Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah (''née'' Elizabeth Louise MacKenzie; 1900 – 15 August 1960) was a Scottish writer who wrote under the pen name Morag Murray Abdullah. She met the

Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...

author, poet, diplomat, scholar, and savant

Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah ( hi, सरदार इक़बाल अली शाह, ur, ; 1894 in Sardhana, India – 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco) was an Indian-Afghan author and diplomat descended from the Sadaat of Paghman. Born and e ...

and wrote about her marriage to this chieftain's son and her travels in the

North-West Frontier Province The North-West Frontier Province (NWFP; ps, شمال لویدیځ سرحدي ولایت, ) was a Chief Commissioner's Province of British India, established on 9 November 1901 from the north-western districts of the Punjab Province. Followin ...

of British India and the mountains of Afghanistan.Description of ''My Khyber Marriage'', Octagon Press
Retrieved on 2008-11-14.
Retrieved on 2008-11-14.

Life and work

Elizabeth Louise Mackenzie – later Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah – came from a middle-class Scottish family. Her future husband, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, who was descended from the Sadaat of

Paghman Paghman (Persian/Pashto: پغمان) is a town in the hills near Afghanistan's capital of Kabul. It is the seat of the Paghman District (in the western part of Kabul Province) which has a population of about 120,000 (2002 official UNHCR est.), ma ...

, had settled in England before the first world war and she met him in Edinburgh during that war, where he was studying

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

Edinburgh Medical School The University of Edinburgh Medical School (also known as Edinburgh Medical School) is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It was esta ...

.Octagon Press authors' biographical details
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. Overcoming the resistance of both their families, they married, eventually settling in the prince's Khyber homeland.
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. They had three children, the

Sufi Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...

writers and translators

Amina Shah Amina Shah (31 October 1918 – 19 January 2014), later known as Amina Maxwell-Hudson, was a British anthologiser of Sufi stories and folk tales, and was for many years the Chairperson of the College of Storytellers. She was the sister of the S ...

(b. 1918),

Omar Ali-Shah Omar Ali-Shah ( hi, ओमर अली शाह, ur, عمر علی شاہ, nq; 19227 September 2005) was a prominent exponent of modern Naqshbandi Sufism. He wrote a number of books on the subject, and was head of a large number of Sufi groups ...

(b. 1922) and

Idries Shah Idries Shah (; hi, इदरीस शाह, ps, ادريس شاه, ur, ; 16 June 1924 – 23 November 1996), also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el- Hashimi (Arabic: سيد إدريس هاشمي) and by the pen name Arko ...

(b. 1924). Writing under the pseudonym of "Morag Murray Abdullah", her first book, entitled ''My Khyber Marriage: Experiences of a Scotswoman as the Wife of a

Pathan Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...

Chieftain's Son''Morag Murray Abdullah, ''My Khyber Marriage'', Octagon Press, . was an autobiography of meeting her husband, falling in love and leaving behind her family and her safe middle-class Scottish family life, to travel to the war-torn

of British India and her chieftain husband's ancestral homeland in the high mountains of the

Hindu Kush The Hindu Kush is an mountain range in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and western Afghanistan, Quote: "The Hindu Kush mountains run along the Afghan border with the North-West Frontier Provinc ...

in Afghanistan. It told of her, a Protestant, learning and adapting to their Muslim culture, laws and rigid codes of honour. For her, it was a journey from the predictable into the unknown.Description and biography of ''My Khyber Marriage'' at Amazon
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. Her second book, ''Valley of the Giant Buddhas'',Morag Murray Abdullah, ''Valley of the Giant Buddhas'', Octagon Press, . was a study of the people and customs of the Afghan people whom she encountered in her travels, accompanying her husband on diplomatic missions and journeys into the valleys and into the remote mountain regions.Description and biography of ''Valley of the Giant Buddhas'' at Amazon
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. The statues referred to in the book are the

Buddhas of Bamyan The Buddhas of Bamiyan (or Bamyan) were two 6th-century monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of Hazarajat region in central Afghanistan, northwest of Kabul at an elevation of . Carbon dating of the structural c ...

which were blown up by the

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

. The ''Weekend

Telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

'' described the work as "a book for connoisseurs of the unexpected." She also wrote a paper, The Kaif System, in ''New Research on Current Philosophical Systems'', London: Octagon Press, (1968). Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah died on 15 August 1960, according to her tombstone in the Muslim section of the cemetery at Brookwood, Woking, Surrey, England where she, Ikbal Ali-Shah and other members of the Shah family are buried.Photographs of the Shah family gravestones
Retrieved on 2008-11-14. Her husband died on 4 November 1969 in Tangier, Morocco, as the result of a motor accident.''The Times'', Obituary, Saturday 8 November 1969.

References

External links

Octagon Press
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shah, Saira Elizabeth Luiza 1900 births 1960 deaths 20th-century Scottish writers British expatriates in Afghanistan Indologists Saira Elizabeth Luiza Shah Writers from Edinburgh Burials at Brookwood Cemetery