ABDULLAH, MULLAH (c.1855-1915), camel-driver and Islamic priest, was born
probably in Afghanistan or a nearby region of India (Pakistan), as he was literate
in Dari, the formal language of Afghanistan. He may have come from a family of
mullahs, a profession generally handed from father to son; the title was conferred
after training in Islamic spiritual teachings and law at a madrasa school, usually
within a mosque. Arriving in South Australia about 1890, from about 1899 he worked
at Broken Hill, New South Wales, probably as a camel-driver and certainly as
mullah to the Afghans at the local 'Ghantown'. As spiritual head of a group of
cameleers, he led the daily prayers, presided at burials and killed animals al
halal for food consumption. A sanitary inspector twice prosecuted him for killing
meat illegally and for not belonging to the butchers' union. By 1915 Abdullah was
a grey-bearded zealot, fiery when insulted.
View the full record at
Australian Dictionary of Biography
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