Part 2 Begum Sarbuland A Life Untold

Ancestral Roots in Old Delhi

Begum Sarbuland—or Akhtar un-Nisa, the name her parents gave her—was born in Hyderabad but had familial ties to Delhi, the nominal capital of the Mughal Empire, and to the royal court at the heart of the city. Her great-great-great-grandfather was the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II (1728–1806). Though there were hundreds who could boast such a lineage—the emperor had over fifty documented children—this ancestry gave Begum Sarbuland’s family an enduring connection to Mughal life in Delhi.3 Despite falling on very hard times by the eighteenth century, the city and its royal court still commanded immense prestige across India. One’s proximity to Mughal Delhi was considered a metric for assessing one’s refinement and gentility. So powerful was this association that, as far as prestige went, it hardly mattered that by Shah Alam II’s day the Mughal Empire had become impotent, its influence famously going not much further than the suburb of Palam. Begum Sarbuland’s forefathers leveraged their association with the royal court to find gainful employment outside Delhi, a city that was becoming increasingly difficult to live in.

As Delhi declined, the British Empire in India was expanding in the east. Britain’s growth came in distinct stages. In the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth, the East India Company often sought to grow its influence largely by adapting to India’s social and governmental institutions and hollowing them out from the inside. Rather than conquering indigenous states by force of arms, they often allowed pliant rulers to retain their thrones on the condition that they were willing to be “guided” by the British advisers, or “residents,” posted to their courts. Even where they ruled directly, the British preserved the administrative languages and procedures of precolonial India, conducting much of their official business not in English but in Persian, Urdu, or regional languages like Bengali or Tamil.4 Thus, despite the huge shifts in power taking place, the transition to colonial rule was accompanied by some sense of continuity. Men educated in Persian, Arabic, and Urdu were still able to find employers who valued and needed their skills. Nevertheless, British norms and Western education were slowly seeping in at the seams.

Then came 1857, when a revolt among Indian troops serving in the British military spread to the general populace and lead to a violent uprising against colonial rule across India. Delhi saw some of the most intense fighting. British troops besieged the city for months before ultimately putting down the revolt. Their victory was accompanied by an uncontrolled rampage as troops flooded into the city, looting and shooting on sight. The restoration of British control did not stop the killings but instead led to sham trials and summary executions. Thousands fled. Unable to reenter Delhi, many camped outside its walls. The victorious forces initially banned all Indians from returning to the city; later the ban was amended to prohibit only Muslims, whom the British distrusted and accused of fomenting the revolt. The Mughal Empire had come to an end. Among those camped outside the city, forbidden to return to their ancestral home, were Begum Sarbuland’s nine-year-old father and his family.

Exiled from their hometown, unable to access the wealth and the prestige associated with their social status in Delhi, the family adapted: they learned English, familiarized themselves with British culture, and took posts in the colonial administration. Simultaneously, they continued to cultivate and draw on their long-standing connections to the prestigious cultural world of old Delhi. This meant emphasizing their affiliation with Delhi’s royal codes of etiquette and its authoritative dialect of Urdu. This was a valuable claim in British India, where Urdu was by then the most common language of administration. This cultural capital and their willingness to adapt meant that Begum Sarbuland’s family rose to even greater prominence after 1857 than before.

Agha Mirza Beg in Hyderabad

The pivotal figure in this transition was Begum Sarbuland’s father, Nawab Agha Mirza Beg Khan (1848–1933). Born in Delhi in 1848, he was just old enough to remember life in Mughal Delhi but young enough to have his education shaped around the new realities of British India. His life was spent straddling and negotiating these two cultural worlds—a fact that would surely facilitate Begum Sarbuland’s own comfortable familiarity with many aspects of princely and British life. Agha Mirza passed his early years in his natal home in the Farash Khana neighborhood of Shahjahanabad (today better known as Old Delhi). His house was just a few minutes’ walk from that of the famed poet Mirza Asadullah Ghalib, who was, in fact, a relative by blood and marriage.5 Agha Mirza’s mother, Munavvar Zamani Begum, was more educated than most women of her time. She received a thorough religious education at home, having read the Qur’an in Arabic and studied it through Shah Abd ul-Qadir’s (d. 1815) famous Urdu translation and commentary.6 She herself taught Agha Mirza to understand the Qur’an through this translation. Agha Mirza’s father, Javvad Beg (also known as Mughal Beg), had been a scholar of Persian, Arabic, and mathematics. If not for the 1857 rebellion, Agha Mirza might have followed a similar path.

After fleeing Delhi, Agha Mirza and his family initially hid out in the ruins around the city (in the region of today’s South Delhi) until a relative located them and took them to the nearby kingdom of Alwar, where Agha Mirza’s maternal uncle was prime minister and regent. With the entire country still in disarray, this was a harrowing journey. On the way, they were joined by some cousins, one of whom gave birth while they were still on the road. The newborn, Sikandar Zamani Begum (b. 1857), would one day become Agha Mirza’s wife and Begum Sarbuland’s mother.7 Unfortunately, the group found little respite in Alwar, where a court dispute between rival Hindu and Muslim factions resulted in them being chased from the city. Exiled once more, the family attempted to return to Delhi but were still refused entry. So they turned east, traveling to Sitapur, near Lucknow. There they found safety and security with Agha Mirza Beg’s paternal uncle Mirza Abbas Beg.

This was a turning point in Agha Mirza’s life. In his early youth Agha Mirza had studied Urdu, the Qur’an, some Persian, and possibly some English. In Lucknow, though, his uncle introduced him to a British curriculum. Mirza Abbas Beg had come under the influence of the famed pedagogue Master Ramchandra, who famously supported Western education.8 Guided by Master Ramchandra, Mirza Abbas learned English and joined the British Army, helping to conquer Punjab in 1849.9 Then, in 1857, he defended the British at Lucknow. This display of loyalty earned him immense trust and favor in the city.10 Through his British contacts, he had Agha Mirza enrolled in Lucknow’s exclusive Canning College, an institution founded to teach a Western education to the Indian elite.11 All the instructors at Canning College were British apart from the Persian and Arabic teachers. Soon, Agha Mirza was completely fluent in English. He spent his leisure time studying philosophers like Locke and Hume and reading English novelists, Sir Walter Scott particularly. (For an example of his English writing, see fig. 11.1.) He was also well read in Persian, Arabic, and Urdu.

After graduation, Agha Mirza levied his connections to find a post in Hyderabad. Hyderabad had sided with the British in 1857, a decision that spared it the brutal retribution meted to cities like Delhi and Lucknow. Thus, even as Delhi underwent a painful transformation to direct colonial rule by a vengeful colonial state, Hyderabad hardly suffered at all in the years after the uprising. In fact, it prospered. The wealthy, stable state easily attracted huge numbers of highly accomplished men from the north who came there fleeing violence and discrimination in their homelands. Among the migrants was Agha Mirza, for whom the pull of Hyderabad was surely irresistible. A rich and peaceful kingdom, Hyderabad maintained Mughal traditions, including the use of Persian as an administrative language. The Mughal influence in Hyderabad made Agha Mirza appealing to the state too. He was a descendent of the Mughal line; he spoke Delhi Urdu and was skilled in Persian. He had been trained in the norms of the Mughal courts from his infancy. At the same time, he was fluent in English and adept at maneuvering among British officials in India. He was a perfect match for a semi-independent state seeking to retain its traditions while adjusting to the new realities of life in high colonial India.

Agha Mirza arrived in Hyderabad in early 1873.12 There he was appointed as tutor for the children of the prime minister and regent, Salar Jung I (1829–1883).13 Soon thereafter he became the private tutor of the ruler of Hyderabad himself, Nizam Mir Mahbub Ali Khan, who was a young child at the time. Agha Mirza’s knowledge of courtly life and his ability to move seamlessly among English, Persian, Arabic, and Urdu made him an ideal appointee for managing an education that straddled British and Indian curriculums.14 As a result of this constant and intimate contact, teacher and student formed a close bond that lasted for almost two decades. Once his schooling had concluded, the nizam retained Agha Mirza as his personal secretary, adviser, and confidant.15 They were so close that for some two decades Begum Sarbuland’s father “exercised an almost unbounded autocracy” in Hyderabad until his retirement in 1897 (plates 2 and 3).16

Many of Agha Mirza’s family members followed him to Hyderabad, including his widowed mother, Munavvar Zamani. In 1874, he traveled back to Delhi to marry his cousin, Sikandar Zamani Begum, whose birth he had witnessed in 1857 (plate 4).17 Their marriage reaffirmed and expanded his ties to princely India: Sikandar Zamani’s mother belonged to the royal family of Loharu, while her father had been prime minister of Alwar (which meant that Begum Sarbuland herself had immediate ties to these courts). Together the couple produced ten children.18 All were born in Hyderabad but retained a social identity as northerners rather than as native Hyderabadis.19 Begum Sarbuland was probably their first or second child. They named her Akhtar un-Nisa, meaning “a star among women.” As a young girl she played with the children of Hyderabad’s elite and surely met many of the influential figures from Hyderabad and northern India who visited their home.

In this way, for Begum Sarbuland and her family, 1857 was ultimately a moment of ascent. Her immediate family now occupied positions of more power and wealth in Hyderabad than they ever had in Mughal Delhi or than they might have achieved in British India, which denied Indians roles in the upper administration. Agha Mirza’s success became generational, as his sons and sons-in-law took important positions in the state and were themselves awarded honors and titles. Yet this did not mean that success was guaranteed in perpetuity. In the end, Agha Mirza was forced out of the city, where political intrigue was rampant. By the 1880s, there was significant conflict between two major factions, the mulkis (those who had ancestral links to the city) and the ghair-mulkis (those, like Agha Mirza, whose families had migrated there).20 These disputes were further complicated by intense internal power struggles among the ghair-mulkis and by British efforts to consolidate their own influence. After a particularly nasty interaction in February 1897, Agha Mirza determined that he could no longer continue to weather the city’s intrigues.21 Though he still had the support of the nizam, he requested permission to leave. When it was granted, he immediately boarded a train and left Hyderabad for good, without even pausing to see his wife or children. Such was Agha Mirza’s influence in the city that his departure marked “a turning point in the life of Hyderabad politics.”22

His family, however, stayed behind. Already intimate with the nizam, his children and particularly his son-in-law Hamidullah Khan were deeply enmeshed in Hyderabad’s upper echelon. Thus, rather than leave with her father, Begum Sarbuland instead made frequent trips to visit him at his homes in Lucknow and Shimla. Even from a distance, Agha Mirza continued to have a presence in her life. When he left in 1897, he was less than fifty years old. His name appears frequently in his daughter’s 1909–10 travelogue, as she writes him letters, prays for him, and notes the gifts that she bought him. Though he lived for nearly thirty-five more years after leaving Hyderabad, his break with the city was complete. Even in 1910, her parents seemed to be living separately, her mother in Hyderabad and her father in Shimla. Agha Mirza finally passed away in 1933 and was buried in Delhi, a few feet from the tomb of the famed sixteenth-century Sufi saint Khwaja Baqi Billah, near the gates of Delhi’s old city. His daughter would join him in a nearby plot a quarter century later.

Begum Sarbuland’s Childhood Education and Early Life

In the late nineteenth century, most Indian women were given no formal education beyond basic religious instruction. Fewer than 1 percent of women could read. Those who could also write were even more scarce. Writing was considered more dangerous than reading, since it would allow women to communicate with unrelated men and thus endanger the family’s honor.23 As one woman who grew up in the 1850s reflected: “It had long been customary in my family to teach the girls how to read—teaching them how to write, however, was strictly forbidden. The girls were taught only to vocalize the Arabic of the Quran and read a bit of Urdu so that they could gain some knowledge of their faith and the rules of prayer and fasting. . . . I was, however, still dying to learn to read Urdu, but I couldn’t find any woman who could teach me.”24 In this regard, Begum Sarbuland’s family was liberal: her grandmother Munavvar Zamani Begum could read and had enough knowledge of Urdu and Arabic to be able to give her son his early religious instruction. This made her exceptionally well educated compared to most Indian women.25

The situation regarding women’s education had improved somewhat by Begum Sarbuland’s time, but even in the 1870s, there were almost no opportunities for girls to attend a formal school.26 Some schools had been founded in Hyderabad, largely by Christian missionaries or by individual families for their own daughters.27 Begum Sarbuland was instead educated at home, probably by her mother and visiting instructors. She was certainly given a rigorous religious education, learning to read the Qur’an and read and write in Urdu. She could understand written Persian, as indicated by her occasional reference to Persian poetry in her private notebooks, but was probably never able to speak it fluently (though her male relatives certainly could). As a youth, she learned music, sewing, embroidery, and board games, such as chess.

Her travel diary, of course, demonstrates not just that she had cultivated writing as a lifelong habit but that she was in fact an excellent and even eloquent writer. Some of her writing is preserved in private notebooks and diaries. The entries include personal memories, activities, important life events, and occasional compositions. (By way of example, figure 11.2 shows a code of ethics for travelers written in her own hand.)

Her diary also mentions a long list of correspondences she kept, demonstrating that she was a prolific writer of letters. She also likely subscribed to and read Urdu women’s magazines, which thrived from the early twentieth century.28 Women’s writing in Hyderabad began to flourish from the early twentieth century, and while not everyone published, Begum Sarbuland herself was an active participant in this culture of writing.29 She no doubt participated in oral literary gatherings, perhaps as a member of one of the many “purdah clubs” for women that were popular at the time.30 In addition to her prose and letter writing, Begum Sarbuland was also an avid poet. She used the pen name “Akhtar.” She references writing her own poetry twice in her diary. While meeting with some women in Constantinople, she sings “one of my own ghazals.” When she meets with the Prince and Princess of Wales, it is revealed that she had written a poem in Urdu to commemorate their visit to Hyderabad. Somewhat surprisingly, then, there is very little poetry in her diary, neither verses of her own nor by other poets. Prose writing in Urdu is often filled with verse quotations, but her travelogue includes almost none.31 Despite this, she loved writing poetry, and much of her verse remains preserved in her private notebooks.32 (See a draft of a ghazal poem written in her own hand in figure 11.3.)

Begum Sarbuland’s access to education seemingly expanded after her marriage in 1894. Among the new class of English-educated Indians, the group to which Hamidullah belonged, wives were increasingly expected to be educated life partners who could share in their spouse’s intellectual interests. Hamidullah perhaps went further than many of his peers in this, being himself strongly in favor of reforming and expanding Muslim women’s education. At some point after their marriage, then, Hamidullah likely encouraged Begum Sarbuland to continue her education, particularly by learning English (or, at the very least, he did not prevent her from doing so). Her diary suggests that she had learned English relatively recently but that, by 1909, she was fluent enough to read English novels, travel alone, and befriend a range of British women. She was even able to banter comfortably with the Princess of Wales. (When the royal couple praised India’s beauty to her, Begum Sarbuland quipped, “It belongs to you.”)

It was in the 1900s that she first accessed formal education, in a way. By then a few prominent schools had opened to educate wealthy, sharif Muslim girls like Begum Sarbuland’s daughters. In Hyderabad, the premier institution of this kind was Mahbubiya Girls’ School (originally called the New Zenana School), which opened in 1907 as a “finishing school for girls in the upper echelons of society, which prepared its students for the Cambridge local examinations and for their future role as wives and mothers.”33 Begum Sarbuland’s daughter Khurshid Begum was promptly enrolled. The initial class included twenty-two students, including the daughters of Sarojni Naidu and Lady Amina Hydari.34 Not enrolled but attending as an auditor was Begum Sarbuland, who insisted on sitting in on her daughter’s classes so that she could learn herself! In 1909 she further supplemented her education by studying colloquial Arabic, which she learned to at least a passable level.

Married Life and After

When Hamidullah Khan married Akhtar un-Nisa, she was about eighteen, and he was just shy of thirty. They had some similarities and some differences. Both descended from Mughal families from Delhi.35 However, while she was the inheritor of India’s precolonial princely traditions, the living embodiment of life among India’s princely elite, Hamidullah was a part of the new colonial avant-garde. He represented the “new elite,” who were trained in England, comfortable in English, and worked closely with the British administration.

The Life of Hamidullah Khan

Hamidullah Khan was born in Agra on March 17, 1864. Almost nothing about his mother has been recorded, except that she was the daughter of Nawab Ikhtiyar ud-Daula Khwaja Ali Ahmad Khan, whose own family descended from the Mughal court.36 His father, on the other hand, attained significant fame, and his family history is well-documented.37 Samiullah Khan (1834–1908) was an Arabic scholar by training. Widely respected by northern Indian Muslims, he was held in great esteem by the British, with whom he worked for many years as a court judge. In colonial British sources, he is best remembered for his services in solidifying colonial control over Egypt in 1886.38 His contributions there earned him a knighthood. Today, though, he is known primarily for advocating educational reform among Indian Muslims.

Hamidullah’s education was rigorous and thorough. In Agra, he studied with accomplished scholars from almost the moment he could walk. In 1871, the family moved to Allahabad, where, from age seven, a host of tutors schooled him in Urdu, Arabic, Persian, and English.39 Within two years he had apparently so sufficiently mastered Urdu and Persian that his curriculum “was confined to English and Arabic” alone.40 In 1873, a judicial posting took the family to Aligarh. Around this time, Hamidullah joined his father and the famed scholar Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) on a tour of Punjab to drum up support for a new school for Muslims in Aligarh that would teach both Western and Islamic subjects. Hamidullah’s role on this trip was to demonstrate the potential of such an education.41

Officially opened in 1875, the Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College was not just a school but the epicenter of an entire reformist movement. The college was the brainchild of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, but Samiullah Khan was among its earliest and fiercest advocates. Like Sayyid Ahmad, he believed that Indian Muslims could only return to their former glory by reforming their society and embracing Western knowledge, particularly among the ashraf, or upper class. The college was intended to provide this transformative, composite education. Despite intense criticism and even accusations of blasphemy, the school was a stunning success: even today the word “Aligarh” serves as a shorthand for a certain intellectual orientation and the lifestyles and careers of its alumni. Hamidullah made history by becoming the school’s first student and one of its most successful graduates.42

Between the school’s rigorous education and his early training, Hamidullah advanced rapidly. By age fourteen he was ready to sit for the university entrance exam.43 He was offered a two-year scholarship by the maharaja of Patiala, which he took up in 1879, continuing his education from Aligarh. He also began private tuitions in Latin, classical English literature, and classical Arabic. By this time, his father had been transferred to Muradabad, but Hamidullah remained in Aligarh with Sayyid Ahmad Khan. His diary entries, many of which were later published, give a picture of his life during this period.44

The second phase of his life began in 1880. When he was sixteen, Hamidullah moved to England.45 After two years of rigorous study, he was admitted to Lincoln’s Inn and Christ’s College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1886, was called to the bar, and worked for the India Office in London.46 He made several long trips during this time, including one to Ireland and another to Vienna, where he represented the India Office at a major Orientalist conference.47 He also traveled frequently to France to learn French, but the most significant voyage he took was to Egypt in 1884. There, his father was tasked with reviewing the courts and convincing Egyptians that British rule was compatible with Muslim law. Despite being twenty years old, Hamidullah was invited to join the mission as a personal assistant to its leader, the Earl of Northbrook. This appointment made him the third generation of his family to serve Britain’s imperial expansion.48 After returning to India in late 1886, Hamidullah pursued a career in law, moving to Allahabad to work as a lawyer in the high court. Over the course of the next decade, he grew his legal practice and edited a major intellectual and literary magazine, the Allahabad Review (founded 1890). He also founded an organization dedicated to Muslim educational reform and published translations and commentaries in English on the Persian poetry of Hafiz.49

Hamidullah Khan Weds Akhtar un-Nisa

Hamidullah and Akhtar un-Nisa were married on January 14th, 1894.50 The grandeur of the wedding can be seen through a travelogue written by a wedding guest, Shah Muhammad Danapuri. Danapuri often uses the present tense, as though he were narrating the events as they occured: “The guests are beginning to arrive and the crowd grows larger and larger at every moment. The stream of guests flows ceaselessly. One can see many very fine people here; it is a beautiful gathering. Many large houses have been arranged and prepared for the guests. [As we enter the room arranged for us,] two attendants, both residents of Delhi, come before us with their hands folded. They appear to be diligent and courteous. Maulvi sahib [Samiullah Khan] has assigned two such servants to each guest in attendance.”51 The guests were provided with every necessity. Food and beverages were always available. Delhi can be frigid in January, and Danapuri was delighted to find that warm water was left outside his room every morning before dawn for his ablutions.

In his entry from January 14, 1894, Danapuri describes the groom’s procession in detail:

It is the seventh of the month of Rajab, the day selected for the marriage ceremony. . . . Before us there is a long line of phaetons and carriages. The hosts are busy inviting their guests to sit in them. A little later the bridegroom, Muhammad Hamidullah Khan, emerged from the house dressed in a wedding costume. He was wearing an Arab cloak in the Medina style that had been specially made in Mecca, and a white turban made of Syrian cloth. He rode an iron-grey horse, and his elders walked beside him. . . . Setting off, the wedding procession passed the Jami Mosque and continued toward Nawab Sarvar Jung Bahadur’s [Agha Mirza’s] house in the Churiwalan neighborhood. The distance was more than a mile, but everyone was in high spirits. They were even more joyous than they had been during the sachaq procession [the day before]. [At the ceremony] Janab Maulvi Samiullah Khan Bahadur conducted the wedding himself and sought the assent and agreement of both parties [for the marriage]. Cries of mubarak! and salamat! [congratulations] rang out.52

Then sweets were distributed to the guests. The proportions were massive, with each guest receiving over three pounds of sugary goodness in large china bowls. “Now everyone who had attended the marriage stood up and went outside to pray. There we saw the items that had been included in the dowry. Truly, Nawab Sarvar Jung [Agha Mirza] has shown extreme generosity during this wedding.”53 The festivities concluded the following day with a meal, the valima, hosted by Hamidullah’s family.

After the wedding, Hamidullah stayed in northern India, working and attending to his ailing mother. Begum Sarbuland may have stayed there with him for a time before returning to Hyderabad. After his mother’s death in September 1894, he closed his practice in Allahabad and moved to Hyderabad. He arrived there in 1895. Begum Sarbuland gave birth to her first son, Muhammadullah, and then a daughter, Khurshid Begum (1896–1981), the following year.

Married Life in Hyderabad

Hamidullah was highly qualified, but it was his marriage to Akhtar un-Nisa that earned him an immediate position among Hyderabad’s ruling class. After all, his father-in-law was the second most powerful man in the kingdom. Hamidullah’s first post was as a judge of the high court (plates 3 and 5). The nizam also granted him two honorifics: Afzal al-Ulama (Most excellent of scholars) and Nawab Sarbuland Jung (Exalted, lit. “having the head held high”). These titles are said, perhaps apocryphally, to have been arranged by his wife. Family lore tells that Akhtar un-Nisa wished for her husband to receive a British knighthood and that she repeatedly pressured the nizam to raise the matter with the British resident directly. If this had happened, he would have become Sir Hamidullah (and because she used her husband’s title as her name, she would have been “knighted,” in a sense, herself). The nizam, though, was unwilling or unable to make this happen. Instead, he tried to pacify her by offering her husband a clever homophone. Rather than make Hamidullah a “sir,” he made him a “sar” by granting him the title Sar-buland (“exalted”). From then on, he was known as Nawab Sarbuland Jung, and his wife became Begum Sarbuland Jung (the wife of Sarbuland Jung).54

Hamidullah’s arrival in Hyderabad changed more than Akhtar un-Nisa’s name. By the end of 1896 they already had two children. The size of their family then grew almost annually. They reportedly had a total of thirteen children, of which at least ten survived to adulthood. These were Muhammadullah (b. 1896),55 Khurshid Begum (1896–1981),56 Mahmudullah (b. 1901), Masudullah,57 Maqsudullah, Qudsiya Begum, Dr. Wajihullah Alavi,58 Halimullah (1909–73),59 Tehzib Nur Begum (1912–96),60 and Usman Ilahi Bakhsh (b. 1914). Hamidullah’s career advanced quickly too: in 1904, he was promoted to home secretary, and four years later he became the chief justice of the supreme court (fig. 11.4 and plate 6). At forty-four years old, he had a salary of two thousand rupees per month.61 He did not retain the position for long, however.62 The following year he took a leave of absence to travel to Europe and the Middle East with his wife. In 1912, he claimed a full pension from the state and took an early retirement.63

Prior to his retirement, though, the couple made at least one journey to Delhi, in 1911, to attend the Imperial Durbar, where Hamidullah was sent as a member of the Hyderabad delegation.64 The Delhi Durbar of 1911 was a lavish commemoration of the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary (whom the Sarbulands had visited in London before they were coronated) as emperor and empress of India. Unsurprisingly, Begum Sarbuland’s attendance is not recorded in the official proceedings. Nevertheless, stories passed down by her children confirm that she did attend and that she may have done so assertively, all while wearing a blazing red outfit she had designed and sewn herself (plate 29): “Upon her return from her travels, [Begum Sarbuland] created two blouses from her wedding dupatta, one of which she wore to the ‘Durbar’ [of 1911]. . . . Dressed as befitting a Mughal princess and the wife of the Chief Justice of the Hyderabad Court, she walked straight up to the dais reserved for ‘dignitaries’ that is, the British women, ignoring all protests from the guards. Her self-assurance intrigued the Viceroy’s wife who then wanted to meet her. There followed an interesting exchange and conversation in English as they sat together.”65 While there is no written record of this account, this oral narrative speaks both to Begum Sarbuland’s forthrightness and knack for making friends on every possible occasion. And of course, her acumen for fashion and clothing design.

After Retirement

Hamidullah’s retirement brought massive changes to Begum Sarbuland’s life. He had once traveled to Hyderabad for her; it was now time for her to move to Allahabad for him. They shifted there in 1912, moving into a house in the city’s Civil Lines. The reasons behind the move are unclear, but it may have had to do with his health or the pressures of his job. In Allahabad, he reopened his legal practice. It was she who primarily took charge of the family’s affairs in Allahabad, likely devoting much of her attention to her children (plate 8). As their children grew older, the family attended or organized a series of weddings, including an extravagant event for their eldest son, Muhammadullah, in 1916 (plate 10).66 At the same time, the couple began to dedicate themselves more than ever to the cause of Muslim educational reform. Hamidullah paid special attention to his alma mater, Aligarh Muslim University (as the school was called by then), which he served as a trustee, but he also headed or attended a range of educational conferences. As he aged, though, he gradually curtailed his activities and withdrew from society.67 He spent the later years of his life editing and publishing his writings, including his earlier travel diaries.

His wife, meanwhile, became ever more active. She continued to travel to Hyderabad regularly (plate 9). She joined various Muslim women’s reformist organizations, traveling across India, probably without her husband, to attend their conferences and events. Her name appears consistently in meeting minutes and conference bulletins over a period of several decades. One instance comes from 1918, when she represented Allahabad at the first meeting of the All-India Ladies Association in Bhopal.68 She attended the conference with her daughter Khurshid Begum, who was the representative from Aligarh (plates 13 and 16).69 At the conference, Begum Sarbuland blamed infant mortality in India on “parental ignorance” of the proper manner for feeding and caring for a child. She proposed a resolution that would call on the government to increase the quantity and training of “lady doctors” and recommended competent nurses pay home visits to ensure that parents were properly informed of the best child-rearing practices.70 On another occasion, in 1927, she gave a speech at the All-India Women’s Conference on Educational Reform in Pune.71 She probably also attended the same conference again in 1928 and was selected there to join a delegation on child marriage that was sent to meet with the viceroy.72

These events were more than just professional affairs. They were likely a key part of Begum Sarbuland’s social life. In Hyderabad, she had always kept a wide circle of female friends. These conferences provided her the opportunity to meet with her friends and socialize with like-minded women from across India. A travel diary entry by the Hyderabadi reformist Sughra Humayun Mirza, who also attended the 1918 conference in Bhopal, gives a sense of this sociality. She writes: “At eight o’ clock we all went to the dining hall, that is: 1. Nafis Dulhan Sahiba, the secretary of the All-India Muslim Ladies Conference; 2. Abru Begum Sahiba, the secretary of the Ladies Club; 3. Fatima Arzu Begum, the secretary of the All-India Ladies Conference; 4. Begum Sarbuland Jang; 5. Mrs. Abd ul-Majid [Begum Sarbuland’s daughter Khurshid Begum]; . . . We all had at dinner together. After the meal we played the harmonium and sang songs. This lively gathering lasted until eleven o’clock.”73 As her children grew older and as her husband’s health continued to deteriorate, Begum Sarbuland seems to have found increasingly more time for these reformist events.

She also spent a significant amount of time visiting her family, including particularly her father, who passed away in 1933 (plates 12 and 19). She made frequent visits to Aligarh, where her eldest daughter, Khurshid Begum, lived. She seems to have found plenty of other reasons for travel too. One trip from 1923 is recorded in a travelogue written by her sister-in-law Rahil Begum Shervania (1894–1983). Rahil Begum had married Begum Sarbuland’s brother Yahya Beg in 1920 but was widowed three short years later. To console herself for the loss of her husband, Rahil resolved to perform the hajj that same year. This was a challenging journey for a newly widowed woman with two young children, but Begum Sarbuland was eager to help and give her advice on how to prepare for the journey. When she learned about Rahil Begum’s intention to perform the hajj, Begum Sarbuland traveled to Lucknow and brought her to Allahabad for a week.74

In 1925, Begum Sarbuland and Hamidullah moved to Delhi. By then, her husband was ailing so much that in 1929 he was forced to skip his own son’s wedding (plate 15). They began to spend their summers in the mountain towns of Shimla and Solan and their winters in Delhi.75 He passed away in 1930 at the age of sixty-six, probably of cancer.76 Begum Sarbuland describes his death as a terrible blow.77 He had been an immense force in her life, and the pair were very close. The nature of their relationship that emerges from her travel diary is one of concord and mutual support. They appear to take decisions together, while allowing the other to explore their own interests freely. Hamidullah was nominally the head of the family, but in truth, Begum Sarbuland lived an independent life both inside and outside the home. Though their marriage had been arranged, it was an ideal match. The two shared many qualities and were similarly spiritually aligned. They were deeply religious and committed to the defense of Islam. Some of the most poignant moments in Begum Sarbuland’s diary are when they worship together at sacred sites in the Middle East. She had an intellectual bent and a deep desire to observe and to learn. Hamidullah was of course a scholar who had trained with the greatest thinkers in Britain and India. He clearly appreciated his wife’s intellect and curiosity and sought to cultivate these qualities.

More broadly, Hamidullah seems to have always been a particularly liberal and freethinking individual. He was an early supporter of women’s suffrage; in the 1880s, he even aspired to become a vegetarian.78 He avoided alcohol but drank it occasionally on the principle that it was better to follow local custom than to cause disruption or offense.79 In 1886, he lamented Britain’s insistence on carting off Egyptian antiquities to store away in London’s museums.80 Though he critiqued some aspects of colonialism, neither husband nor wife ever seem to have objected to British rule in India. They involved themselves in a range of reformist affairs, but there is no record of them having taken part in India’s surging anticolonial movements in which even some of their children were deeply involved, whether with the Indian National Congress or the All-India Muslim League. They were perhaps too deeply invested in British India to advocate for its demise, or perhaps they simply wished to dedicate their time to societal issues rather than political causes. By the same token, there is also no indication that he or his wife ever supported the idea of Muslim separatism within or from India.

Life after Hamidullah’s Death

Begum Sarbuland lived a quarter century longer than her husband. Though her diary states that she was “deadened to the pleasures of life” after her husband’s passing, widowhood did not dampen her vigor in the long run. She maintained her vibrant social life, and given that a significant number of high-ranking figures were among her friends and acquaintances, a group that included even the nizam himself, she retained her political clout (plate 17). In the 1920s and 1930s, she frequently met with the wives of India’s viceroys, who were the most influential women in the British Indian hierarchy, including Lady Irwin, Lady Reading, and Lady Willingdon.81 These visits were likely connected to her various reformist and charitable activities related to women’s welfare, but the fact that she was so regularly given audiences attests to her enduring influence.

In the 1930s, she expanded her advocacy work in surprising new directions. On April 20, 1936, for example, she gave a broadcast speech on the topic of dowry. The speech lasted approximately fifteen minutes. Perhaps to appease readers after a pedantic lecture, her segment was bookended by two soft musical numbers: P. S. Mukherjee playing the sarod and some ghazals sung by Muhammad Shafi.82 The most dramatic step she took during this period was the publication of her travel diary. The volume is not dated, but it was likely published around 1935–36 (plate 21).83 Begum Sarbuland understood her diary to be a part of her reformist work. She had long wished to open a vocational school for indigent Muslim girls.84 She cast this book as a part of that project. A note on the back page promised that all proceeds from the sale of the book would be applied to the construction of such a school in Delhi (see appendix 1). That particular project did not come to fruition, but in 1942 she did manage to open a school in Hyderabad for orphaned and indigent children, called Tarbiyat-Gah.85 She may have also run similar schools in Delhi and Allahabad, the later perhaps with her daughter Khurshid (plate 20).

At some point, perhaps in the early 1940s, she seems to have moved to Hyderabad, where she still had family and a social circle. Her surviving grandchildren today recall living with her in the Lal Tekri (or Red Hills) area of Hyderabad in the early 1940s. She lived in a large house with the capacity to host the children and any guests who visited her. At home, she wrote poetry and played board games, chess and pachisi particularly. Her steadying presence seems to have been particularly important to the family during World War II. Between 1942 and 1945, the husband of her daughter Usman Ilahi was taken by the Japanese as a prisoner of war in Singapore.86 Rather than stay alone in Lahore, his family moved to Hyderabad, where they joined other members of Begum Sarbuland’s family who were already there. Her grandchildren recall that she continued to maintain close links to the royal family. Every few months she would be sent large baskets of sweets and foodstuffs.87 On some occasions, Begum Sarbuland herself would visit the royal household at Nazri Bagh, or King Kothi Palace, in Hyderabad.88 Even late into her life, then, Begum Sarbuland remained an influential and well-connected figure surrounded by her large family.

Begum Sarbuland traveled frequently, often accompanied by either her daughter Khurshid or her granddaughter Akhtar (plate 22).89 These trips were, again, highly social affairs. In March 1934 she went on hajj, probably for the second time. The evidence for this journey comes from a travelogue from that year by the newspaper editor and activist Fatima Begum. On the ship to Jeddah, Begum Sarbuland befriended Fatima Begum and the famed poet and activist Hasrat Mohani and his wife, the anticolonial firebrand Nishat un-Nisa Begum Hasrat Mohani.90 Fatima Begum records that Begum Sarbuland took a leading role in organizing life at sea: “At Begum Sarbuland’s suggestion, a religious gathering and sermon was arranged for the female passengers.”91

What was probably her third pilgrimage occurred in 1937.92 Records from the British consulate in Jeddah record her presence in the city in July of that year:

Lady Abdul Qadir . . . arrived at Jedda with one son on the 28th of July.93 She is accompanied by Begum Sarbuland Jung (widow of a high personage in the Government of Hyderabad), her son and granddaughter,94 as well as an Englishwoman named Miss M. M. Clements.95 The latter says she became a Moslem in England thirteen years ago, and hopes to visit Medina and Mecca with the Jung party, finally going to India with them. . . . The Jung party found that a day and a half of Jedda in July was enough for them, and left for Medina with Lady Qadir and her son, leaving the unfortunate Miss Clements to wait here for her Islamic “bill of health.”96

The broader context for this journey was her son Halimullah’s health (plate 18). While studying medicine in Edinburgh, he spat blood, indicating tuberculosis. Doctors advised him to convalesce by the sea, and so he moved to Nice, France. His mother joined him there in early 1937. On the way home they visited Medina and probably Mecca as well.

The Jung family archive contains a striking photo of Begum Sarbuland in Nice (plate 23), probably taken in the late spring of 1937. In it, she is standing between her granddaughter Akhtar Sultan Begum and the exiled Ottoman sultan and deposed caliph, Abdülmecid II (1868–1944). The group is all smiles. In the picture, Begum Sarbuland is wearing a sari with a full-sleeved blouse and a cardigan. The tail of her sari is draped over her head, covering most of her hair, and looped back around over her chest. She stands close to Akhtar, who is a few months pregnant with a son, Mansoor Hasan. Both women are at a remove from the former caliph, a dapper older gentleman dressed in a suit, tie, and fez. His hands rest lightly in his trouser pockets. Combined with the women’s smiles, the effect is one of casual ease, of a quick snap of a few friends on a pleasant spring afternoon in the south of France. There is no doubt that the begum and the caliph would have had plenty to talk about, for both were intimately tied to the Hyderabadi royal family. Her connection to Hyderabad is obvious, but his is remarkable. After the toppling of the Ottoman Empire and the abolition of the caliphate two years later, Abdülmecid was exiled. He fled for Switzerland.97 A few months later he moved to Nice. Turkey denied him financial support in his exile, but he found succor from Hyderabad’s ruler, Mir Osman Ali Khan (1886–1967), who proposed to unite their families through marriage. In 1931, the nizam’s first son, Azam Jah, was married to the caliph’s daughter Dürrüşehvar (1914–2006), while his second son, Muazzam Jah, was married to the caliph’s niece Nilüfer (1916–1989). Both women, still in their midteens, promptly sailed for Hyderabad. They quickly learned to wear saris and speak Urdu while at sea and arrived ready to join Hyderabad’s social and political life. Begum Sarbuland had surely met these women on one of her many visits to the city, and now she met their father in Nice.

Later Life

At some point, perhaps in 1946 or early 1947, Begum Sarbuland seems to have moved from Hyderabad to Delhi, where she stayed with her youngest son, Halimullah, and his family in the house built by her late husband in Daryaganj (plates 24, 25, and 26).98 When India gained its independence from Britain and was partitioned to form India and Pakistan, Delhi was engulfed in violence, with many of the atrocities taking place in the old city near where Begum Sarbuland was then living in her home, Hamid Manzil. Her granddaughter Shakira Sultana, who was there at the time, recalls that while they were in hiding, the power was cut, and an eerie silence prevailed. In the darkness they could plainly see a raging fire burning in the direction of the Jama Mosque in Old Delhi. They witnessed several murders. One can imagine that Begum Sarbuland might, in these moments, have recalled the stories her father would have told her about his own experiences fleeing Delhi during the uprising of 1857.

In search of safety, the family took shelter in one of Halimullah’s restaurants in the formerly British-dominated area of the city. They then rented an apartment in Connaught Place, which was deemed to be safer than returning to Daryaganj. While they were away, though, their home was declared evacuee property by the state and occupied by a refugee from Pakistan.99 The family contested the confiscation of their home in court and through their contacts, though it was not returned to them for several years. During some of this time, Begum Sarbuland likely lived in Hyderabad, but she spent the final years before her death in Delhi, living with Halimullah and his family. She was also in regular contact with her other children. Even her daughter Usman Bakhsh Ilahi, who was living in Pakistan, came from Lahore to visit her yearly until her death, despite the complications and difficulties involved in crossing the border at that time.100

Over time, Begum Sarbuland developed dementia. She increasingly lost her ability to recognize her family members, particularly those who were not her children, but retained a playful and energetic spirit. Her grandchildren recall her frequently claiming to have befriended a jinn who would provide gifts for them; the children would then be sent to search the house to find out where the jinn had hidden the presents. However, Begum Sarbuland increasingly required assistance to survive. Throughout her life, she had relied on her personal servants, Hindu and Muslim, many of whom spent their lives in her service. In her final years, she was increasingly supported by Bakhtavar, an orphan who joined the family to assist her (plate 27). By the end of her life, Begum Sarbuland was spending six months of the year in the family’s vacation home in Solan (plate 28). In 1957, she was in a car driven by her son Halimullah, going from Solan back to Delhi, when the heat and humidity became too much for her. She reportedly passed away soon after arriving in Delhi.101 She was buried in an unmarked grave near her husband and father beside the shrine of Khwaja Baqi Billah (plate 30).102 Begum Sarbuland was survived by a huge number of grandchildren, many of whom went on to become successful and well-known figures in India, Pakistan, and the United States. In part, the success of her descendants can be credited to her active involvement in crafting the family’s legacy. Today, nearly seven decades after her passing, she remains a legend in the family.103

Conclusion

Begum Sarbuland lived a long and remarkable life at the heart of India’s political and cultural worlds. Though she declined to cultivate a public persona, she was not demure and certainly did not live a quiet life behind the walls of her home. Those around her knew that she was a force to be reckoned with, quick-witted and confident. She was a woman with many friends and impressive influence. She had a bold and daring personality. She felt little shyness about approaching strangers and asserting her will. In her diary, she is constantly finding new companions and making new friends; these were apparently lifelong traits. Still, in all her interactions she was careful to maintain what she considered the appropriate Islamic levels of modesty. In her younger days she wore a full veil but reduced its use before disposing of it entirely. Photos taken of her that date from 1910 to 1957 reflect this gradual shift. This transition can be seen in the images included in this book.

Despite her dynamic approach to purdah and her passion for fashion, Begum Sarbuland dressed modestly until the end of her life, preferring long-sleeved blouses paired with a sari, the loose end of which was always draped over her head, as in the photograph of her with the caliph. Begum Sarbuland believed in purdah as an ideal Islamic practice. She reflected on it often and shared her considerations in her diary. For her, purdah did not mean staying at home; nor did it mean always remaining completely covered. She adapted her purdah according to the circumstances, but she never disposed of the concept entirely. Even in her final years, she was fond of saying that when women began to go about with no purdah, the end times (qiyamat) would be near.104

Begum Sarbuland was above all a devout Muslim and a Sufi. She took guidance from spiritual guides and frequented the shrines of saints. She was initiated into the Qadiri and Chishti Sufi orders, though she was most dedicated to the latter. Her daily life was shaped by her faith, and it was her faith that shaped how she saw the world around her. She was a fervent and passionate devotee of the Prophet. She often said that after her death, she would not remain in her grave but would follow a tunnel straight to Medina and that if anyone wished to give her a salaam, they should not visit her grave in Delhi but speak their greetings in the Prophet’s city.105 Perhaps she is there now.

Notes

1. 1.Interview with Shakira Sultana, May 27, 2022.
2. 2.Not every woman in her society did the same. One of her contemporaries was Begum Sughra Humayun Mirza (1884–1958), another Hyderabad-born woman who married a lawyer from northern India. Begum Sughra Humayun Mirza was similarly committed to reformist movements. The two women differed, though, in their attitude toward public engagement. Unlike Begum Sarbuland, Sughra published and lectured frequently, generating a wide following and significant fame. For a brief biography and bibliography, see Majchrowicz, “Sughra Humayun Mirza,” 451–54.
3. 3.They were never confined to the city, though. In the late eighteenth century, her great-grandfather Mirza Akbar Beg Khan performed the hajj in Mecca, visited Egypt, and reportedly even studied mathematics in Italy. He also traveled to southern India and spent a few months in Hyderabad. (It is unknown whether Chhoti Begum, his wife, joined him or stayed in Delhi.) Agha Mirza Beg, Karnama-e Sarvari, 19. Begum Sarbuland’s grandfather and father traveled widely too, but, like Akbar Beg, they also always returned to Delhi. The family remains closely associated with Delhi today: in the 2010s Begum Sarbuland’s grandson Najeeb Jung was the city’s lieutenant governor.
4. 4.For an accessible look at the functioning of the British residency system in Hyderabad, see Dalrymple, White Mughals. For an India-wide examination of the institution, see Fisher, Indirect Rule; Keen, Princely India; Ramusack, Indian Princes.
5. 5.Ghalib was his paternal grandmother’s brother and his uncle-in-law, since Agha Mirza’s mother-in-law, Aziz un-Nisa Begum, was the daughter of Ghalib’s brother Yusuf Mirza. She had a close relationship with the poet. Agha Mirza Beg, Karnama-e Sarvari, 12.
6. 6.Munavvar Zamani Begum’s parents were Qarshiyah Begum and Khalilullah Khan. Qarshiyah Begum’s parents were Shahzadah Begum and Mirza Bakhtavar Bakht. The latter was a grandson of Shah Alam II. Agha Mirza Beg, 2.
7. 7.Agha Mirza Beg, 13. She was also known as Makhole Begum.
8. 8.See Minault, “Master Ramchandra.”
9. 9.Server-ul-Mulk, My Life, 48–53.
10. 10.Oldenburg, Colonial Lucknow, 237.
11. 11.Campbell, Glimpses, 365; Server-ul-Mulk, My Life, 32.
12. 12.His autobiography includes a fascinating narration of the long journey south. He departed from Lucknow in May 1872 and arrived in early 1873. Agha Mirza Beg, Karnama-e Sarvari, 61–81. See also Server-ul-Mulk, My Life, 79.
13. 13.Among his additional pupils were Saadat Ali Khan (b. 1864), Munir ul-Mulk, and Mir Laiq Ali Khan, Salar Jung II (1861–89). Server-ul-Mulk, My Life, 119. The latter would go on to become prime minister of Hyderabad and was himself the author of a Persian-language travelogue. See Laiq Ali Khan, Sharma, and Khalidi, Vaqa’i-yi musafarat. He also taught Maharaja Kishen Pershad, who would twice become prime minister in the twentieth century and was a close contact of Begum Sarbuland’s husband.
14. 14.A tutor, Captain Clerk, who did not speak Urdu, was brought from England to supervise his education. Agha Mirza was appointed as his assistant, and together, they tutored the young nizam, largely in English. They were briefly joined by the famed Urdu writer Deputy Nazir Ahmad, whom Agha Mirza did not like and who apparently tried to get Agha Mirza fired. Server-ul-Mulk, My Life, 155. Interestingly, the British resident and his tutor were constantly trying to get the nizam to travel. In 1875 the British resident insisted repeatedly that the young nizam make an educational voyage to Bombay. This was resisted heavily by the court and never happened. Server-ul-Mulk, 145. He instead took educational travels in his own cities of Gulbarga and Aurangabad, again at the instigation of his British minders. Server-ul-Mulk, 169–77. Then, at age eleven, he traveled to Delhi to attend the coronation durbar of Queen Victoria. Agha Mirza Beg, Karnama-e Sarvari, 194–200. Soon after, the British resident apparently tried to trick the court into having the nizam travel to England. Agha Mirza Beg, 201–2. That effort failed, but he later went to Calcutta as a capstone for his education and to mark his assumption of his full powers. Agha Mirza Beg, 222–30. Such efforts to force Indian rulers to travel were common at the time. See Majchrowicz, World in Words, 84, 118.
15. 15.At this time, Agha Mirza was granted the title Sarvar Jung Bahadur and given a sizeable pension that was guaranteed to him and his offspring in perpetuity. He was later granted further titles, including Sarvar ul-Mulk. Campbell, Glimpses, 358.
16. 16.Cohen, Appeal, 257; Server-ul-Mulk, My Life, v.
17. 17.His wife would have been about sixteen, and he was about twenty-six. Server-ul-Mulk, 121.
18. 18.These were Maryam Sultan, Zulqadar Jung, Yasin Sultan, Usman Nawaz Jung, Khursheed Sultan, Mirza Haider Jivan Beg, Akhtar Sultan, Akbar Beg, Mirza Abbas Beg, and Mirza Yahya Beg.
19. 19.Begum Sarbuland reportedly spoke Urdu with a Delhi accent rather than a Hyderabadi one. Interview with Najeeb Jung, March 6, 2023. In keeping with her lineage connecting her to the Mughal court, she was punctilious regarding Urdu grammar. Her grandson Abid Ilahi recalls that even late in life, when she was afflicted with dementia, she might still rebuke him if he spoke the language incorrectly. Interview with Abid Ilahi, September 28, 2023.
20. 20.Leonard, “Mulki-Non-Mulki Conflict.”
21. 21.These intrigues are described in a lengthy autobiography. There are two editions of the book. The first published version appeared in English, translated by his son Nawab Jivan Yar Jung. The second version, written in Urdu and edited by another son, Zulqadar Jung, contains significant differences. Agha Mirza Beg, Karnama-e Sarvari; Server-ul-Mulk, My Life. For a detailed study of a related controversy, see Cohen, Appeal.
22. 22.Cohen, 256.
23. 23.Minault, Secluded Scholars, 24.
24. 24.Quoted in Naim, Texts and Contexts, 206–7, 211.
25. 25.By way of comparison, one of her contemporaries was the mother of Munshi Zakaullah, a renowned scholar and the dear family friend of Begum Sarbuland’s father-in-law, Samiullah Khan. Their family had tutored the Mughal family for generations. She, however, was entirely illiterate. Minault, Secluded Scholars, 25.
26. 26.Minault, 205.
27. 27.Akhtar, Bibi’s Room, 56.
28. 28.Minault, Secluded Scholars, 105–57; Akhtar, Jara’id-e Nisvan.
29. 29.For a critical review of the history of Hyderabadi women’s writing in Urdu, see Tahsin, Haidarabad Meñ Urdu.
30. 30.Akhtar, Bibi’s Room, 60–61.
31. 31.Her private travel diary might be compared to that of another Hyderabadi woman, Muhammadi Begum (1911–90). The latter’s journal includes significantly more verses in both Urdu and Persian. See Muhammadi Begum and Husein, Long Way.
32. 32.Her granddaughter Shakira Sultan relates one of her devotional rubais in praise of Medina: “Zahe Nasib Madina maqam ho jae / Dar-e habib peh mera salam ho jae / Madina ja’uñ, dobara phir ja’uñ / Umar yuñ hi tamam ho ja’e.”
33. 33.For an introduction to the school and its founding and functioning, see Minault, Secluded Scholars, 206; Pernau, “Schools for Muslim Girls.”
34. 34.Akhtar, Bibi’s Room, 58.
35. 35.In fact, they were cousins, though several times removed. Begum Sarbuland’s paternal grandmother was the cousin of Hamidullah’s father, Samiullah, on her father’s side.
36. 36.Maulvi Muhammad Zaka’ullah, Savanih ‘Umari, 25. Ali Ahmad Khan was also a first cousin to Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Hamidullah’s father, Samiullah Khan, actually married two of Ali Ahmad’s daughters. The first wedding took place several years before 1857, and the couple gave birth to three children. However, the uprising led them to flee their homes and take refuge in the shrine of Nizamuddin, where his wife and their three children fell ill and died. A few years later, he married his deceased wife’s sister on November 4, 1861. The pair had two sons, Hamidullah and his brother, Majidullah. She died in September 1894 and was buried near the shrine of Shah Abd ul-Aziz in Delhi. Maulvi Muhammad Zaka’ullah, 26–27, 183–85. In the four-hundred-page book dedicated to the life of Samiullah, his dear friend Zaka’ullah does not mention his wives at all, except to share their father’s name and the dates of their deaths.
37. 37.Unlike his wife, Samiullah traced his family lineage back to Arabia and ultimately to Ali ibn Abi Talib, the fourth Muslim caliph. In Memoriam, 10. Nevertheless, his ties to the Mughal family are indicated by his mother’s lineage.
38. 38.In Memoriam, 24. His own father had played a similarly critical role as the mir munshi for General David Ochterlony and Captain George Birch. Their faith in his work surely contributed to the government’s later enthusiasm for entrusting Samiullah Khan with sensitive imperial tasks. Hamidullah was in turn given similar roles because he came from this lineage. Maulvi Muhammad Zaka’ullah, Savanih ‘Umari, 8–10.
39. 39.H. Khan, Early Life, 2.
40. 40.H. Khan, 3.
41. 41.For a description of this tour, see Iqbal Ali, Safarnama-e Panjab.
42. 42.Lelyveld, First Generation, 167.
43. 43.Lelyveld, 168.
44. 44.H. Khan, Early Life, 8.
45. 45.He was escorted there by his father, Samiullah, who kept a detailed journal of the trip in Urdu, which was later published in a magazine in Aligarh, then as a standalone book, and later translated into English and Tamil. See S. Khan, Safarnama-e Maulvi; S. Khan, Musafiran. His son also kept a written record of the journey in English, portions of which were later published. H. Khan, Early Life, 10.
46. 46.Many of his travel diaries from Cambridge were later published. See the bibliography for a partial listing.
47. 47.For an account of this trip, see H. Khan, Leaves, 31–42.
48. 48.Excerpts of his travel diary were published as a standalone book, as were further extracts at a later date. H. Khan, Early Life, 28–28.
49. 49.M. Khan, Life and Times.
50. 50.Maulvi Muhammad Zaka’ullah, Savanih ‘Umari, 175.
51. 51.Danapuri, Sair-e Dihli, 14.
52. 52.Maulvi Muhammad Zaka’ullah, Savanih ‘Umari, 181–82.
53. 53.Maulvi Muhammad Zaka’ullah, 182.
54. 54.Storycore Archive, “Syed Family Interview.”
55. 55.Also spelled Mahomed Ullah and Mahommed Ullah. He, like his father, graduated from Cambridge and became a lawyer in Allahabad. He wrote several popular works on Muslim family law but died young, probably of cancer. He married a maternal cousin, the daughter of Zulqadar Jung, in 1916. Tampa Morning Tribune, “Elephants and Motorcars.” He was alive as of June 1937. “India House Reception,” 5.
56. 56.Khurshid Begum, or Khurshid Iqbal Shahrbano, was the couple’s eldest daughter and a lifelong companion for her mother. She attended Mahbubiya Girls’ School and was educated to a “junior Cambridge” level. Her husband was Hamidullah’s maternal cousin Abdul Majeed Khwaja (1885–1962), who is mentioned frequently in the diary (using an earlier form of his name, Khwaja Abd ul-Majid). They had nine children, three boys and six girls. She was one of the first women in her family and in Aligarh to leave purdah and was active in the anticolonial movement. Her son recalled that she “was torn between divided loyalties to her father [Hamidullah], a great Westernized liberal aristocrat, and her husband who, under Gandhiji’s inspiration, had made a bonfire of his expensive and fashionable English suits and completely switched over to khadi kurta and pajama. She founded and ran successfully a Women’s khadi bhandar (homespun store) at Aligarh and also edited an Urdu magazine, Hind. Gandhiji wrote his first ever letter in Urdu to Mother on a postcard.” Khwaja, Vision, 5. She also founded a school, Hamidia Girls’ School, for poor Muslim girls in Allahabad. She attended reformist conferences with her mother until late in the latter’s life. She is buried in Aligarh.
57. 57.He married the daughter of Begum Sarbuland’s brother, Haidar Jivan Beg. Born in the mountain town of Solan, he became a civil engineer in Hyderabad.
58. 58.He passed away in Karachi.
59. 59.See note 98 below.
60. 60.She married Mirza Kulich Beg, son of Begum Sarbuland’s brother Haidar Jivan Beg. He died soon after his marriage and had one daughter, Shakira Sultana, who married Ajmal Khwaja, the son of Khurshid Begum and Abd ul-Majid. Tehzib Begum passed away in Medina and is buried in the Jannat al-Baqi cemetery.
61. 61.Peile, Biographical Register, 2:691; “System of Administration.” By rough comparison, in the city of Patna at this time, “a college student in the 1910s would live on about Rs. 20 monthly, a clerk Rs. 40, and a European engineer about Rs. 250.” Boyk, “Provincial Urbanity,” viii.
62. 62.His retirement came a few months after the death of Nizam Mir Mahbub Ali Khan. While there is no firm evidence of this, it is possible that this change of rule may have contributed to the decision to step down.
63. 63.A few years later he was succeeded by Begum Sarbuland’s brother Haidar Jivan Beg, who was given the title Jivan Yar Jung. The later also studied at Cambridge and occupied the same role between 1918 and 1937. In this way, Begum Sarbuland held an immediate family relation with high-ranking Hyderabadi officials for at least half a century.
64. 64.Coronation Durbar-Delhi 1911, 203.
65. 65.Saberah Malik, personal communication, October 1, 2023. The blouse mentioned here has been preserved and is today held in a family archive in Lahore.
66. 66.Tampa Morning Tribune, “Elephants and Motorcars.”
67. 67.His son-in-law Abdul Majeed Khwaja wrote a detailed biography of his life that was published in 1916. The years afterward were not well documented. Surprisingly, given his stature, even obituaries are hard to come by.
68. 68.Lambert-Hurley, “Contesting Seclusion,” 133.
69. 69.A Short Summary.
70. 70.A Short Summary; Mirza, Roznamchah, 5, 10. I am grateful to Siobhan Lambert-Hurley for helping me to locate these references.
71. 71.Lambert-Hurley, “Contesting Seclusion,” 137.
72. 72.Lambert-Hurley, 147.
73. 73.Mirza, Roznamchah, 6.
74. 74.Shervaniya, Zad us-Sabil, 7–8.
75. 75.Their home in Delhi was Hamid Manzil, a house near Delhi Gate that Hamidullah bought in the 1880s. The house was demolished in 1973 to give way to the Golcha Cinema, itself now defunct but still easily locatable on the main road leading toward the Red Fort. A portion of the original land still remains in the family.
76. 76.Interview with Najeeb Jung, May 23, 2022.
77. 77.Begum Sarbuland Jang, Dunya, v. See also pg. 5.
78. 78.H. Khan, Early Life, 44. By a similar token, Begum Sarbuland seemed to view animals with compassion. A family story, related by Saberah Malik, relates that Begum Sarbuland once saw her granddaughter Taj Begum shoot two passing birds. “Begum Sarbuland Jung immediately chastised her by saying, ‘what had those helpless birds done to you for you to take their flight and life?’ My mother [Taj Begum] put down her guns and never fired another shot again. I remember joining B. S. J. [Begum Sarbuland Jung] on her terrace to feed birds, mostly urban pigeons.” Personal communication, Saberah Malik, October 1, 2023.
79. 79.H. Khan, Leaves, 31.
80. 80.H. Khan, Early Life, 25, 44–45.
81. 81.“Social and Personal (1925)”; “Social and Personal (1926)”; “Social and Personal (1932).”
82. 82.Indian Listener, April 7, 1936. Entry for April 20.
83. 83.I have deduced this date by comparing the book’s preface to historical sources. In the preface, she notes that her husband had passed away. This indicates a publication date after 1930. She also writes that she had been to Medina twice, but historical sources confirm that she went to Medina at least three times, in 1910, 1934, and 1937 (see below). Thus, she certainly published the diary after 1930 but before 1937 and almost certainly after 1934. Thus, the likeliest dates are 1935–36.
84. 84.Interview with Shakira Sultana, May 27, 2022.
85. 85.Interview with Shakira Sultana, May 27, 2022.
86. 86.While in detention as a prisoner of war, he reportedly treated a Japanese general, Yamashita. As a reward, he was allowed to order the latest American medical journals and writing paper. “Because of wartime shortages Ilahi Bakhsh was instead given an unlimited supply of toilet paper rolls. The doctor returned to his family in Delhi three and a half years later with a suitcase filled with his manuscript on toilet rolls.” After 1947, Dr. Ilahi was later appointed as the personal physician to Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan. Abid Ilahi, personal communication, November 4, 2023.
87. 87.Interview with Muazzam Ilahi, October 26, 2023.
88. 88.Interview with Shakira Sultana, May 27, 2022.
89. 89.Interview with Abid Ilahi, September 28, 2023.
90. 90.Boyk, “Fatima Begum,” 160. On Nishat un-Nisa Begum Hasrat Mohani’s pilgrimages, see Majchrowicz, “Begum Hasrat Mohani.”
91. 91.Fatima Begum, Hajj-e Baitullah, 33. Though Fatima Begum does not mention it, Begum Sarbuland was accompanied by her granddaughter Taj Begum, daughter of Khurshid Begum. Personal communication, Saberah Malik, October 1, 2023.
92. 92.The dates of travel suggest that, if the group went to Mecca after Medina, they would have performed an umrah (or “minor pilgrimage”) rather than a hajj.
93. 93.Lady Abdul Qadir (1884–1965) is best known today for her leadership roles in the Pakistan movement in colonial India. Her husband was Sir Abdul Qadir, a prominent judge and founder of the Urdu literary magazine Makhzan.
94. 94.This refers to Halimullah and Khurshid Begum’s daughter, Akhtar.
95. 95.Miss Clements was Begum Sarbuland’s private secretary. That Begum Sarbuland kept a British employee was a mark of status. That she was a convert to Islam would have been a further mark of pride. Interview with Najeeb Jung, May 23, 2022.
96. 96.“Jedda Report for July 1937,” doc. 183, E4918/580/25, §288; Bidwell, Foreign Affairs, 12:282. The final line refers to an investigation by local religious authorities as to the sincerity of Miss Clements’s conversion.
97. 97.He was visited around the same time by another prominent Hyderabadi reformist, Begum Sughra Humayun Mirza, who published an account of their meeting in her travelogue of Europe. See Mirza, Safarnama-e Yurap, 2:152–53; Lambert-Hurley, Majchrowicz, and Sharma, Three Centuries, 451–60.
98. 98.In 1938, Halimullah was married to a cousin, Razia Sultana (1922–2016), a poet. Their children include Omar Farooq Jung (b. 1937), Akbar Jung (b. 1942), Zafar Hameed Jung (d. 2022), and Najeeb Jung (b. 1951). Halimullah left the medical track to become a businessman. He was CEO of Deccan Airlines and owner of a furniture store (Brooke’s), several drug stores (Redicura), and two popular restaurants in Delhi’s Connaught Place. These were Davico’s and Piccadilly, the latter run by his wife, who also sometimes served as bartender!
99. 99.Homes belonging to Muslims who were suspected of having fled to Pakistan were confiscated and allotted to Hindu and Sikh arrivals from Pakistan. Zamindar, Long Partition.
100. 100.Interview with Muazzam Ilahi, October 26, 2023; and Abid Ilahi, October 27, 2023.
101. 101.Interview with Najeeb Jung, May 23, 2022; Abid Ilahi, with Farooq Jung, personal communication, October 6, 2023.
102. 102.Halimullah and his wife were later buried in an adjacent plot.
103. 103.Storycore Archive, “Syed Family Interview.”
104. 104.Interview with Shakira Sultana, May 22, 2022.
105. 105.Interview with Shakira Sultana, May 22, 2022.