The Broken Hill Mosque is a heritage-listed former Afghani mosque and now museum, located at Buck Street, Broken Hill, in the Far West of New South Wales, Australia. It was built by Afghan cameleers. It is also known as Mohammedan Mosque and Afghan Mosque. The property is owned by Broken Hill City Council. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 23 April 2010.
History
Wiljakali land There were some fifteen groups of Aboriginal people traditionally living in the huge area bisected by the Darling River in the western plains of NSW. The principal group around Broken Hill was the Wiljakali. Their occupation of the area is thought to have been intermittent due to the scarcity of water. The same scarcity of water made the area unattractive for European occupiers and traditional Aboriginal ways of life continued longer there than in many other parts of NSW, into the 1870s. However, mobility was essential to life in the mallee and sandhills, and as Aboriginal people were increasingly deprived of the full range of their traditional options, they were obliged to come into stations or missions in times of drought to avoid starvation. By the 1880s, traditional lifestyles were being supplanted by mission lifestyles, with many Aboriginal people also working on stations or within the mining industry. With the failure of most of the stations during the 1890s depression, many local Aboriginal groups were again displaced and ended up living in reservations created under the Aborigines' Protection Act 1909. The influenza epidemic of 1919 had a further significant impact upon the indigenous population, as did the twentieth century federal government policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families.
Mining history in Broken Hill The term Broken Hill was first used by the early British explorer Charles Sturt in his diaries during his search for an inland sea in 1844. Western plains towns far away from the major rivers, such as Broken Hill, owe their existence to the mineral discoveries made in the decade after 1875, when spectacular deposits of gold, silver, copper and opal were found.
The township of Broken Hill was developed in the "Broken Hill Paddock", which was part of Mt Gipps Station. George McCulloch, the station manager, employed many men. It was in 1883 that three of his workers pegged the first mineral lease on his property. They were Charles Rasp, David James and James Poole.Drewery, 1985 & Camilleri, 2009 The Syndicate of Seven was formed and consisted of George McCulloch, Charles Rasp, David James, James Poole, George Urquhart and George Lind. These men pegged out the remaining six mineral leases, which are now known as the Line of Lode. It was the seventh member of the Syndicate, Philip Charley, who found the first amount of silver in 1885. A township was soon surveyed, and Broken Hill was initially known as a shanty town with an entire suburb named "Canvas Town" for its temporary buildings.
Cameleering history in Australia and Broken Hill Camel drivers led hundreds of camel trains throughout inland Australia in the nineteenth century and by the turn of the twentieth century their camel trains provided transport for almost every major inland development project. The cameleers laboured across the continent, carting produce, water, mail and equipment at a time when roads and railways were not constructed. The indomitable camels and their equally hardy keepers were crucial to momentous projects such as the construction of the Overland Telegraph, for which they carried supplies and materials used in surveying and construction work. They also accompanied a number of exploration parties into the little-known interior. These early Cameleers contributed greatly to the development of rural and remote Australia.Powerhouse Museum, 2008 & National Archives of Australia, 2007.
It is estimated that some 20,000 camels were brought to Australia during the second half of the nineteenth century from all different parts of the world to work in the vast areas of inland Australia. Accompanying the camels were their drivers, these men came from different countries and provinces such as Kashmir, Sindh, Rajasthan, Egypt, Persia, Turkey, Punjab, Baluchistan, and former provinces of Afghanistan and modern-day India and Pakistan. Collectively they were known as "Afghans," although very few were actually of Afghani descent, it is now widely (and subjectively) used to describe the Cameleers.Australian Government: Culture Portal, 2009 & Camilleri 2009
The forerunners of the camels to enter the Broken Hill district were imported in 1866 by Sir Thomas Elder for use in northern South Australia. The Afghans, or Ghans as they became known, were well established by the time of Broken Hill's discovery in 1883 and in succeeding years, camel teams and Afghans were a familiar sight in Broken Hill and the West Darling District of NSW. Camels were used either to haul heavy wagons, and twelve or more camels were used to pull a ten-ton wagon travelling at a rate at 15 miles per day.Powerhouse Museum, 2008 Once camp was reached the Afghans slept in a temporary corrugated-iron shed or bower of gum branches. They led a nomadic life with few personal possessions. As they were of the Islamic faith, they did not drink alcohol so were a popular choice for carting beer and spirits to the hotels on the goldfields.Scriver, 2004
Camels and Afghans played a crucial role in exploratory expeditions and scientific survey parties in the outback. Afghans were among the first non-Aboriginal people to view such iconic landmarks of central Australia, such as Kata Tjuta and Uluru, and had their own names ascribed along the way to places such as Allanah's Hill and Kamran's Well as the explorers mapped the emerging geography they traversed. Within just six years of the arrival of Elder's first camels, and just a decade after Burke and Wills' first north–south crossing of the continent, the Afghans with their camels had built the overland telegraph from Adelaide through to Darwin that would connect Australia direct to London. The construction of railways was shortly to follow including the Afghan's namesake, the famous North Australia Railway (known as the 'Ghan') line from Port Augusta to Alice Springs. The Ghan service's name is an abbreviated version of its previous nickname "The Afghan Express," which comes from the Afghans that trekked the same route as the overland telegraph, which is said to have been the route taken by John McDouall Stuart during his 1862 crossing of Australia before the advent of the railway.Burton, 2006
The Afghans travelled lightly and were always ready to move. The men were typically engaged on limited term contracts that did not allow for women or children to accompany them to Australia. Many therefore worked and lived communally as a brotherhood of fellow cameleers, observing strict religious and related halal dietary practices that tended to discourage significant social interaction with others. Theirs was an itinerant mode of dwelling negotiated spatially through movement, camping along the camel trails, resting between journeys in their Ghantowns.
Dost Mahomet was a prominent Afghan camel driver who worked at Broken Hill and arrived with the camels and later travelled part of the distance and assisted the explorers. His grave lies three kilometres from Menindee, on the road to Broken Hill. he is understood to be the first Muslim to be buried on Australian soil.Matthews, 1997
Mosques as an element of Muslim culture The Afghans generally lived away from white populations, at first in makeshift camel camps, and later in Ghantowns on the edges of existing settlements.National Archives of Australia, 2007 For most of the year they were solitary travellers lacking the camaraderie and powerful sense of community or "Ummah" that Islam bestows. The Afghans performed their prayers five times daily out in the desert, the empty bushland, or countryside. In Islam great emphasis is placed on the conduct of prayer. One of the pillars of Islam is to conduct Prayers (Salat) as a way of connecting the individual with the one and Only God who created us to worship Him.Islamic Council of NSW, 2009 Salat can be performed at any clean place ensuring that the worshipper is directed towards the Kaaba in Mecca. Muslims are encouraged to perform their obligatory prayers, Friday prayers and celebrate key Islamic events, in the Islamic calendar, at a mosque in congregation.
Muhammad said: "God, Great and Glorious is He, has said in one of His Books: The Mosques are My houses on My earth. My visitors are those who frequent them, so blessed is he who purifies himself in his own house, then visits Me in Mine. For the host has a duty to entertain his guest".
A mosque represents an Islamic symbol of the presence of Muslim followers dispersed throughout the globe. It is a centre for guidance, fountains Islamic knowledge and its dissemination, a shelter for the homeless, provides charitable distributions, and is a centre for religious celebrations and occasions. It can also encompass diverse activities that include facilities for receiving dignitaries, guests and other welfare services that reflect the needs of the community. An important celebration of the Islamic religion is Eid ul-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan (the month of fasting), and Eid ul-Adha, (the Sacrifice of Feast). According to Islam, fasting should not be undertaken while travelling, so the Afghans would cease working during the Holy month and join to fast and pray. At the end of the 30 days, during which no food, water or tobacco could pass their lips from sunrise to sunset, the men would enjoy the Eid-ul-Fitr celebration.
If the devotees were not near a mosque for the morning or evening prayers, they would attempt to maintain their religious practices. Many old-timers from Broken Hill recall seeing Afghans in the bush working with their camel trains, stopping mid way at a certain time, kneeling on their mats praying.Rajkowski, 1987
Broken Hill Broken Hill was a central hub at which several important camel trails and stock droving routes of the outback met the railroad and became a prominent place of commercial interaction between Afghans and Europeans. So numerous were the cameleers and their camels in Broken Hill that there were two camel camps, with “the west camp being at Picton, three miles out; while the north camp, which has no particular name, is in the northern corner, and distant from the municipality some two miles.” With its high concentration of Afghans, the camp at Broken Hill developed as one of the most established Ghantowns of the outback.Camilleri, 2009 The township has since expanded to encompass the sites of both camps such that only the mosque site at the northern cameleer settlement now marks the camp.
The Ghantown along with the dwellings of the local Aboriginal people were rarely located near the centre of town, which clearly segregated the "whites" from the "others". Essentially in towns where the Afghans worked there were three groups, a camp for the Afghans, a camp for the local Aboriginal people and in town was where the Europeans lived.