land: Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, pg 20.
11 Ibid, 88.
12 Ibid.
13 A name coined by Charles Miller in his 1971 ‘The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism’.
14 Lieut.-Col. J H Patterson, The Man-eaters of Tsavo, pg 104.
15 The Uganda Journal. Volume 12, Number 1, March 1948 pg.1 – 15.
16 Cynthia Salvadori, Settling In a Strange Land: Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, pg 88.
17 A large metallic wok.
18 A maund is a traditional Indian unit of mass. The mass of a maund has varied historically as being
somewhere between 11kg and 72.5 kg. This would mean that he ran with a weight of between 33- 217.5kg on his head!
19 friendsofMombasa.com “Mackinnon Road Station/Mosque (http://www.friendsofmombasa.com/members-contribution-other/mackinnon-mosque-makindu-gurudwara/) last accessed 9 March 2022 and Oral Literature of the Asians in East Africa by Mubina Hassanali Kirmani and Sanaullah Kirmani, East African Education Publishers, 1 January 2005; The Mystic of Mackinnon Road’, https://followyourshadow.me/2017/09/05/the-mystic-of-mackinnon-road/ last accessed Sun 22nd May 2022.
20 Settling In a Strange Land: Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, Cynthia Salvadori Pg 86.
21 The Mystic of Mackinnon Road’, https://followyourshadow.me/2017/09/05/the-mystic-of-mackinnon-road/ last accessed Sun 22nd May 2022.
Bibliography
- Cynthia Salvadori, Settling In a Strange Land: Stories of Punjabi Muslim Pioneers in Kenya, Park Road Mosque Trust, 2010.
- Shashi Tharoor, Inglorious Empire: What the British did to India, Penguin, 2017.
- Charles Miller, The Lunatic Express: An Entertainment in Imperialism, Macdonald & Co Ltd, 1972.
- Lieut.-Col. J H Patterson, The Man-eaters of Tsavo, Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, 1907.
- The Uganda Journal. Volume 12, Number 1, March 1948.
- friendsofMombasa.com “Mackinnon Road Station/Mosque” (http://www.friendsofmombasa.com/members-contribution-other/mackinnon-mosque-makindu-gurudwara/).
- Mackinnon Road Town: The Legend of Sayeed Bagh Ali Shah (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOHB9fj1dfk&t=1s.).
- The Mystic of MacKinnon Road, September 5, 2017 (https://followyourshadow.me/2017/09/05/the-mystic-of-mackinnon-road/)
