{"id":1986,"date":"2017-04-07T14:05:36","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T03:35:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=1986"},"modified":"2017-04-13T11:58:52","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T01:28:52","slug":"1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/04\/1986\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s Muslim Cameleers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia’s Muslim Cameleers<\/a> is back in stock (and on its way to Canberra to be gifted by the Prime Minister to some special visiting guests). Between 1870 and 1920 as many as 2000 cameleers and 20,000 camels\u00a0arrived in Australia from Afghanistan and northern India; each has their own fascinating story.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

Dost Mahomed<\/h4>\n

Dost Mahomed was the son of Mullah Mohamed Jullah\u00a0of Gaznee. A Pashtun, he served as a \u2018Sepoy\u2019 in the British-Indian army before being recruited by George Landells.\u00a0At 45 years he was the oldest cameleer in the Burke and Wills\u00a0exploration party. Burke included Dost Mohamed in his advance\u00a0from Menindee to the Cooper Creek but left him there with\u00a0Brahe\u2019s party while taking some camels on his desperate dash to\u00a0the Gulf of Carpentaria. Dost helped supplement the waiting\u00a0party\u2019s diet with ducks and fish and accompanied Brahe\u2019s party\u00a0when it left for Menindee on the very morning of Burke\u2019s longoverdue\u00a0return to the Cooper depot. During Howitt\u2019s Victorian\u00a0Relief Expedition, which recovered the bodies of Burke and\u00a0Wills, Dost Mohamed was bitten by a bull camel. It \u2018lifted him\u00a0off the ground and shook him with great ease, as a cat would\u00a0shake a mouse\u2019. He permanently lost the use of his right arm,\u00a0and was later awarded 200 pounds by the Victorian Government.\u00a0After the expedition he worked in William Ah Chung\u2019s market\u00a0garden in Menindee, where he died in the early 1880s.\u00a0[William Strutt album, State Library of New South Wales]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

Abdul Wahid<\/h4>\n

Abdul Wahid or Wade, a major camel entrepreneur.\u00a0Originally from Quetta, he arrived in Australia in 1879. In\u00a01895 he established the Bourke Carrying Company, importing\u00a0his own camels and cameleers. He helped fund the\u00a0construction of the Adelaide mosque. Abdul Wade was known\u00a0for his adoption of western clothes, and later built a large\u00a0house on Sydney Harbour. Photographed at the Mount Garnet\u00a0mine, Queensland, 1890s. [<\/span>13127, State Library of Queensland]<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

Juma Khan<\/h4>\n

Under the Commonwealth\u2019s Immigration\u00a0<\/i>Restriction Act 1901<\/i>, intending or returning\u00a0immigrants faced a dictation test (set in any\u00a0language), established as a means of keeping\u00a0Australia\u2019s population \u2018white\u2019. [Juma Khan, 53 years, Afghan (1924) was one of the many cameleers who] obtained exemptions\u00a0from the dictation text, enabling them to visit\u00a0their homelands and return to Australia.<\/p>\n

Find out more about <\/em>Australia’s Muslim Cameleers here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia’s Muslim Cameleers is back in stock (and on its way to Canberra to be gifted by the Prime Minister to some special visiting guests). Between 1870 and 1920 as many as 2000 cameleers and 20,000 camels\u00a0arrived in Australia from … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[452,679,680,16],"class_list":["post-1986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","tag-australia","tag-australias-muslim-cameleers","tag-camels","tag-history"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s4v1Of-1986","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2078,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions\/2078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}