9 - A Wandering Mystic

Summary

In Chapter 9, “A Wandering Mystic,” I turn my attention to Hajji Pirzadeh’s Safar-Nameh/Travelogue (1886–1889). Hajji Mohammad Ali Pirzadeh Na’ini was an eminent mystic in the Qajar era who came from a prominent Sufi family. In his travelogue, Haji Pirzadeh tells us about his observations as he travels from Tehran to Isfahan, Shiraz, Karachi, Bombay, Cairo, Alexandria, Paris, and London. What will mostly interest me in this Safar-Nameh is Hajji Pirzadeh’s mapping out the geography of major cosmopolitan urbanities, paying them all identical attention without privileging one city or country over another. His description of Shiraz and Isfahan, Karachi, Bombay, or Cairo and Alexandria, are almost identical in detail to those of Paris and London. This narrative in particular categorically dismantles the false notion that these travelers were enamored of or destined toward “Europe,” or worse, “the West” and reveals a radically different topography of their own wandering souls and the widening horizons they shared with their readers.