Pickthall’s Islamic Politics 133
the widely-read Geographical Magazine included tributes to Akbar Hydari and
the Nizam, but also forebodings of the future: “It would be indeed a calamity if
the Nizam’s prestige, which means so much to India in the way of culture and
stability, were to be thrown into the political hotchpot”.97 Retirement did not
mean an end to his concern for the umma. For example, in June 1935, a year
before his demise, Pickthall wrote to his friend Sir Nizamat Jung in Hyderabad:
The only great Islamic project which I have in view – it cannot really be
called a project, rather a desire – is to do something towards welding
together, consolidating and strengthening in zeal the large Muslim
population left in Hungary, Poland and Yugoslavia. Budapest should be
the focus, and the point of wedge into Europe.98Perhaps this was the project that Pickthall and Aubrey Herbert had been dis-
cussing in 1920, but was curtailed by the move to India.
The Ebb and Flow of Allegiances
The term “loyal enemy” is one that is often applied to Pickthall. It was the title
selected by Anne Fremantle for her biography, drawing on Aubrey Herbert’s
description of Pickthall as “England’s most loyal enemy”.99 Aubrey Herbert
was a close friend of Pickthall’s and his assessment would not have been made
lightly. Many have followed Anne Fremantle’s footsteps and invoked these
form of words. Sarah Pickthall, for example, provides moving evocations of
her great-uncle’s life in her website http://www.loyalenemy.co.uk.100 Similarly, Jamie
Gilham’s study on British converts to Islam, which includes a fulsome account
of Pickthall’s political activities, is entitled “Loyal Enemies”.101 He notes the
observation of a Scotland Yard intelligence chief, “Pickthall may be regarded
as somewhat of a crank, but in all probability, at heart he is a loyal British
subject”.102 Another distinguished Pickthall biographer, Peter Clark, refers to
97 Marmaduke Pickthall, “Hyderabad, the Heart of India”, Geographical Magazine, no. 6,
1936, 420.
98 Zahir Ahmed, “Life’s Yesterdays, Glimpses of Sir Nizamat Jung and his Times” (Bombay:
Thaker & Co, 1945), 36.
99 Fremantle, Loyal Enemy, 7.
100 The strap line of Sarah Pickthall’s site is “Loyal Enemy, Inspired by the life of Marmaduke
Pickthall”.
101 Gilham, Loyal Enemies.
102 Ibid., 228.