Meher Baba's Life & Travels
The Tour of Iraq
These web pages on Iraq are of a historical nature only. Obviously, much calamity was inflicted on this nation and its people in the recent decades. Those events are not mentioned in these relevant pages for Iraq. There are many publications and websites that do cover those events.
In late October 1936, Meher Baba set out for his 9th visit to the West.
Baba was accompanied by Feramoz 'Chanji' Dadachanji and Kaka Baria.
They departed from Bombay by train at 9pm 20th October by the Kathiawar Mail train.
They arrived in Karachi on 22nd October and stayed for 2 days. He met Pilamai Irani and her family and also his maternal aunt, Banu Masi and her family members.
Baba and his men departed Karachi on the 24th October, flying on the Imperial Airways HP-42 plane named 'Hadrain'. This was a 24-seat plane.
This was his first commercial and international flight.
The plane had originated from Singapore and the final stop was Croydon, London, UK. This was a routine timetabled journey by the Imperial Airways. Their other route was London to Cape Town.
Meher Baba and his men were flying only part of the way to London. Their last stop was Baghdad in Iraq. There were 6 stops by the plane to refuel, etc before reaching Baghdad.
The route was :
Karachi (Br. India), Gwadar (Oman Prov.), Sharjar (U.A.E.), Doha (Qatar), Manama (Bahrain), Kuwait City (Kuwait), Basra (Iraq), Baghdad (Iraq).
** There are web pages for all of the above flight stops/ Click on the location name to visit their pages.
Both Chanji and Kaka were very ill with the flight sickness the whole way.
They landed in Basra on Sunday morning 25th October and arrived that night in Baghdad.
The fight distance was 280 miles or 450 kms. They booked into a hotel.
The following day, 26th October, they took a tour of the city.
The next day 27th, they visited the shrine of Hazrat Abdul Qadir Gilani — a Sufi Perfect Master of his time. Baba remained in the Muslm tomb for some time. On the same day, Baba arranged to fed 100 of the city's beggars, serving the food with his own hands. He also intended to wash and bathe a number of poor and crippled persons.
Meher Baba and his men left Baghdad the next day 28th October at 9pm on the Taurus Express train.
The train was travelling to Kirkuk, north, some 325 kms, / 202 miles taking between 4-6 hours to arrive the next day 29th October in the morning.
They left Kirkuk the same day - 29th, by taxi for Mosul via Erbil, further north, because the rail line had a breach. The distance to Erbil was 129 kms / 80 miles and then another 80kms / 50 miles to Mosul. A total of 209 kms / 130 miles. They probably reached Mosul the same day.
The following day, 30th October they departed by the Taurus Express train to Istanbul. This city was previously named Constantinople, it's name changed in 1930.
It took between 3-6 hours to reach Tel Kotchek on the Syrian side of the border, possibly on the 31st October. The distance was 225 kms / 140 miles.
The train then went onto Nissibin, mainly followed the border with Turkey onto Aleppo, the North Syrian rail hub . From there the train headed north to Istanbul, Turkey, then to Paris on the Orient Express, finally arriving in London, U.K., 4th November 1936.
Meher Baba's visit to Iraq took between 6-7 days.
Baba fly over Iraq twice, once in 1952 & again in 1956, not landing there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq
* There are no photos of Meher Baba taken in Iraq on his visit.
There are no know images of Meher Baba for the whole of this journey from Bombay to London. This was his 9th visit to the West.
