Rita Joyan: Unbox Your Gift

In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers | Western Australia Series

Two years ago, I told the story of Hajji Mullah Mehraban.

I researched his life, his leadership, his connection to the Adelaide Mosque and his contribution to the Overland Telegraph Line.

I learned that he was also a respected spiritual leader among the Muslim cameleer community on the Western Australian goldfields, and that, according to historical accounts, Europeans were present and stood by as his Janazah prayer took place in Coolgardie in 1897.

But there is something different about researching a person from history and then actually following their footsteps to the places where their life unfolded.

Two years after first telling his story, I found myself standing at his grave.

The dots I’d been connecting through research were suddenly right in front of me.

This is why I go looking for these stories.

Not just to tell you what happened.

But to go where it happened.

📍 Coolgardie, Western Australia
🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers

Red earth. Endless distance. Unforgiving terrain.

This is the landscape the Muslim cameleers encountered as they travelled across Australia’s interior, carrying supplies and connecting remote communities.

Today, we can drive through it in air-conditioned cars.

Imagine crossing it on foot, alongside a camel train, more than a century ago.

Sometimes you need to see the landscape to understand the story.

📍 Western Australia
🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers | Western Australia Series

In 1897, Haji Mulla Mehraban died in Coolgardie.

Historical accounts describe him as a respected leader within the Muslim and cameleer communities.

And according to a historical account recorded in Tin Mosques and Ghantowns , Europeans were present and stood by when the Janazah prayer took place.

We can’t know exactly what every person present was thinking or feeling more than a century later.

But this historical account gives us a glimpse into the respect Haji Mulla Mehraban had earned in the Coolgardie community.

His grave remains here today.

And this is the story I’m here to uncover.

📍 Coolgardie, Western Australia
🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers

The graves of the believers,
buried in the red earth they once helped bring to life.

In the 1800’s, Some came to Australia to work. Some built businesses. Some carried supplies across thousands of kilometres of unforgiving country.

And some remained here, beneath the red earth of the Goldfields.

The Muslim cameleers were an important part of the communities that grew around Australia’s inland goldfields.

Today, their graves sit quietly among the red earth they once travelled across, reminding us that the people who helped build Australia’s history are still here, if we know where to look.

Their stories told in this series, In The Foosteps Of The Muslim Cameleers

📍 Coolgardie, Western Australia
🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers

This is part of 🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers series

I met Noel, who runs his own museum about the cameleers in Coolgardie and who has spent around 40 years living alongside camels.

So, while standing on his camel farm, I had to ask him something I’ve been thinking about throughout this journey:

Did the Muslim cameleers really make an impact on Australian history?

His answer was immediate.

Sometimes, the most interesting perspectives come from people who have spent decades living alongside the animals at the centre of the story.

📍 Coolgardie, Western Australia

This is part of 🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers series

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers | Episode 12
Western Australia Series

This is the grave of Mujedeen, who died in 1916.

His plaque identifies him as an Afghan Cameleer and records his birthplace as Pakistan.

Historically, Pakistan did not exist as an independent country until 1947, decades after Mujedeen was born.

But I want to be careful about what that tells us.

This plaque was created by his descendants, and how a family chooses to remember and identify their ancestor matters.

I’m not here to dismiss that identity or tell a family how they should remember their own history.

Instead, it raises an interesting historical question: how did people from this region identify themselves, and how have those identities been remembered across generations?

Sometimes a grave gives us answers.

Sometimes it gives us more questions.

And that’s exactly why I came here.

📍 Coolgardie, Western Australia

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers | Episode 11
Western Australia Series

His tombstone gives us the ending.

But it doesn’t tell us the story.

Tagh and his brother’s contribution to Western Australia was significant enough to be commemorated with this plaque.

Tagh Muhammad was young when his life ended at the hand of an assassin in Coolgardie.

So who was he? And what happened?

I came to Coolgardie to find out.

Follow this series to find out.

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers | episode 10 - Western Australia Series

Coolgardie, 1897.

Buried here is Hajji Mullah Mehraban, a respected leader of the Muslim cameleer community.

His grave carries something remarkable: English, Dari and Arabic, three languages marking the resting place of a man whose life was part of Australia’s early Muslim history.

More than a century later, his grave remains here in Coolgardie.

But beyond the inscription is a story.

Who was Hajji Mullah Mehraban?

Why was he so respected?

And what can his grave tell us about the Muslim communities that lived and worked across the Australian goldfields?

That’s the history I’m here to uncover.

Follow In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers as we continue uncovering the people whose stories are still waiting to be told.

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers | Episode 9
Western Australia Series

I travelled nearly 4,000 kilometres to find these graves.

I was told they were at the rear of Coolgardie Cemetery.

So I went to the rear.

But I couldn’t find them.

I walked through the cemetery, searching for any sign that would tell me where to look. There was no sign pointing the way. No marker. No indication that this quiet corner held the graves I had travelled so far to find.

Unfamiliar with the environment and feeling like some wild animal might come at from from any bush, I Eventually, I found them.

Some have names. Some have no headstone at all.

But these aren’t simply graves.

They are the resting places of people whose stories are part of Australia’s Muslim history.

And now, I’m going to uncover those stories.

Follow the In the Footsteps of the Muslim Cameleers, Western Australia Series as we bring these forgotten stories back to life.

🎬 In the Footsteps of the Afghan Cameleers | Episode 8
Western Australia Series

Why are the streets of Coolgardie so incredibly wide?

Long before cars filled these roads, they were used by camel teams transporting supplies across the goldfields.

Their size made it easier to manoeuvre long camel trains through town, leaving a mark on the streetscape that can still be seen today.

More than a century later, the roads remain…

but few people know the story behind them.

History isn’t just found in buildings. Sometimes it’s built into the streets themselves.