TORONTO: A tent-shaped tomb in southwest London that has stood largely inaccessible for more than 70 years reopened last month.
The Burton Mausoleum in Mortlake, the final resting place of Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton and his wife Lady Isabel, reopened in April following a two-year, $334,656 conservation project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and delivered by charity Habitats & Heritage.
Carved from sandstone to resemble a billowing desert tent and adorned with both Islamic and Christian iconography, it is an unlikely monument to one of Victorian Britain’s most controversial figures.
Portrait of Sir Richard Burton and Lady Isabel Burton (Orleans House Gallery)
Burton is celebrated in Britain as a daring adventurer and linguist who spoke 29 languages. But his most famous exploit — disguising himself as a Muslim pilgrim named Mirza Abdullah to perform Hajj in Makkah and Madinah in 1853 — is precisely what drew journalist, historian and Muslim heritage specialist Tharik Hussain to the project as its outreach and education officer.
The goal is to use the “Burtons as vehicles to discuss the British Empire, Victorian exploration, colonialism, decolonization as a process, and the legacy of such figures and their work,” Hussain told Arab News.
Through a series of talks titled “Burton and Islam,” Hussain has worked to reframe Burton’s Hajj infiltration for British audiences by centering the sanctity of what was violated. “The Hajj is considered an obligation by Muslims who believed it had been commanded by God,” he said. “This was not something to be taken lightly or treated as some imperial conquest.”
A view of the mausoleum interior as seen through the new doorway. (Supplied)
The response has been largely positive. The project has also delivered workshops to primary, secondary and post-16 students, and is developing a three-part documentary, an education pack for schools and a series of interactive Discovery Boxes — physical items linked to the Burtons, Islam and other cultures — for use by schools and community groups.
The project has also delivered workshops to primary, secondary and post-16 students. (Habitats & Heritage)
For Hussain, the restored mausoleum is not a celebration of Burton but a prompt to “instigate difficult conversations many societies are struggling with about their past.” This is “particularly important in Britain,” he says, “where the Burtons’ actions and legacy has never truly been viewed through the lens of the communities affected — descendants of the colonized and original cultures.”
In a country where descendants of those who benefited from Britain’s colonial past live alongside those who were, in Hussain’s words, “brutalized, exploited and colonized,” that distinction matters more than ever. --
