The Curious Mr. Jacob

A photo that may be of A.M. Jacob, although the attribution seems dubious.

On January 17, 1921, the normally staid pages of the “London Times” carried a surprisingly colorful obituary:

The wonderfully diversified stage of India has seen no more romantic and arresting figure in our time than that of Mr. A.M. Jacob, the “Lurgan Sahib” of Mr. Kipling's “Kim" and the hero of the late Marion Crawford's most successful novel “Isaacs.”  He won his way from slavery to fame and immense wealth. but has now died in obscurity and poverty at Bombay at the age of 71.

Mystery surrounds the origin, as well as many features of the career, of a man generally believed to be either a Polish or Armenian Jew. but who claimed to be a Turk, and was born near Constantinople. At any rate, he was of the humblest origin, and when 10 years old was sold as a slave to a rich pasha, who, discovering that the boy had uncommon abilities, made a student of him.

It was thus that he acquired the foundation of that wide knowledge of Eastern life, language, art, literature, philosophy, and occultism which made him in later years a great influence at Simla and a most valuable helper of the political secret service. Gaining manumission on the death of his master in early manhood, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca disguised as a Mahomedan, and from Jeddah worked a passage to Bombay, where he landed friendless and with scarcely enough in his pocket for the next meal. Through his intimate knowledge of Arabic he soon obtained a clerkship to a great nobleman in the Nizam Court in Hyderabad. A year or two later a successful deal with a precious stone led him to go to Delhi and to set up in business in this line.

He rapidly made money.  His ideas and interests were too expansive to find scope in the Chandi Chowk, and he removed his business to Simla, the social and administrative capital of India for the greater part of the year.

Mr. Jacob's unrivalled knowledge of precious stones gave him a remarkable clientele of the highest in the land. such as British satraps and Indian princes; but he was much more than a keen man of business. He was endowed by nature with a wonderfully handsome face and form, and there was about him a compelling magnetism, a power and mystery, which led to his being sought for conversation and advice by Viceroys and princes, as well as men only less exalted. Belvedere, his Simla home. furnished in the most lavish Oriental style and filled with priceless ornaments. was thronged by a succession of notable visitors. Yet his own habits of life were ascetic almost to the verge of sternness.

So far from using his immense wealth for the gratification of luxurious tastes, he was a vegetarian. a teetotaller, and a non-smoker, and with good horses in his stables he rode only a shaggy hill pony. A Viceroy is reported to have said of him that “he lived like a skeleton in a jewel room.” The fact was that his deepest interests were in philosophy, astrology, and the occult. At dinner parties he astonished his guests by his “miracles,” and even the late Mme. Blavatsky had to admit his superiority in providing at will supernormal phenomena.  

But the day came when this bright star suffered eclipse. Hearing that the "Imperial diamond” was for sale in this country, he went to the late Nizam of Hyderabad, Sir Mahbub Ali Khan, and obtained an offer of 46 lakhs, then the equivalent of over £300,000. He obtained Rs.20 lakhs on account, and finding by cable that he could obtain the stone for £150,000, he at once paid the amount.  Mr. Jacob always alleged that it was owing to a personal intrigue against him that a high dignitary in Hyderabad, acting for the Government of India, brought pressure to bear on the Nizam, whose finances were at that time in an unsatisfactory state, to renounce the transaction.  Mr. Jacob was sued for the return of the Rs.20 lakhs, and was criminally indicted on a charge of cheating. After a trial at the Calcutta High Court lasting 57 days he was acquitted, but he had incurred enormous legal expenses. He claimed that ultimately the Nizam agreed to pay Rs.17 lakhs for the diamond, but this, as well as some other large liabilities by Indian Durbars, could not be obtained by legal process in British Courts, since they have no jurisdiction over the ruling Princes.

This, in brief, is the version of the collapse of his fortune which Mr. Jacob gave. At the age of 55 he went to Bombay a ruined man, and earned a scanty living for some years as a dealer in old china. But he remained cheerful and alert, sustained by a philosophy of life which gave him unshaken faith in immortality.

During all his prosperous years, he kept a full diary day by day, and it is to be hoped that this record of a fascinating career, believed to be very frank, will one day be published.

It appears that, if anything, the “Times” downplayed Jacob’s capacity for weirdness.  (A side note: His modern biographer, John Zubrzycki, believes "Jacob" was born in 1849 in what is now Turkey, and that his real name was "Iskandar Meliki bin Ya'qub al-Birri."  Perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn't.  Jacob was very good at creating a dense fog around his life.)  The Indian publication “The Pioneer,” gave a contemporary report about this remarkable enigma.  Jacob, we are told, could make himself invisible any time he chose.  At dinner parties, the other guests were entertained by the spectacle of Jacob seeming to vanish into ether, with only the movements of his knife and fork being visible.  At one gathering, a general asked Jacob to show some of his “tricks.”  Jacob, offended by this demeaning word, ordered a servant to bring him the general’s walking stick, made of thick grapevine, and a glass bowl full of water.  He then thrust the stick into the bowl.  “After a time,” the Pioneer’s correspondent wrote, “they saw numbers of shoots, like rootlets, begin issuing from the handle until they filled the bowl and held the stick steady, Jacob standing over it, muttering all the time.”  Then the stick began making crackling sounds, and twigs began sprouting from the stick, which soon turned into leaves and buds, the latter of which turned into bunches of black grapes.  All of this took place within some ten minutes.

Jacob was not through with his little show.  He told one of the guests to close his eyes and picture himself in the bedroom of his bungalow, which was about a mile away.  The guest obeyed.  “Now open your eyes,” Jacob said.  When the man did so, he was understandably flummoxed to find that he and Jacob were standing in the bungalow.  Jacob then told him to close his eyes again, so they could rejoin the dinner party.  However, the man, apparently having enough of being teleported here and there, refused.  “Oh, well,” said Jacob, “since you won’t come, I must go alone.  Goodbye.”  And then he vanished.  What the other dinner guests thought of this Fortean floor show is unfortunately not recorded.

In 1896, the Spiritualist publication “Borderland” carried a report about Jacob.  Their correspondent said he had spoken to Jacob about the “Pioneer” account.  Jacob essentially confirmed it all, except that he denied having performed the “miracle” of the grapes with a guest’s stick.  Rather, he had used a pre-prepared stick, which made his little stunt an easy one.  “In fact, he asserted that I or any one else could do the trick as soon as we were shown how.  Further, he admitted the truth of the fact that he had thrust your contributor through with a naked sword, but while he admitted it, he explained it away, for he said it was a mere trick, which was frequently performed by the natives.”

And what of the reports that Jacob could walk on water?  “Ah,” he replied, “I cannot do that now.”  Jacob explained, “I did not walk on the water, as the article says, although I appeared to do so, but I was supported in the air by my friend, who was invisible to the others.”  He added that this “friend” was someone who died 150 years previously, “and had been kind enough to act as his guardian through life.”  Alas, this “spirit guardian” had deserted him four months ago, leaving Jacob unable to repeat that particular stunt.  The “Borderland” correspondent also informed us that Jacob always wore a certain charm around his neck.  When he would wave it around, “a storm of butterflies, so dense, that no object in the room or its walls or ceiling could be seen through; and again with another word the storm disappeared.”  On another occasion, he showed his drawing-room “to be on fire, filled with large flames, but without warmth.”

As if Jacob’s life wasn’t peculiar enough, he also appears to have been some sort of intelligence asset.  Edward Buck, who had been a correspondent for Reuters in Simla for many years, and who knew Jacob well, wrote, “From papers which Mr. Jacob showed me there is no doubt in my mind that he was at one time treated as a secret agent of Government in certain matters.”  Buck did not say what these “certain matters” were, but he implied that the answers to many of the questions surrounding Jacob could be found in the files of “the mysterious Secret Department” of the Indian government.  

A.M. Jacob--or whoever and whatever he really was--died in Bombay on January 9, 1921.  He is buried in that city’s Sewri cemetery, but the exact location of his grave is now lost.  He would probably prefer it that way.

There is one rather charming footnote to our story.  The “Imperial Diamond” which led to Jacob’s financial ruin is now known as the “Jacob Diamond,” thus giving him a certain immortality.

[Note:  Many thanks to John Bellen for introducing me to this unusual character.]