Author Archives: Ayesha Azfar

Wiliam Dalrymple

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Late evening wasn’t the best time to interview him. Both William Dalrymple and his pursuer were exhausted. “10 minutes,” he said, looking not too convinced, as he saw the media conference room at this year’s Karachi Literature Festival crowded with young men and women with microphones, ready to ask him questions.

For my part, I wondered why I was so keen to talk to Dalrymple when he was clearly not in the mood, especially since I had interviewed him some years ago. That had been a brief, much-interrupted piece of conversation as he signed copies of his book White Mughals, and hastily remarked that the bit about Christopher Lee’s (“Dracula’s most memorable incarnation”) resemblance to Jinnah, whom the actor played in a later movie, could be changed in future editions of The Age of Kali.

And yet mapping Dalrymple’s journey can be an absorbing exercise. Since his first book, a travelogue which saw him paying homage to Kublai Khan, he has traversed diverse territory, mostly in the subcontinent, but in the Middle East as well. His new book on the First Anglo-Afghan War, The Return of A King: Shah Shuja and the First Battle for Afghanistan, 1839-42, will be out in September this year, coinciding with a new assignment: a visiting fellowship at Princeton University.

It is an ideal life: travelling and getting funding for research which in many cases has been ground breaking as in the case of White Mughals and The Last Mughal. “I have the time to research and write which is a great luxury,” he acknowledges and goes on to recount a lucky break as he worked on his latest book. “There was one breakthrough day in Kabul when, having failed to find anything particularly interesting in the Afghan National Archives I went with a young Afghan Fulbright scholar to a book bazaar. We found this old dealer who had bought up a lot of the princely and noble libraries in the 1970s when everyone was emigrating. And in one hour we got 12 major Afghan primary accounts of the First Afghan War. You become lucky if you keep pushing and looking.”

With his interest focused more on 18th and 19th century South Asia, Dalrymple seems to have abandoned plans to write a comprehensive history of the Mughals which he had earlier mentioned he was planning to do. “There are many other people who can do the Great Mughals including Persian scholars, although Aurangzeb remains a very intriguing character for me,” he says and agrees that there are several periods in Indian history that need original research. He identifies the Sultanate period as one where extensive work could produce a wealth of information.

Although he is deeply immersed in the South Asian people – Nine Lives is an essential read – and the history of this region, perhaps his most engrossing book is From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium where, in his search for the roots of Christianity, he follows the trail of the sixth-century monk John Moschos. Until some years ago, Dalrymple was not emotionally prepared to delve further into what he saw in the Middle East, especially in the context of Palestinian suffering. But time heals and today he is “very excited by the way the story is moving. The Iraqi Christians have disappeared, and things are going very badly in Egypt, with anti-Coptic riots in Alexandria so there is a definite possibility of redoing that book and perhaps including a bit more on Iraq.”

For all the xenophobia that has come to characterise the two civilisations, Dalrymple is surprisingly hopeful when asked about the deepening divide between the West and Islam. “It is possible for a clash of civilisations to be provoked if there’s enough ill will on both sides, but it’s not necessary and it’s not happening yet. There was a point during the time of the Bush administration, when the neocons were full of malevolence against the Islamic world, when it seemed that it could be a possibility. But we have moved away in recent years. And although Obama has been a disappointment in a variety of ways, the tone coming out of Washington is far more Islamophilic.” It does not reflect “the Islamophobia of the Bush administration. There’s an openness to Islam that wasn’t there. The danger seems to be diminishing at the moment. Al-Qaeda is in decline and there are democratic possibilities in the Arab world. The clash of civilisations looks less likely now than it did following 9/11.”

How true is that? One can’t say at this point as the West appraises its ties with the Islamic world, and the Muslims, their confidence shattered after 9/11, finally do some soul-searching. But Dalrymple has always believed in East-West reconciliation, and has given several instances in his historical works where this has been possible, where different cultures have blended and harmony has prevailed until such time that narrow beliefs have hastened the coming of darkness. The years ahead will show how valid or otherwise his optimism is. In the meantime, Dalrymple himself will remain a work in progress. His path will be worth charting.

West meets East

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With his interest focused more on 18th and 19th century South Asia, William Dalrymple seems to have abandoned plans to write a comprehensive history of the Mughals which he had earlier mentioned he was planning to do. “There are many other people who can do the Great Mughals including Persian scholars, although Aurangzeb remains a very intriguing character for me,” he says and agrees that there are several periods in Indian history that need original research. He identifies the Sultanate period as one where extensive work could produce a wealth of information.

Pakistan: A Personal History

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Imran Khan, the author of the book, with his sons.

Imran Khan, the author of the book, with his sons.

Pakistan: A Personal History
Imran Khan
Random House
London, 2011
Price: 995 rupees

Many believe that he is a closet Taliban. But, if we go by his latest book, Pakistan: A Personal History, and set aside the numerous instances when he has failed to unequivocally condemn terrorism in the country, we may be inclined to take a somewhat less uncharitable view of Imran Khan’s political orientation.
This is not to say that the former cricket captain and chief of Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf is not obsessed with religion. He is. Since the mid-1980s when he embarked on his ‘spiritual journey’, faith has come to colour his worldview. Jinnah, who is owned by both religious and secular elements is painted in Islamic tones. The book also provides a long-winded background of Islam, with a whole chapter devoted to poet-philosopher Iqbal and his views on man, society and religion. And yet, contrary to Taliban thoughts on the subject, Khan does, rather grandiloquently, assert: “The hope of saving our planet lies in collaboration, rather than competition, amongst all the great religions of the world…”
Similarly, he concedes the brutality of the Taliban in Swat. Fazlullah’s men are described as lawless and “bolstered by a rag-tag collection of jihadi and sectarian groups, common criminals, sharia law supporters and angry peasants.”
What Khan disagrees with is the war on terror and the employing of a military strategy that he feels creates more militants. Ninety per cent of the tribal Taliban are “neither extremists nor terrorists. They are simply our own tribal people fighting because of army interventions, drone attacks … and anger over the US occupation of Afghanistan”. It is for views such as these that, Khan feels, he is labelled a Taliban sympathiser — and this is a tag he seems anxious to be rid of when he says that Pakistan will never be Talibanised.
Still, his anger is reserved for ‘corrupt leaders’, and he comes across as more of a raconteur than a man shaken by the blasts that have felled schools and buildings, men, women and children.
He is witness to the fear of non-Muslims and the killing of those who attempt to defend them – he says minorities are considered “fair game” by the militants – but somehow, his energies are taken up more with the defence of religion rather than coming down heavily on the “10 per cent” who kill in its name.
There is still confusion, at least in the mind of the reader, about what balance is to be struck and how far this would take his party in its quest for ‘social justice’ and political power. In fact, far more human are his accounts of growing up in Zaman Park in Lahore, building a cancer hospital in the memory of a beloved mother, his marriage and sons, even his spiritual mentor Mian Bashir — and of course, cricket. And far more interesting are his anecdotes about — General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif: all tarred with the same brush but who nevertheless contribute to the ‘personal’ part of his book. This is where Khan the man as opposed to Khan the ideologue emerges.

Further reading
Nelson Mandela By Himself: The Authorised Book of Quotations, 2011
This collection, gathered from privileged authorised access to Mandela’s personal archive of private papers, speeches, correspondence and audio recordings, features nearly 2,000 quotations spanning over 60 years.

The Jackie Kennedy tapes, 2011
Jackie’s seven-part interview with her friend, historian and White House aide Arthur M Schlesinger Jr, conducted not long after her husband’s assassination, was finally made publicly accessible to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy presidency.

No Higher Honor by Condoleezza Rice, 2011
Condi reflects on her life in politics — she tells all about the late Colonel Qaddafi’s obsession with her (he called her his “African princess”), 9/11 and the subsequent investigation and Iraq’s WMDs.