Who visited the Punjab in 1832, was born of Jewish parents at Weilersbach,
near Bamberg (West Germany). He was coverted to Christianity in 1812.
He studied oriental languages at Cambridge. Between. 1821 and 1826,
he travelled as a missionary in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula. His
travels onwards brought him to the Punjab. As he crossed the River
Indus into the Sikh territory, he was given hearty welcome, twentyone
guns being fired in his honour. A daily ziafat (banquet) of Rs. 250,
twenty pots of sweetmeat and linen to make twenty shirts was provided
for him. At Rawalpindi, he was put up in the camp of Kharak Singh,
heir apparent to the throne of the Punjab.
At Gujrat, he stayed with the governor of the town, Dr Josiah Harlan,
an American, and at Wazirabad, with General Avitabile, an Italian
serving Ranjit Singh. In Lahore, taking up his abode with General
Allard, one of the French officers, Dr Wolff issued proclamations,
which were posted in the streets, calling on the nations to turn
to the Christ. For this he received from the Sikh sovereign a polite
letter of disapprobation in which he said that he had read his proclamations,
adding that " such words must neither be said nor heard."
The Sikh sovereign who had been following his travels through continual
reports, received him in audience in Amritsar and overwhelmed him
with his customary wit and banter. He told his visitor that he had
been preaching that people should put their trust in the Creator.
He asked him why he was not preaching to the English in Hindustan
"who have no religion at all." He told Dr Wolff ironically
that one way of coming near God was by making an alliance with the
British government and that he had ensured this for himself by having
a meeting at Ropar with the " Lard Nawab Sahib" (the Governor-General,
Lord William Bentinck). Ranjit Singh's native power of persiflage
showed to great advantage on this occasion.
Dr Wolff wrote a book entitled The Travels and Adventures of the
Rev. Joseph Wolff which was published in London in 1861. His account
of the Punjab and its people, however, suffers from a high tone
of Occidental superiority and religious bias.
Dr Wolff died at his Somerset Vicarage on 2 May 1862.
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