Muhammad Sadiq | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1822 or 1832 |
| Died | 1902 (aged 79–80 or 69–70) |
| Occupation(s) | militarysurveyor, photographer, author |
Muhammad SadiqBey[notes 1] (1822 or 1832 – 1902[notes 2]) was anOttomanEgyptianarmy engineer and surveyor who served as treasurer of theHajj pilgrim caravan. As a photographer and author, he documented the holy sites of Islam atMecca andMedina, taking the first ever photographs in what is nowSaudi Arabia.
Born inCairo, Sadiq was educated in Cairo's military college and at the ParisÉcole Polytechnique.[1] He qualified as a colonel in the Egyptian army[2] and returned to the military college to teachcartographic drawing.[1]
In 1861, he was assigned to visit the region of Arabia from Medina to the port ofAl Wajh and conduct a detailed survey. He took a small team and some surveying equipment as well as his own camera; photography was not part of the official mission.[2] His records of the expedition are the earliest known detailed accounts of the region's climate and settlements.[1] His photographs of Medina were the first ever taken there. In 1880 he was assigned to accompany the Hajj pilgrim caravan from Egypt to Mecca as its treasurer. He was responsible for the safe passage of themahmal, a ceremonial passenger-less litter, to Mecca.[3] Again he brought a camera, becoming the first person to photograph Mecca, theGreat Mosque, theKaaba, and pilgrim camps atMina andArafat.[2][3]
In the 1870s he was given the titleBey and two decades later the higher rank ofPasha. By the end of his military career he reached the rank ofliwa, equivalent to Major-General. He was briefly the governor of the Egyptian city ofArish but returned to Cairo after suffering sunstroke. He was married for 34 years; his wife died while accompanying him on a trip to Medina and is buried there.[2] Sadiq died in Cairo in 1902.[2][3]
Sadiq used awet-plate collodion camera, which had been invented in the 1850s. This produced negatives on wet glass plates, requiring a portabledarkroom. From these negatives he madealbumen prints which he signed or, later, stamped.[2]
The sanctuaries of Mecca and Medina are theholiest sites of Islam. As part of the Hajj which is one of theFive Pillars of Islam, pilgrims perform rituals at Mecca and other nearby sites.[5] On his expeditions from 1861 to 1881, Sadiq photographed the interiors and exteriors of sites on the Hajj pilgrimage route as well as at Medina. PhotographingAl-Masjid an-Nabawi (The Prophet's Mosque) and its surroundings in Medina on 11 February 1861, he noted in his diary that no one had taken such photographs before.[2]
He used walls and mosque roofs as vantage points to capturepanoramas of the cities.[3] He also photographed people connected to the holy sites. As well as the Hajj pilgrims walking around the Kaaba, he photographed Shaykh 'Umaral-Shaibi, the keeper of the key of the Kaaba, and Sharif Shawkat Pasha, guardian of the Prophet's Mosque.[2]
In 1876, his photographs of Medina were displayed at theCentennial Exposition inPhiladelphia. He presented an album of twelve photographs at the 1881 Third International Conference of Geographers inVenice, winning a gold medal. As a result, this set was published asCollection de Vues Photographiques de La Mecque et de Médine.[2]
His photographs are held today by collections including theKhalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage,[6] theVictoria and Albert Museum,[7] theReiss Engelhorn Museum,[1] and theHarvard Fine Arts Library.[8] The curator Claude Sui describes Sadiq's achievements in photography as very significant: "[T]he sheer quality of his photographs is evidence of his talent in this field and reveals professional standards in his handling of the wet collodion procedure".[1] His photography reflects both a cartographer's awareness of spatial relationships[3] and a devout Muslim's connection to the region, culture, and people.[1]
The report of his 1861 visit to Medina was later published in 1877 in theEgyptian Military Gazette and then in a book,Summary of the Exploration of the Wajh-Madinah Hijaz Route and its Military Cadastral Map.[2]
His other publications include:[9]
All his books combine photographs and written advice for Hajj pilgrims based on his repeated visits to the area.[9] His publications in French were a summary of his work that missed out the detail of his Arabic publications, so for a long time the non-Arabic world was unaware of his achievements.[1]
Media related toMuhammad Sadiq (photographer) at Wikimedia Commons
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