Introduction: Hali and Women's Place in Late Nineteenth-Century
India
by Gail Minault
Khwaja Altaf Husain of Panipat (1837-1914) is
better known as "Hali," the pen name or takhallus
he adopted for his Urdu poetic compositions. Hali means "modern"
or "up to date," and Altaf Husain was a conscious innovator
in his life and work. Besides poetry, Hali also wrote prose. The two
works translated here, Majalis un-Nissa and Chup ki Dad,
represent these two literary genres, and both show his innovative spirit.
To assess Hali's innovative spirit, one must keep
in mind the time and place in which he lived. In today's post-colonial
world, many of Hali's political and social ideas seem very conservative.
He favored British rule; but in a lifetime that spanned the period of
Pax Britannica before 1857, the re-establishment of British authority
after the revolt, and the development of a nascent nationalist movement
from which Muslims felt excluded, a pro-British attitude was relatively
progressive./1/
He favored the custom of purdah and the segregated social roles of men
and women, but his advocacy of women's education, and his sense of women's
autonomy, dignity, and importance within the family, were quite revolutionary
for 1874, when Majalis un-Nisa first appeared. Further, Hali
was a native of the North Indian region, just beyond Delhi. This was
an area that had not experienced British influence upon its educational
and cultural life to any appreciable degree in the early years of his
life. A vernacular education was all that was necessary to secure government
service, even with the British. Thus the educated classes still felt
little threat to their culture or their livelihood from the advance
of British rule. Intellectuals in the coastal presidency cities had
had to confront the situation earlier, but for Hali and his contemporaries,
the need for an English education and for coming to terms with the permanence
of British rule did not arise in a critical way until after 1857. He
was thus a member of a transitional generation, men educated in the
old way but aware of new forces at work in their society, ready to accept
certain innovations that would improve their secular existence, like
an English education for their sons, without altering their overall
cultural allegiance./2/
Another point to remember about Hali is that
western influences were not his only source of innovative ideas. North
Indian Muslims had their own tradition of cultural re-examination and
reform. This tradition went back to the work of Shah Waliullah of Delhi
in the eighteenth century, or perhaps further back to Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi
and Abdul Haq Muhaddis Dihlavi in the seventeenth. This work of religious
reform, carried out by a line of scholar-sufis, sought to rid Indian
Islam of medieval accretions, and to re-examine the sources of the faith
to find new wellsprings of strength and inspiration, whether political,
religious, or cultural. From this reformist strand also came a tradition
of controversial prose writing, originally in Arabic and Persian but
increasingly, by the mid-nineteenth century, in Urdu./3/
Hali thus belonged to a generation whose members were beginning to evolve
a new style of expression in Urdu prose, even before western ideas and
western-influenced journalism entered their consciousness. Looking for
the sources of Hali's innovative spirit, therefore, is a more complex
task than merely searching for western influences upon him./4/
Hali: The Life and Work of an Innovator /5/
Hali was born into a family known for its piety
and learning, long established in the qasba/6/
of Panipat, some fifty miles north of Delhi. Panipat is best known as
the locale of three major battles which determined the fate of the Mughal
Empire. Hali's ancestors had served the Sultans of Delhi and the Mughals,
who had granted them properties in the town and environs for their support.
His own father was the first in the family to serve the British. He
thus belonged to the class of service gentry, accustomed to serving
the government of the time by means of their pens, and to living comfortably,
but not lavishly, from government patronage and the proceeds of their
lands. Hali's father died young; his mother succumbed to madness, and
the boy was raised by his older brother and sister.
His education, beginning traditionally at the
age of four years and four months, included a thorough grounding in
the Quran. The hafiz and the qari were religious specialists/7/
for which Panipat was famous, and the boy distinguished himself in memorizing
and reciting the scripture. Thereafter, he had a rather haphazard and
discontinuous education, reading with a succession of individual teachers
some of the standard classical subjects preparatory to government service:
Arabic grammar, Persian literature, and composition. At the age of seventeen,
Altaf Husain was married off to a cousin by his siblings. They doubtless
thought that he would then settle down to a tame government job, but
he had other ideas. His desire for further education was so strong that
he took advantage of the fact that his wife's parents were well-off,
waited until she was away visiting them one day, and slipped away to
Delhi to continue his studies./8/
Intellectual life in the Mughal capital in the
years just before the revolt of 1857 was varied and lively./9/
The study of the Islamic sciences, especially Quranic exegesis and hadith,
the traditions of the Prophet, was enjoying a kind of renaissance under
the leadership of the descendants of Shah Waliullah and their disciples.
There were a number of schools of Islamic learning, in one of which,
the Husain Bakhsh madrasa, Hali enrolled./10/
He had arrived with only the clothes on his back and without a penny,
so apparently he was a charity student during the year and a half he
spent there, studying Quran, hadith, and logic. Hali also tried
his hand at writing and produced a religious pamphlet in Arabic which
he showed to his teacher, Maulvi Navazish Ali. The pamphlet supported
the reformist point of view which was current in Delhi at that time,
but the Maulvi was more traditional in his outlook. Angered, he chastized
Hali for being a "Wahhabi" and tore up the pamphlet./11/
It was neither the first nor the last time that Hali differed with authority
figures during his life.
English-style education, through the medium
of Urdu, was available in Delhi at that time, at Delhi College, but
Hali's studies confined him to circles which still regarded western
learning as tantamount to apostasy, so he did not meet his contemporaries
who attended Delhi College until years later. Literary life in poetic
circles in the capital revolved around the aged emperor, Bahadur Shah
"Zafar," and the greatest poet of the age, Mirza Asadullah
Khan "Ghalib." Thwarted in the theological direction, Hali's
literary talent veered toward poetry. He recited his verses at musha'
iras in Delhi, and once he gathered the courage to show some of
his ghazals to Ghalib./12/
The Mirza was a stern critic who did not suffer poetic fools gladly,
but he was impressed by the young man's efforts. He said to Altaf Husain,
"I do not usually give advice on poetry to anyone, but as far as
you are concerned, I think that if you do not become a poet, you will
do violence to your nature."/13/
Altaf Husain's growing renown as a poet gave
his presence away. News reached Panipat that he had been seen at a musha'ira
in Delhi, and his brother came to retrieve him and take him back to
his wife and his responsibilities in the provinces. Hali then got a
job as a clerk in the district office in Hissar, but that ended with
the events of 1857. He fled back to Panipat, looted of all that he had,
save a small copy of the Quran. The ordeal affected his health, and
the events of the revolt were probably also a psychological shock. He
spent the next few years in Panipat, not even trying for a government
job, presumably living on family revenues. During this time he pursued
further studies in Quranic exegesis, hadith, and philosophy,
and wrote occasional prose and poetry in Persian and Arabic. He also
changed his takhallus: During his Delhi years he had employed
the pen name "Khasta" (heart-broken, distressed); now he adopted
"Hali," the name by which he became famous. The psychological
determination to be "up to date" at this point in history
was significant. He had lived through the revolt, and now saw the need
to look to the future.
At this stage, Hali also started raising a family.
The marriage which had started unpromisingly turned out to be a long
and fairly happy one, and some of his views on female competence in
control of the household derived from the character of his wife, Islam
un-Nisa, who by all accounts was a strongwilled manager, though totally
illiterate. Finally his growing family, and fraternal pressure, obliged
Hali to seek empolyment, so he again took the road to Delhi./14/
Fortunately for Hali and for his poetic nature,
in the city he met an old acquaintance, Nawab Mustafa Khan "Shefta,"
a poet and literary connoisseur who was an intimate of Ghalib but also
a landlord who just happened to be looking for a tutor for his sons.
Hali spent the next several years in Shefta's employ, enjoying his patronage
and his literary companionship, and perfecting his poetic gift with
occasional advice from Ghalib as well. Hali's provincial morality was
occasionally shocked by Ghalib's frank references to wine and women
in his poetry, and he once admonished the Mirza to say his prayers more
often. Ghalib was not amused. During this period, Hali developed a poetic
style devoid of flowery hyperbole, certainly more chaste in its references
to love than that of Ghalib or of the Lucknow poets of the same period,/15/
and noted for its clarity and simplicity./16/
Shefta and Ghalib both died in 1869, leaving
Hali again bereft of intellectual stimulation, and jobless. He then
secured a post in the Punjab Government Book Depot in Lahore, where
his duties involved revising the style of textbooks that had been translated
from English into Urdu for the Education Department. Hali, who knew
no English, thus became acquainted, albeit in translation, with a wide
variety of materials on English literature and criticism, western philosophy,
and pedagogy. It is difficult, if not impossible, to know which translations
Hali worked on personally during this period, but one may infer from
references in his later works which English works he had encountered.
For example, in his Muqaddamah-e-Shi'r o Sha'iri (Introduction
to Poetry):
Hali himself cites the names of Macaulay and Milton, but it appears
from context that either he has seen the fine words of Milton in other
authors' works, or he had had Tractate of Education read
by people who could not comprehend the real meaning of its contents...
This, of course, is explicable by the fact that Hali must have read
these works in translation, or paraphrases of their ideas in Urdu works.
...[H]e has gotten ideas from Moore's Life of Byron, as
well as Johnson's Lives of the Poets. He did not depend that
much on Carlyle, though at that time in India Carlyle, Bentham, Burke,
Goldsmith, and Mill were being read. Although Coleridge was not very
well known, Hali has borrowed from him part of an argument in Biographia
Literaria./17/
This contact with western ideas influenced
Hali, and his years in Lahore, 1870-74, were crucial to his intellectual
and literary development. The process of intellectual influence, however,
is a complex one, and one needs to guard against viewing Hali thenceforth
as enthralled by western ideas and innovations. Previously formed patterns
of thinking condition the extent to which a mature mind/18/
adopts new ideas. Hali was already a conscious innovator. His linguistic
training in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu was thorough, acquired--with many
interruptions-- through considerable personal dedication. His devotion
to literature was also well-established, and his simplified poetic style
already formed. His acquaintance with English literature and culture,
however, was new and had been acquired through the imperfect medium
of translation, or else second-hand, through the mediation of others
who could read English. Hali's understanding of western ideas was thus
tentative, while his position on his own cultural ground was firm.
Hali's knowledge of Islam was thorough, and his faith the result of
both learning and small-town piety. He could write formal religious
tracts such as Tiryaq-e-Masmum, a refutation of strictures
against Islam by a Punjabi Muslim recently converted to Christianity.
But he also demonstrated his faith through his simple, unaffected, and
egalitarian lifestyle and attitudes towards those humbler than himself./19/
This faith, which was very similar in some ways to mid-Victorian notions
of morality, had even led him to question Ghalib's less than pious lifestyle,
though he revered the older poet and relished his critical advice. In
other words, Hali could pick and choose among the western ideas he encountered,
and only integrate those which were in accord with elements in his own
cultural background.
Hali's pattern of earning a living also established
him as one capable of choosing among alternative paths, although his
choices were always in tune with his own cultural conditioning. He consistently
sought patrons, for such indeed was the tradition of his service gentry
background; and he realized his obligations to such patrons, without
regarding them as a form of bondage. He was also able to shift patrons
when the occasion demanded it. His reverence for the Mughal ruler was
transferred to Queen Victoria when she became Empress of India (note
his adulatory references to her in Majalis un-Nisa), but regarding
this as a "sell-out" would be unjust. To Hali, and to many
other members of the service gentry who lived in this transitional period,
the Queen replaced the Mughal at the apex of the hierarchical social
structure in which they lived. They were not prepared to reject that
structure, and thus could accept the substitution./20/
On the other hand, Hali had broken with his
family in order to seek higher learning in Delhi. His relations with
his brother, whom he regarded as a surrogate father, were often uneasy
thereafter, his brother constantly pressuring him to shoulder more of
the familial burden. He only reluctantly entered British government
employ before 1857, and then sought patronage from a member of the old
landed aristocracy rather than reenter government service in the decade
after the revolt. His attitude towards authority figures was, therefore,
ambivalent. He fully accepted the hierarchical structure of patron-client
relations and his position within that structure, but he was less accommodating
in his relations with his immediate superiors. In Lahore, he was grateful
for the patronage of his new employer, the Punjab Government, and its
Director of Public Instruction, Col. W.R.M. Holroyd; but that did not
prevent him from leaving Lahore after four years, pleading that the
climate did not agree with him, but perhaps finding translation work
stultifying./21/
During his sojourn in Lahore, Hali began writing
prose in a straightforward manner designed to convey information as
simply as possible, avoiding a great many Persian loan words and other
ornamentation. This was either a result of his contact with English
prose in translation, or perhaps the influence of other Urdu writers
who were also experimenting with prose style at about this same time.
Urdu journalism featuring a simplified prose had been developing in
Delhi even before 1857. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, later one of Hali's mentors,
was active in the development of a new Urdu prose style before, and
especially after, the revolt. Sir Sayyid visited England in 1869-70,
and on his return started his reformist journal, Tahzib ul-Akhlaq,
modeled on the Spectator. Sir Sayyid too has been accused of
selling out to the West, and this is not the place to analyze his own
complex synthesis of North Indian Muslim culture and western influences.
It is sufficient to note that Sir Sayyid and his younger contemporary
Hali were both seeking at this time to articulate new approaches to
literature and education for the guidance of their compatriots. No wonder
they found each other intellectually compatible when they met, after
Hali's return from Lahore in 1874 to a teaching job at the Delhi Anglo-Arabic
School./22/
Another author of Urdu prose, Nazir Ahmad, a
graduate of Delhi College who had only learned his English later, in
government service, began publishing novels about this time. His best
known work, Mirat ul-'Urus (The Bride's Mirror), published
in 1869, was a didactic novel for women, similar in intention, if not
in form, to Hali's Majalis un-Nisa. Nazir Ahmad's novels, set
in the middle-class family, show the influence of the western novel
of manners./23/
On the other hand, the characters in his novels are unidimensional,
as in a morality tale. Hence these novels also partake of the tradition
of didactic allegorical tales in Persian literature. In addition, the
title of this particular novel, Mirat ul-'Urus, recalls the
"Mirror for Princes" genre, works of maxims and advice known
in western literary traditions, but derived from Islamic, if not earlier,
prototypes./24/
Majalis un-Nisa's title recalls still another traditional literary
form, that of the sufi majlis, a form of religious prose recounting
the advice given by sufis to their disciples in their gatherings or
assemblies. The narrative tradition which these new Urdu prose works
called upon was thus, to say the least, complex. The influences operating
upon Hali, and the uses to which he put them, therefore, stem as much
from his own cultural tradition, and from his contemporaries who were
living through similar intellectual and political transitions, as they
do from a direct contact with, or copying of, English models.
One of Hali's colleagues in the Punjab was Muhammad
Husain Azad, another product of the pre-1857 Delhi College and a well
known litterateur. Azad was one of the mainstays of the Anjuman-e
Panjab, a literary and cultural organization with both European and
Indian members, which had established Lahore's Oriental College in 1865
and sponsored vernacular lectures and discussions on scientific subjects
plus the occasional musha'ira./25/
In 1874 Azad proposed, and Col. Holroyd seconded, that the Anjuman-e-Panjab
hold a series of monthly musha'iras of a new kind. These poetic
symposia would feature verses on a common subject or theme, as opposed
to verses in a set rhyme scheme and meter, as in the conventional musha'ira.
Holroyd in particular, in his mid-Victorian way, was disgusted with
the prevalence in Urdu poetry of love lyrics, which he seemed to regard
as effete and unworthy of serious-minded discourse./26/
Hali and Azad agreed with his strictures on "oriental hyperbole,"
even if they did not go along with all of his ideas. These poetic gatherings
lasted for about a year before they failed for lack of enthusiasm--poets
were not about to abandon the ghazal and its preoccupation with love
lightly./27/
Some themes for these gatherings indicate what
Victorians thought was poetic: the description of nature, for example,
or patriotism. Hali participated in four of these symposia before he
left Lahore for Delhi, contributing, among others, a verse on the rainy
season, "Barkha Rut," and one on patriotism, "Hubb-e
Vatan." Hali also managed to offend Azad, since his poetry was
the more highly praised. In these pioneering efforts on behalf of "natural
poetry" in Urdu, Hali further developed the poetic style which
he had evolved under Shefta and Ghalib's tutelage: individualized, simplified,
and featuring descriptions of Indian natural surroundings and the use
of the Indian vernacular, as opposed to the stylized references to Persian
flora and fauna and the heavy use of Persian words characteristic of
earlier poets./28/
During his Lahore years, Hali also wrote Majalis
un-Nisa (Assemblies of Women). The work is in the form of conversations
among middle-class Muslim women of Delhi, conversations which include
long narrative passages describing women's daily life, their education
and training in household management, child-rearing practices, customs
and beliefs. It was the only work of fiction-like prose that Hali wrote,
notable also for its straightforward, colloquial style, using the idioms
of begamati zuban, the dialect of Urdu spoken by women./29/
If the style of Majalis was notable, so too was its message:
Women should be educated because they are the real managers of the household,
the focus of family life, responsible for the early training of the
children. The work was thus a plea for reform, and reflected not only
actual conditions at the time, but also Hali's ideas of what should
be, derived to some extent from his acquaintance with mid-Victorian
pedagogy, as well as his sense that the vernacular education of an earlier
day had declined. Majalis is thus hard to classify as a prose
form: It is a work of fiction in that it tells a story and attempts
to portray character, though the characters tend to be stereotypes,
as do the characters in the novels of his contemporary, Nazir Ahmad.
It is a work of social history reflecting the language, home life, beliefs,
and practices of urban middle-class Muslims in the mid to late nineteenth
century. And it is a reformist tract, an eloquent and engaging plea
for women's educatio,n and greater recognition of women's rights within
their traditional family roles. Somewhat more problematic is the question
whether it is a work of art. Hali never repeated this attempt to write
moral fiction, and perhaps he was right. The work certainly has its
flaws, but like many minor works of literature, it is perhaps a more
accurate portrait of its time and place than a work dealing with more
universal, philosophic themes. It achieved recognition nonetheless:
Col. Holroyd, who knew Hali's work from other contexts, recommended
Majalis for a literary prize, and Lord Northbrooke, the Viceroy,
awarded Hali 400 rupees for the work. Majalis was adopted as
a textbook for girls' schools in the Punjab and United Provinces for
decades thereafter./30/
It is significant that Hali was considerably
more advanced in his thinking on women's education than was Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan, who in the mid-1870s was engaged in founding Aligarh College.
In his testimony before the Indian Education Commission of 1882, Sir
Sayyid maintained that a little education was enough for women. Until
more Muslim men received a sound education, Muslim women would have
to wait: "The present state of education among Muhammadan females
is, in my opinion, enough for domestic happiness."/31/
Hali, on the other hand, not only wrote Majalis, but also started
a couple of schools for girls in his home town of Panipat, run by the
women of his family./32/
Hali seems to have met Sir Sayyid only after
his Lahore sojourn, when he was back in Delhi in the mid-1870s. With
Sir Sayyid's encouragement, Hali wrote his most famous work, the long
poem Musaddas: Madd o Jazr-e Islam (The Ebb and Flow of Islam),
published in 1879. Hali therein describes the past glories of Islam
and the decay into which his community has fallen, and calls upon Muslims
to rise up once again, to seek new knowledge, and to live up to their
great past by taking a prominent place in present history. Sir Sayyid
was so pleased by the poem and its message that he claimed that when
God asked him, on the day of judgment, what he had done in the world,
he would reply only that he had urged Hali to write the Musaddas./33/
Hali's collaboration with Sir Sayyid included
contributing articles to the journal Tahzib ul-Akhlaq and frequent
trips to raise money for Aligarh College or to attend meetings of the
Muhammadan Educational Conference, an offshoot of the Aligarh movement.
In 1887, the government of the Nizam of Hyderabad offered Hali a stipend
for his services to literature and education, a modest sum which nevertheless
permitted him to retire from teaching and devote the rest of his life
to literature./34/
Many works of prose and poetry followed. He wrote a long introduction
to his collected poems, Muqaddamah-e-Shi'r o Sha'iri, which
established a standard for Urdu literary criticism./35/
He also wrote three major works of biography which helped develop that
genre in Urdu literature: Hayat-e Sa'di, the life of the Persian
poet Sa'di; of Ghalib, Yadgar-e-Ghalib; and of Sir Sayyid,
Hayat-e Javed, which, despite its adulatory tone, is still
the standard work.
Hali's poem in praise of Muslim women, Chup
ki Dad, was written at the request of Shaikh Abdullah, a young
Aligarh lawyer, a graduate of Sir Sayyid's college, and Secretary
of the Women's Education Section of the Muhammadan Educational Conference.
The poem was first published in Shaikh Abdullah's reformist Urdu journal
for women, Khatun, in December 1905. In it Hali reiterates
many of the ideas he had originally espoused in Majalis: Women
are the true strength of the family and the community, but lamentably
many of them are kept in ignorance; thus women's education is vital
for the regeneration of the Muslim community. The following year, 1906,
Shaikh Abdullah and his wife founded Aligarh Girls' School in the face
of great opposition, but with the patronage of Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam,
the ruler of Bhopal, whose monetary aid is commemorated in the closing
lines of the poem. Both Hali and Shaikh Abdullah had good reason to
acknowledge the importance of patronage in accomplishing their goals./36/
Hali lived out the rest of his days in his ancestral
home in Panipat, writing, traveling frequently in support of educational
causes, and patronizing education close to home. The schools for girls
he started have already been mentioned; he also raised funds to found
a public library in Panipat and had visions of starting a Muslim High
School in the town, a project brought to fruition after his death by
his son, Khwaja Sajjad Husain. He died on December 31, 1914./37/
Women's Place in Late Nineteenth-Century India as Portrayed
in Majalis un-Nisa and Chup ki Dad
Majalis un-Nisa, one of Hali's earliest
prose works, is indeed "up to date" for its time and place.
It advocates reform, with Hali putting into the mouths of his women
characters reflections on the backward condition of the Muslim community,
the stagnation of vernacular learning,/38/
and the need for girls to be educated in order better to fulfill their
household and family duties. But Hali does not go to extremes. The reforms
he advocates are justified in terms of women's traditional roles. There
is no talk here of a western-style curriculum, or of higher education
for girls, or of tearing down the curtains of pardah. The women
here are certain of their roles, and they do not question them, but
rather seek to do better what they are destined for: marriage, motherhood,
household management, relations with relatives, guests, and servants. This
seems to the modern reader an extremely limited view of life and its
possibilities, but to suggest that a girl in purdah in 1874 should get
a full-fledged vernacular education, including learning to write,/39/
was very advanced. Majalis, therefore, while reformist, is also a portrait
of its times. The tempo of urban life, the structure and functions of
family life, the daily routine, ceremonial occasions, the life of women
in their separate world behind the veil of pardah, and the
real power and influence that women could wield even in their limited
world, are all described. The work is divided into two parts and nine
chapters, or majalis (gatherings, sittings). The first part,
after an introductory chapter introducing the major characters, tells
the story of Zubaida Khatun, a young girl who was educated by her parents
and thus prepared for all the vicissitudes of life. At the end of Part
I, Zubaida Khatun is married to a young man from a good family, and
Part II tells the story of Sayyid Abbas, the son of that marriage, raised
by his mother to be a resourceful and forward-looking individual, the
very model of a modern sharif gentleman./40/
The two parts of the work, therefore, illustrate the two main points
that Hali wishes to make: first, that mothers who are educated can educate
their daughters to be better managers, better mothers, and thus a major
force in reforming the life of the Muslim community from within; and
secondly, that educated mothers can also discipline and train their
sons, so that by the time they reach school-going age, they are already
prepared to work hard and use their brains to advance in the world outside.
One of the great appeals of the work is its
form, supposed conversations between the women of one family and their
friends and retainers, exchanges which introduce long narrative passages
that tell the stories of Zubaida Khatun and Sayyid Abbas. The narrative
form is an effective medium for conveying a reformist message. As Zubaida
Khatun says at one point in the seventh majlis, "You can
give a person advice or forbid him to do all sorts of things, and it
will all go in one ear and out the other. But if you tell him the same
thing in story form, it will make a great impression." The story
is told in a highly colloquial style, which is again part of Hali's
appeal. As a man from a highly segregated society trying to write from
a feminine point of view, Hali succeeds to a remarkable degree, not
only because he sympathizes with women's position, but also because
he has a striking command of the zanana idiom. The narrative
is full of down-to-earth examples, proverbs, parables, and idioms used
only by the women of Delhi and Panipat. There is a short discussion
of this begamati zuban in the seventh majlis, counseling
the young boy to avoid using it, but that does not stop Hali from writing
in women's language to appeal to a female readership. The linguistic
flavor of the work is difficult to convey in translation, but perhaps
it is apparent occasionally.
The structure of the work follows the ebb and
flow of informal conversation: The proceedings are interrupted by mealtimes,
a call to prayer, a late hour, the promise to continue the next day
a story begun but not completed. The narrative proceeds not according
to any externally imposed scheme, but rather by free association. The
story also has its flaws from the point of view of historical verisimilitude.
For one thing, it is supposed to cover the span of two generations:
Zubaida Khatun's life from her birth up to her marriage, a childless
period before the birth of Sayyid Abbas, and then Sayyid Abbas's childhood
and development up to the age of eighteen or so. Given the fact that
Sayyid Abbas indicates that he was born in the nineteenth year of the
marriage (whether Zubaida Khatun lost other children is not specified),
this involves a span of fifty years at the minimum; or, if one counts
the date of publication as the narrative present, roughly from the 1820s
to the 1870s. Throughout the work, however, Queen Victoria is not only
called the queen (she acceded to the throne in 1837), but also the ruler
of India (which would have been true only after 1858), and she is referred
to as a widow (Prince Albert died in 1861). Zubaida Khatun and her offspring
thus seem to exist in a time warp. Of course, the fact that the external
historical context does not change at all need not worry any but the
most fastidious, since the emphasis in the story is on what happens
inside the household. Still, the household is not entirely isolated
from the external world, as the work contains numerous references to
material culture, customs, and even technological changes (the railroad,
the telegraph, the ease of the hajj pilgrimage), which must
be presumed to represent the state of affairs in the late 1860s or early
1870s, not earlier. Majalis un-Nisa, therefore, is a portrait
of the home life of a limited class, the North Indian Muslim ashraf,
within a limited time frame. Given these limitations, however, it is
an engaging work which portrays attitudes of much longer duration.
In the opening majlis, there is a discussion
among Mahmuda Begam, her mother "Bari Begam," and a close
friend of the family, Miriam Zamani, who is complaining about the low
standard of vernacular education that her boy is getting at school.
With these three pardah-observing/41/
ashraf women is Atuji, an old family retainer with a sharp
tongue. Her name, or rather title, indicates that she has been a governess
and thus knows what vernacular education is about. She asks Miriam Zamani
if she is educated, and when the latter confesses that she is not, Atuji
launches into a lament over the spread of illiteracy among respectable
families, where formerly the girls were taught at least to read and
figure. Atuji also makes the point that the sons of illiterate mothers
are not properly prepared before going to school, and hence the consequence
of not educating the girls is a generalized decline in the educational
level of the entire community. Part of her discussion recalls God's
injunction, in the Quran, that both men and women should seek knowledge.
Parents who deprive their daughters of education will thus have to answer
to their Maker on the day of judgment, but that will not do much to
improve the lot of the average woman in the here and now. Atuji then
rehearses the sad fate of most girls, unwanted at birth, uneducated,
treated like servants in their natal and conjugal families, burdened
with the care of children. Ideally, girls should be recognized as equals
in humanity and in the right to an education, and thus add to the honor
and dignity of their families. But most families waste both time and
money on useless customary rituals and never give a thought to their
daughters' education.
The women agree that girls should be educated,
but question her point about women being able to influence the education
of their sons. Only a trained teacher can flog the boys to learn properly.
Atuji disagrees, and points out that in countries where girls, and hence
mothers, are educated, educational backwardness is virtually unheard
of. A mother is the earliest influence on a child, and can establish
good habits and discipline long before the child goes to school. The
child will thus be "like a lamp, in which the oil and the wick
are ready, and it remains only to be lighted." Women are thus the
key to general enlightenment. Atuji then mentions the case of Zubaida
Khatun, a woman who is the paragon of all she has been discussing: educated,
well trained in household management, from a family who believed in
discipline and who did not indulge in useless customs and festival observances.
The women prevail upon her to tell them the story of Zubaida Khatun,
which takes the rest of Part I.
In the second majlis, Atuji introduces
Sayyid Abbas, Zubaida Khatun's only son, who had told her his mother's
story. Zubaida Khatun's family is an affluent one who do not regard
their wealth as all-important (that would not be a sharif attitude),
but who nevertheless believe in husbanding their resources, including
affection. Children should not be spoiled, and this includes choosing
servants who will not spoil them either. This need for restraint in
one's emotional life might be regarded as a typical mid-Victorian middle-class
attitude, and hence evidence of direct English influence on Hali; but
on the contrary, it is more especially an element in sharif
culture. One should not be demonstrative about one's affections, as
it is not only undignified but also disrespectful, and it would lead
to a breakdown of hierarchical authority in the family. The attitude
toward romantic love is similar: it is destructive of family control
over the emotional lives of its members. Social control over individuals'
emotions is thus qualitatively different from mid-Victorian reserve./42/
Another argument advanced recently connects
the idea of emotional control to the late nineteenth-century Islamic
religious reform movement in North India. In the thinking of the reformist
'ulama, "standards of outward observance of (Islamic)
law and inward moral purification and control" were inextricably
linked. To lead a moral Muslim life, self-control and discipline were
necessary; reason must control the senses. This idea of moral conduct
or proper behavior (adab) was also essential to sharif
life style and self-definition./43/
Zubaida Khatun's description of her earliest
toys further elaborates the value of self-control. These toys discouraged
such vices as loquaciousness, quarreling, and haste--all representative
of a lack of restraint--and encouraged such virtues as modesty, patience,
and obedience. These latter qualities may be "feminine," but
one gets the impression from the rest of Zubaida Khatun's socialization
that her mother sought to instill in her daughter qualities that she
regarded as "civilized" and hence "human" in the
fullest sense. Harmony was desirable; anger and discord were not. Only
in this way can family life, comprising many superordinate and subordinate
relationships, flourish.
Piety, orderliness, restraint, veracity, and
self-sufficiency were all a part of her character before Zubaida Khatun
reached the age of five and started studying with a governess. She then
began to learn the Quran, calligraphy, Persian, and Urdu. She said her
prayers regularly and practiced ritual cleanliness. She also learned
to sew and to cook, though at first she balked at making rotis--one
must sympathize. Her mother instilled respect for learning, pointing
out that the greatest poverty is the absence of knowledge, and that
in male-female relations, the main reason that women are oppressed is
their lack of knowledge. Hali thus points to the root of the problem
of women's status and a major way to ameliorate it. At a time when men
were just beginning to be concerned with "bringing up the women," Hali's
emphasis is on women themselves actively seeking an education. He does
not address here the problem of changing men's attitudes. That comes
later in the book.
Zubaida Khatun's education continues in the
next majlis, through an extended conversation with her mother.
At first, she reiterates the theme of respect for knowledge: wealth
is less important than the cultivation of learning. No matter what the
social station of the learned person, he deserves great respect. Men
have it easy, because they can pick up knowledge and useful information
in the course of their everyday lives. Women, however, have only themselves
to converse with, and if they lack knowledge and cultivation, their
ignorance is compounded. Not only that, but their households, as the
mirrors of their minds, will also lack order and discipline. There is
a hint here of dissatisfaction with pardah, but only because
it abets ignorance. Zubaida's mother then goes into a long description
of women's superstitions and folk rituals, "a strange sort of faith
which you won't find mentioned in the Quran or the hadith." The
best antidote to such silliness is an education.
If women were educated, not only would they
not waste money on useless rituals, but they would also be better companions
to their husbands. They could converse with them, share their interests,
and be true life partners. Hali here pleads for a kind of marriage which
seems to approximate the Victorian domestic ideal. Men's public lives,
of course, are still entirely separate, and thus pardah is
maintained. But home should become a haven, so that men will not be
tempted to find their companionship elsewhere--with courtesans for instance.
If middle-class women are literate and cultivated--traditionally the
role reserved for courtesans/44/
--men will be saved from dissolute lives. Hali here turns an argument
against women's education on its head. This argument was that if women
became educated, they would become disrespectful, or even immoral, like
courtesans. Hali argues that on the contrary, there will be no further
need for courtesans, and a tremendous increase in public morality, if
wives replace courtesans in their husbands' affections. Hali, of course,
does not mention courtesans in this text for young girls, but the argument
can be deduced from this passage:
You should consider the man a thirsty traveler
and the woman a spring. If the spring happens to be located in the
shade of a tree and there is greenery all around and a nice, cool
breeze, then the traveler, after quenching his thirst, will want to
spend several hours enjoying the environment. There may be plenty
of other springs which do not have such a pleasant atmosphere, where
he would simply quench his thirst and go his way.
Another reason for women to be educated is that
they will be more aware of health care. Zubaida Khatun's mother then
describes a host of folk rituals designed to get rid of the evil eye
and exorcize spirits. Such rituals, vows, and oblations are, she implies,
worse than useless, for they waste money unnecessarily and cure nothing.
Hali here takes the reformist stance in favor of rational and scientific
attitudes, and against useless and expensive ritual. He is in favor
of western medicine to the extent that he advocates vaccinations, but
he also mentions yunani hakims as the indigenous alternative
to irrational attittudes toward healing. Hali, however, betrays a lack
of understanding of the psychological stresses of pardah existence.
Non-medical "cures," belief in the evil eye, and exorcism
were all functions of an environment in which hostilities often ran
high but had to be repressed, and where professional medical help was
usually unavailable. Hakims were men and could not see their
female patients/45/;
feeling a pulse or having symptoms described by a servant did not permit
very accurate diagnoses. Ill women or women with ill children thus relied
on household remedies, or on cures which at least led to the release
of fears and nervous tensions The summoning of domnis, professional
women entertainers and exorcists who only performed before women, did
not violate pardah taboos, and provided a good night's entertainment.
A woman who was "possessed" could also vent her various hostilities
and frustrations in a socially approved manner and feel better for it./46/
Knowledge, according to Hali, is a cure for
many ills, whether physical or psychological--and here Zubaida Khatun's
mother enumerates the vices of deceit, pride, etc. which can be avoided
through proper ethical upbringing. But knowedge needs to be compounded
by skill. A woman should be prepared for hard times and not rely wholly
on a man's earnings without having any skill of her own. When disaster
strikes, as it frequently did in Delhi, women must be prepared. Hali's
exhortation against women's economic dependence is a message that holds
true from his day to the present. The fourth majlis expatiates
on the skills that women need in order to survive, with Zubaida Khatun's
mother telling her all that she will have to know in order to run a
household. The surface theme of the chapter, therefore, is service to
the entire family, but the underlying message is one of competence and
self-sufficiency within women's special sphere. Upon her skills ultimately
depend the survival and the status of the family.
This majlis is a fine description of
a woman's daily routine: the cooking, sewing, cleaning, maintenance,
accounting, supervision of servants, hospitality to guests, and diplomacy
in family matters that is involved. One of the more interesting passages
offers Zubaida Khatun advice on how a woman in pardah can avoid
being cheated by her servants who do the shopping. She should cross-check
the prices they quote to her against information brought from outside
by women from the itinerant service castes: the miller women, the bangle
seller, etc./47/
She should buy staples in bulk in season; she should vary the servant
she sends out to do the shopping; and she should never buy on credit.
As an additional way to keep the servants on their toes, she should
never be a stranger in her own kitchen. Managing servants is only a
small part of her day. Hospitality is also an important function: serving
guests who come, always having enough pan on hand in a pan
box maintained with pristine cleanliness, and sending food out on ritual
occasions to those who depend on the family. Maintenance of the family's
sharif status depends in part on such obligations of hospitality
and gift exchange, and also upon almsgiving: Zubaida Khatun's mother
admonishes her never to let a faqir go away from her door empty-handed./48/
Personal cleanliness is important, so too is
the need to keep the drinking, water supply pure, floor coverings spotless,
pans retinned, etc. Before the cold weather, quilts have to be reconditioned,
warm clothing maintained, charcoal burners procured. For the hot season
and for the rains there are other maintenance chores. Roofs have to
be checked and replastered or rethatched; furniture has to be repaired,
cots restrung and kept taut. In short, there is no time for an idle
moment from sunup to sundown or from one end of the year to the other.
One is tempted to compare the outlook contained here, with its emphasis
on hard work, self-denial, and the need to be prepared for all eventualities,
to the Protestant ethic. But there is no need to look so far afield
to characterize this ethic. It is intimately connected with the values
of restraint and self-control outlined earlier as part of both sharif
culture and reformist Islam. Not only that, but the idea that a moral
existence on earth, regardless of the rewards in the here and now, will
bring paradise in the hereafter, is central to popular Islam as well.
The fifth majlis opens with a brief recital
of all that Zubaida Khatun had accomplished in her formal education.
At a time when western pedagogical wisdom held that women should be
trained for their role in life through a course of study heavy in ladylike
accomplishments and light in classical content, Zubiada Khatun was getting
a classical and vernacular education the equal of any male's, at least
up to the secondary level. She knew Arabic, Persian, and Urdu; she could
write a fine hand and do mathematics; she had read a variety of ethical
and moral works, not to mention Indian geography and history./49/
The rest of this majlis is concerned
with "what every bride ought to know before going to her in-laws'
house"--in other words, family diplomacy. Her mother first contrasts
the supportive conditions in her own home with those that she will find
in her new home. She has been brought up in an enlightened atmosphere,
where useless customs and outmoded superstitions have been eliminated.
She may find, however, that devotion to custom is still strong at her
husband's house. She must not become discouraged nor impatient at this
state of affairs, but must work to change things slowly, with tact and
patience. The most demanding task before any Indian bride is getting
along with her mother-in-law. It will not be easy, but Zubaida Khatun
must make the effort. After all, she has learned self-control at home.
Further, she will be the outsider and hence the one to make adjustments.
"It takes two hands to clap," her mother points out. If she
conducts herself properly, then she will win the affection of all concerned,
mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and the husband himself. Avoiding family
quarrels should be the first priority. Reforming their customs can come
later.
Queen Victoria appears several times in these
majalis as an exemplar, as a woman with learning, as a woman
with skills, and now she comes up again as the loyal and obedient wife
and sorrowing widow. In fact, throughout the work, though she is the
ruler over her vast realm (and all women are, in a sense, queens in
their own realms), the stories about her show her to be a woman who
cares about her family, about those who are dependent upon her, and
who exemplifies compassion and justice in her dealings with others.
The queen thus provides model of womanly and wifely behavior. Hali has
patterned Victoria according to his own criteria of the ideal woman:
intelligent, competent, and patient.
At this point in the story, Sayyid Abbas takes
up the narrative again and discusses the arrangement of his mother's
marriage to a young man of good family. The women in that family are
uneducated, however, which will be a problem for Zubaida Khatun, but
will ultimately give her the edge in bringing enlightenment to her new
family. The negotiations proceed in a straightforward manner, showing
the contractual nature of Muslim marriage, and the ceremony does not
waste money on mahr and dowry, or undue pomp and show--thus
reinforcing the reformist message against useless expenditure and customs.
The father of Sayyid Amjad Ali, the prospective bridegroom, asks that
the marriage be postponed for three years to allow his son to complete
his education. The message here is against marriage at too young an
age (such as Hali's own), before the young people are prepared. The
postponement is also good for Zubaida Khatun. She may be fully prepared,
but she should reach the age of discretion, for in Islam the bride must
give her consent to the marriage, being fully conscious of what is involved.
Of course, this is often not the case, which comes out at the nikah
ceremony itself, when Zubaida Khatun's father comes to ask for her consent.
He points out that Islamic law requires that she agree to the match.
The hold of custom, however, is very strong, and customarily the bride
remains mute and shy--indeed, the assembled company expects her to remain
so--meaning that her consent is simply assumed and she is, in effect,
packed off into marriage without voicing a preference one way or the
other. Zubaida Khatun's father, however, is a determined opponent of
such customs, which work against the spirit of Islamic law, and he insists
that she speak up. She finally does so, but in terms that are sufficiently
self-effacing to satisfy the assembled guests.
Just before Zubaida Khatun leaves with her husband,
her father takes him aside and gives him some good advice, which is
revealed later, during the reading of Amjad Ali's will. The advice has
to do with his attitude toward his wife and women in general: "It
says in the hadith that one should not mistrust women."
This recalls an earlier point in the narrative when Hali had emphasized
the need for women to seek education and improvement for themselves,
but had not dealt adequately with men's attitudes. Here, he makes up
for that somewhat. Zubaida Khatun's father is conscious of women's rights
in Islamic law, and is a major force in seeing that his daughter gets
her due, and that she also fulfills her obligations./50/
He points out to his son-in-law that the traditions of the Prophet are
in favor of a trusting relationship between men and women, man and wife.
Trust is not only necessary for a relationship of mutual affection and
love, but it also has other consequences. Women are the repositories
of the honor and status of the family, but if they are mistrusted, this
will lead to their oppression--as it has; to a consequent degradation
in home and family life; and to a decline in the civilization as a whole.
Men's trust of women, and consequent treatment of them as human beings
and full-fledged partners, is necessary for the reform and advancement
of the society. Nothing could be more basic, and Hali is very clear
about the need for men to trust women and thus enable women to fulfill
their human potential.
The sixth majlis, Sayyid Amjad Ali's
will, shows the results of that realationship of trust in Amjad Ali
and Zubaida Khatun's married life. The first part of the will reiterates
the need for discipline in a child's upbringing, and praises the technological
and political improvements brought about by the British, and their policy
of religious freedom. Then Amjad Ali goes on to praise his wife for
her ability to get along with his family, her skill in ridding the household
of useless customs, her frugality, skill in management, the fact that
she didn't spend her time uselessly visiting people but rather made
his home a haven of peace and enlightenment. Her management also got
them out from under a debt that had encumbered their home for generations,
and her learning has meant that Sayyid Abbas has received a disciplined
upbringing. He can die in peace, in other words, knowing that his posterity
is in good hands.
To Sayyid Abbas, his father gives some good
advice. He should first of all pursue learning, for that is the greatest
of riches. He should not necessarily pursue the family livelihood, in
this case commerce, but should choose his profession according to his
own lights. But whatever he does, he should deal honestly, never seek
undue profit, nor indulge in flattery towards his superiors nor arrogance
towards those under him./51/
He should avoid superstition and useless customs; he should trust and
honor his wife, and he should learn new skills--including the English
language--in order to advance in the world. Sayyid Amjad Ali closes
his will with an admonition to the Muslim community to educate their
daughters. Such a policy is the best thing he could bequeath them.
The education of sons, however, was the question upon which
Atuji and her interlocutors had disagreed at the beginning of the story.
Now this question reappears as Sayyid Abbas recounts his own story,
and relates how his mother, Zubaida Khatun, educated him much better
than any schoolmaster. In the seventh majlis, Sayyid Abbas
details his early socialization, which is in some respects quite different
from the socialization of a daughter, described earlier. He has a good
deal more independence and can freely go outside the walls: playing
with his friends, going for long walks, riding, swimming, learning to
shoot. But his mother insists on regular lesson times, regular prayers,
and a strict regimen in bathing, clothing, and eating in order to preserve
his physical health. She also keeps close track of his extra-curricular
activities, her loyal servants giving her eyes outside the walls. Certain
kinds of games are permitted, others are not. In shooting and riding,
and even calligraphy, he has to learn the essentials, but no more. The
emphasis, as always, is on what is necessary and useful, and on the
avoidance of extremes as unnecessary and wasteful of time, energy, and
money--no embroidery on one's collars, no flowery or elaborate calligraphy.
These are similar to useless customary rituals and smack of a lack of
restraint.
The room in which Sayyid Abbas lives is similarly
a healthful environment, stripped of all unnecessary trappings except
what is useful for his education. His education, like Zubaida Khatun's,
is both literary and practical. Practical lessons include deportment:
restraint in the expression of emotion, restraint in eating, circumspection
in manners--doing things in the sharif manner and according
to the code of adab. One of the most important aspects of this
code is verbal etiquette, and Sayyid Abbas learns very early the proper
expressions for showing respect to his elders and superiors, and self-deprecation
at the same time. Self-vaunting is not sharif, but neither
is improper pronunciation or the use of begamati zuban, all
of which betray a lack of proper upbringing. His useful education continues
with the hiring of an old Baghdadi woman who teaches him how to speak
Arabic and Persian properly.
Sayyid Abbas then recounts his literary education,
which commenced, traditionally, with the Quran and advanced through
Persian and Urdu reading, and arithmetic. To keep Sayyid Abbas's nose
to the grindstone, Zubaida Khatun invites a servant boy to share in
the lessons, thus introducing a note of competition. She also resorts
to frequent drills, quizzes, and occasional exemplary tales to remind
him of his duties. None of these stratagems were apparently needed in
the case of the dutiful daughter. Finally, when he had reached his ninth
year, knew his Quran, the basic ethical works in Persian, beginning
Arabic, decent calligraphy, useful arithmetic, and some geography and
history--all taught him by his mother--word spread in the family that
Sayyid Amjad Ali's son was a ne'er-do-well because he had not yet gone
to school. There ensues an epic discussion between Zubaida Khatun and
her elder sister-in-law (who is uneducated; but because she is older,
Zubaida must respect her wishes) about the pros and cons of Sayyid Abbas's
education. Zubaida Khatun wins the day and convinces one and all that
not only is it possible, and even desirable, for a mother to educate
her son, but also--by extension--that educating girls is even more necessary
than educating boys.
On the other hand, Zubaida Khatun must yield
to the wishes of Sayyid Abbas's aunt, and hence in the eighth majlis,
she sends him to a maulvi for instruction. The maulvi is a
good literary stylist but a slack disciplinarian, and Sayyid Abbas's
education soon degenerates into a passion for kite-flying. The maulvi
complains, and Zubaida Khatun has to discipline her wayward son yet
again, using a lengthy riddle about the relative worth of human beings
and animals among God's creatures. Sayyid Abbas, of course, answers
that human beings are superior, but his mother disagrees and leads him
a merry chase among various species, pointing out their special skills
and instincts which are superior to various human capacities. One is
reminded of Aesop, Kalila wa Dimna, and the Panchatantra, the
moral-bearing animal fables that are so much a part of child-rearing
in Occident and Orient./52/
Finally, Zubaida Khatun comes to the point: The only way in which human
beings are superior to animals is that they can learn new skills and
improve themselves. If they refuse to (and fly kites instead), they
are no better than animals; indeed, they are worse. She points out all
sorts of modern improvements that men have produced, and implies that
men who do not use their brains, but get stuck in a morass of their
own creation, have only themselves to blame. Sayyid Abbas reforms, and
not only continues his vernacular literary education with the maulvi
but also goes to a government school to learn English and western
sciences.
One can never be too sure about what life has
in store, and when Sayyid Abbas is sixteen, he leaves school and goes
off in search of his long-lost uncle. His education has been so thorough,
however, that he is well-prepared for any eventuality. The ninth majlis
completes the story of Sayyid Abbas with a rousing adventure tale, which
justifies Zubaida Khatun's education and her skills as an educator.
Sayyid Abbas's successful adventures also vindicate the ethic of determined
self-sufficiency that Hali has been propounding.
Sayyid Abbas and his traveling companions, two
servants, go first to Aurangabad, where they find that his relative
has left to go on hajj pilgrimage. They therefore resolve to
perform the hajj themselves, but to search the countryside
in the meantime. A misadventure separates them, and the servants, giving
Sayyid Abbas up for lost, lose all hope and become wandering faqirs.
They are eventually reunited with their master through no effort of
their own. Sayyid Abbas, meanwhile, extricates himself from difficulty
by using his wits; and not finding his companions, makes his way to
Bombay through wise use of his meager remaining resources. There, he
finds himself a wealthy patron, again through using his wits. He eventually
performs the hajj, finds his uncle, and proceeds to Istanbul,
where he prospers, thanks to his linguistic skills and refusal to be
discouraged by obstacles that can be surmounted by hard work. In all
of these adventures, Sayyid Abbas triumphs through his own personal
qualities, not through anything that comes his way because of family
connections. Sayyid Abbas's travel adventures are thus partly a romance
in the Arabic and Persian traditions, as updated in the nineteenth century
by such works as Mir Amman's Bagh o Bahar (Tales of the Four
Darvishes), and partly a didactic tale of the "young man makes
good through true grit" variety, popularized by a number of nineteenth-century
novelists in the West. In any case, the narrative structure of the work
gives evidence of both a rich heritage and modern elements, of which
western influences are only a small part./53/
Hali's Majalis un-Nisa, comprising
the stories of Zubaida Khatun and Sayyid Abbas, demonstrates the major
differences between female and male socialization at that time, some
of which is not very different today. Women had to be educated in order
to realize their God-given human potential, but both their individual
fulfillment and social importance were in and through the family. Zubaida
Khatun represented the ideal composite of female skills: She was literate,
a super-competent manager, the center of several networks of relationships,
whether affective or superordinate-subordinate. Excluded from male society,
she still had considerable scope for her skills and for influencing
family policies and expenditures. She also had power over other peoples'
lives, especially through her son. Hali, in describing the daily life
of such a woman and the kind of training she underwent, has offered
a unique glimpse of pre-industrial urban middle-class life in North
India, and the social and economic roles of women in that culture.
A man in that culture, on the other hand, had to
be educated to develop qualities that would permit him to survive and
advance as an individual in an increasingly merit-oriented and impersonal
world. Hali's generation had made the transition from a world in which
a man's position depended to a great extent on his birth and family
connections, to one in which individual qualifications counted for more./54/
Of course, that transition was never as unequivocal as it was in the
individualistic West; family and community connections still meant a
great deal in British India. Nevertheless, by the late nineteenth century,
being up to date involved coping with competitive exams, new professional
qualifications, and increased geographic mobility. Men of the service
gentry could no longer count on getting ahead simply through finding
a patron, but there were other ways to advance if one was well-educated
and willing to try new paths, like Sayyid Abbas. Perhaps wisely, Hali
did not try to project what education and skills the women of the next
generation would need--Zubaida Khatun's daughters, if she had any. Sheikh
Abdullah confronted that problem with his plan to start a girls' school
which would be the counterpart of Aligarh College./55/
In Chup ki Dad, Hali lends his support
to that effort. He opens with a stately invocation in praise of women,
a generalized picture of their important role in society. The tone then
changes as he turns to the particulars of Indian women's lives, from
birth through childhood, marriage, and motherhood. The language is more
idiomatic, even cliche-ridden, the tone intimate and sympathetic. Sections
follow in praise of motherhood and in favor of the many social reforms
that had emerged during the period of British rule: the abolition of
sati and female infanticide, raising of the age of consent,
and the amelioration of the widow's lot. The worst oppression which
women suffer, however, is the denial of education. Without instruction,
women cannot perform their proper functions: motherhood and childrearing.
Education for women, therefore, is not only necessary, but it is just,
part of God's design. Since Divine justice is on their side, women will
win the right to education. The poem ends on an optimistic note, looking
forward to the foundation of a school for girls in Aligarh.
Putting these two texts into their socio-cultural
and historical contexts is important; much here seems old-fashioned
or out of date unless one realizes how up to date or even ahead of its
time Hali's message was. Proof of its value is the fact that many of
his pleas are still relevant today. For many, woman's education is still
of secondary importance, only to prepare her for a life of dependency.
The socialization of girls still discounts the needs to be resourceful
and self-sufficient, to be prepared for widowhood, to support a family,
to survive financially straitened circumstances, or simply to be more
socially productive. The needs for trust and companionship between spouses,
and for discipline mixed with consideration for children, are perennial
social concerns. In sum, Hali's works translated here have an important
historical value, but they also embody universal ethical values which
are as relevant and "up to date" today as they were when Hali
wrote them.
= = = = = = = = = = =
/1/ General works
dealing with Muslim intellectual and social history in the British period
are: Aziz Ahmad, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan 1857-1964
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967); Peter Hardy, The Muslims
of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972);
S M. Ikram, Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan (Lahore:
S.M. Ashraf, 1970); and M. Mujeeb, The Indian Muslims (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1967).
/2/ For a discussion
of the changing horizons of the indigenous intelligentsia, see Ravindar
Kumar, "The Changing Structure of Urban Society in Colonial India,"
in his Essays in the Social History of Modem India (Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 294-298; somewhat less useful is
Mujeeb Ashraf, Muslim Attitudes Towards British Rule and Western
Culture in India (Delhi: Idarah-i-Adabiyat-i-Delli, 1982) pp. 202-242;
see also my forthcoming article "Sayyid Ahmad Dehlavi and the Delhi
Renaissance," in R.E. Frykenberg, ed., Delhi Through the Ages
(Delhi: Oxford University Press).
/3/ On the reformist
'ulama, consult the works of Barbara Metcalf listed in the
bibliography.
/4/ Such as, e.g.,
Sayyid Abdul Latif, The Influence of English Literature on Urdu
Literature (London: Forster Groom, 1924), pp. 58-67, 76-94.
/5/ This account
of Hali's life is based on "Maulana Hali ki Khud-navisht Savanih-e
'Umri" (Hali's Autobiography), Ma'arif, XIX, 5 (May
1927), pp. 344-351; reprinted with an afterword by M. Ismail Panipati
in Nuqush: Ap Biti Nambar (June, 1964), pp. 281-286; Saliha
Abid Husain, Yadgar-e Hali (4th ed. New Delhi: Anjuman-e Taraqqi-e
Urdu Hind, 1975); and Abdul Haq, Chand Ham 'Asr (Aurangabad:
Anjuman-e Taraqqi-e Urdu Hind, n.d.), pp. 132-151. For useful English
accounts, see S.M. Ikram, Modern Muslim India and the Birth
of Pakistan, pp. 59-71; Malik Ram, Hali; and the histories
of Urdu literature by Ram Babu Saksena, M. Sadiq, and T. Grahame Bailey
listed in the bibliography.
/6/ qasba:
a large village or a small town. For the place of the North Indian qasba
(or cusbah) in the rural to urban continuum, see Ravindar Kumar, "The
Changing Structure of Urban Society in Colonial India," pp. 279-282.
/7/ hafiz:
one who knows the Quran by heart; qari: an expert in Quranic
recitation.
/8/ Hali's Autobiography,
Ma'arif, pp. 345-346; Saliha Abid Husain, Yadgar-e Hali,
pp. 29-30.
/9/ For the cultural
life of Delhi in the period before 1857, see Narayani Gupta, Delhi
Between Two Empires (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981), pp.
1-38; Ralph Russell, ed., Ghalib The Poet and His Age (London:
Allen and Unwin, 1972); Ralph Russell and Khurshidul Islam, Ghalib:
Life and Letters (London: Allen and Unwin, 1969); Percival Spear,
Twilight of the Mughals (Reprint. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal,
1969); Abdul Haq, Marhum Dihli Kalij (Karachi: Anjuman-e Taraqqi-e
Urdu Pakistan, 1962); Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Tazkirah-e Ahl-e Dihli
(Karachi: Anjuman-e Taraqqi-e Urdu Pakistan, 1965); Akhtar Qambar, tr.,
The Last Musha'irah of Delhi (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1979).
/10/ This school,
located near the Jama Masjid, was described by Leitner: "The building
of his Madrasa, which is very spacious and beautiful, was erected by
Husain Bakhsh, a merchant, in 1847. Before the Mutiny of 1857, this
school was well-attended, and a great number of scholars read here religion
and other branches of learning. After the Mutiny, the school remained
closed for eighteen years." G.W. Leitner, History of Indigenous
Education in the Punjab (Reprint. Delhi: Arnar Prakashan, 1932),
pt. II, p. 2.
/11/ Ma'arif
pp. 346-348; Yadgar, pp. 31-32.
/12/ musha'ira:
a gathering at which poets recite their verse; a competition in poetic
virtuosity; ghazal: a lyric poem in the rhyme scheme AA, BA, CA, etc
.
/13/ Ma'arif
p. 348; Yadgar, pp. 31-32.
/14/ Ma'arif,
pp. 347-348; Yadgar, pp. 32-36, 55-57; Saliha Abid
Husain, Jane Walon ki Yad Ati Hai (New Delhi: Maktaba-e
Jami'a, 1974), pp. 15-16.
/15/ For a good
example of Lakhnavi love poetry, see Navvab Mirza Shawq, Zahr-i
Ishq or the Poison of Love (A Love Narrative from Awadh), tr. by
Shah Abdus Salam et al. (Delhi: DK Publications, 1982).
/16/ Ma'arif,
pp. 348-349; Yadgar, pp. 37-40, Laurel Steele, "Hali and
His Muqaddamah: The Creation of a Literary Attitude in Nineteenth Century
India," Annual of Urdu Studies I (1981), pp. 7-8.
/17/ Wahid Qureshi,
Introduction to Hali's Muqaddamah-e Shi'r o Sha'iri (Reprint
edn., Aligarh, 1977), pp. 70-71, tr. and cited by Laurel Steele, "Hali
and His Muqaddamah" pp. 44-45, n.45.
/18/ Hali was in
his mid-30s in this period.
/19/ Husain, Jane
Walon ki Yad Ati Hai, pp. 13-18; Abdul Haq, Chand Ham 'Asr,
p.133.
/20/ For an analysis
of the kinds of occupational and psychological adjustments made by the
service gentry in this period, see David Lelyveld's discussion of the
"Kachehri Milieu" in Aligarh's First Generation (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1978); cf. C.F. Andrews, Zakaullah of
Delhi (Reprint. Lahore: Universal Books, 1976), pp. 103-116.
/21/ Yadgar,
pp. 42-48.
/22/ S. Muhiyuddin
Qadri Zor, "Hali aur Nasr-e Urdu," in his Ruh-e Tanqid
(Hyderabad: Osmania University, 1927), II, pp. 235-238; S. M. Abdullah,
The Spirit and Substance of Urdu Prose Under the Influence of Sir
Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Lahore: SM. Ashraf, 1940), pp. 12-36, 74-79;
Laurel Steele, "Hali and His Maqaddamah," p. 11, quotes Hali's
own discussion of western influences on Urdu prose style at that time,
including the translations sponsored by the Scientific Society of Aligarh,
and Sir Sayyid's journal.
/23/ On Nazir Ahmad,
see the works on Urdu literature by S.M. Abdullah, T. Grahame
Bailey, Ram Babu Saksena, and M. Sadiq listed in the bibliography; C.M.
Nairn, "Prize-Winning Adab," in Barbara Metcalf, ed., Moral
Conduct and Authority (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1984), pp. 290-314; and Nazir Ahmad, The Bride's Mirror, tr.
by G E. Ward (London: Henry Frowde, 1903).
/24/ For example,
al-Ghazzali's Nasihat ul-Muluk, Nizam ul-Mulk's Siyasat
Nama, and Kai Ka'us Ibn Iskandar's Qubus Nama (tr. into
English by Reuben Levy as A Mirror for Princes).
/25/ G W. Leitner,
History of Indigenous Education in the Punjab, I. pp.
70-71; II, p. 94; M. Yahya Tanha, Siyar ul-Musannifin (Delhi:
Maktaba-e Jami;a, 1928), II, pp. 158-173; Jahan Banu Begam Naqvi, Muhammad
Husain Azad (Hyderabad: Idarah-e Adabiyat-e Urdu, 1940), pp. 40-45;
M. Sadiq, Muhammad Husain Azad: His Life and Works (Lahore:
West-Pak Publishing Co., 1965).
/26/ For an excellent
overview of Victorian consciousness, see Walter Houghton, The Victorian
Frame of Mind (New Haven: Yale University Press. 1957). Of particular
relevance here are his chapters on Earnestness, Love, and Hypocrisy.
/27/ Leitner, a
devoted Orientalist, scoffed at Holroyd's presumption: "...it was
the unfortunate assumption, which characterizes European interference
in so many matters, that they have all to teach and nothing to learn
from natives, that led to the collapse of the Mushairas in 1875. The
'irritable genus' of poets did not want to be told by anyone that they
had, hitherto, debased their genius by celebrating love, and they declined
dictation in poetic inspiration . . ." Leitner, History of
Indigenous Education, I, p. 71.
/28/ Yadgar,
pp. 40-41; Chand Ham 'Asr, pp. 145-149; Steele, "Hali
and His Muqaddamah," p. 11; A-e Ahmad Sarur, "Hindustani Adab
Men Hali ka Darja," in his Tanqidi Ishare (Aligarh:Muslim
Educational Press, 1942), pp. 67-78.
/29/ Concerning
Begamati Zuban, there are a number of lexicons of women's idioms and
a few linguistic studies. See the works by Munshi Chiranji Lal Dihlavi,
Insha'ullah Khan Insha, Muhammad Munir Lakhnavi, Muhiyuddin Hasan, Sayyid
Ahmad Dihlavi, Sayyid Amjad Ali Ashhari, and Wahida Nasim listed in
the bibliography. See also Gail Minault, "Begamati Zuban: Women's
Language and Culture in Nineteenth-Century Delhi." India International
Centre Quarterly XI, 2 (June, 1984), pp. 155-170.
/30/ Ma'arif
p. 350; Zor, "Hali aur Nasr-e Urdu," pp. 232-233; Saliha Abid
Husain, Editorial Introduction to the 1971 edn. of Majalis un-Nisa
(New Delhi: Maktaba-e Jami'a), pp. 5-12.
/31/ Report
of the Indian Education Commission, Appendix Vol.: Report from
the Northwestern Provinces and Oudh with Testimony (Calcutta: Government
of India, 1884), p. 300.
/32/ Saliha Abid
Husain, Jane Walon, p. 17.
/33/ Yadgar,
p. 47; Musaddas-e Hali, English tr. (Karachi: Peermahomed Ibrahim
Trust, 1975).
/34/ The initial
amount was Rs. 75/- per month, the amount of his salary at the Delhi
Anglo-Arabic School. Five years later, it was raised to Rs. 100/- per
month. Yadgar, p. 50.
/35/ Laurel Steele,
"Hali and His Muqaddamah," contains a critical appraisal of
this work, and the only summary translation of it in English that I
know of.
/36/ Shaikh
Abdullah, Introduction to the original edition of the poem in Khatun
II, 12 (December, 1905), pp. 551-560, reprinted in pamphlet form frequently
thereafter. For the history of Aligarh Girls' School, see Gail Minault,
"Shaikh Abdullah, Begam Abdullah and Sharif Education for Girls
at Aligarh," in Imtiaz Ahmad, ed., Modernization and Social
Change Among Muslims in India (Delhi: Manohar, 1983), pp. 207-236.
/37/ Yadgar,
pp. 63-64; Jane Walon, pp. 30-32.
/38/ G.W. Leitner,
History of Indigenous Education, flatly blames the imposition of
the British system of education for the decline of vernacular educational
standards; Joseph DiBona agrees, in his Introduction to One
Teacher, One School: The Adam Reports on Indigenous Education in 19th
Century India (New Delhi: Biblia Impex, 1983), pp. 1-40; cf. Aparna
Basu, "The Indigenous System of Education in the Early Nineteenth
Century and its Decline," in her Essays in the History of Indian
Education (New Delhi: Concept, 1982), pp. 28-38.
/39/ At that time,
it was not considered proper for Muslim girls to learn how to
write, since if a woman in pardah learned how to write letters,
she might communicate with men beyond the permissible circle of kin.
Interview with Saliha Abid Husain, September 2, 1977.
/40/ Sharif
(pl.: ashraf): for a discussion of this term, see below, First
Majlis, n. 4.
/41/ There is a
considerable literature describing the institution of pardah,
ranging from an early nineteenth-century account by an English woman
married to a Lucknow aristocrat, to more recent anthropological studies.
See the works by Mrs. Meer Hasan Ali, Ruth Woodsmall, Elizabeth Fernea,
Patricia Jeffery, Cora Vreede de Stuers, and Hanna Papanek listed in
the bibliography. Works of creative literature that describe life in
pardah are Ahmad Ali, Twilight in Delhi (Bombay: Oxford
University Press, 1966); and Agha Haidar Hasan Dihlavi Pas-e Pardah
(Aligarh: Muslim University Press, 1926).
/42/ Such values
are also present in the Hindu extended family, where it is taboo for
husband and wife to converse, or to show affection for their children,
in the presence of their elders. See, e.g., the articles by Sylvia Vatuk,
Doranne Jacobson, and Rama Mehta, in Papanek and Minault, eds., Separate
Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia (Delhi: Chanakya
and Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books, 1982).
/43/ For an elaboration
of this reformist ethic, see Barbara Metcalf, "Islam and
Custom in Nineteenth Century India"; plus the volume of essays
she has edited: Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in
South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
/44/ See, e.g.,
Mirza Muhammad Hadi Ruswa, Umra'o Jan Ada (Reprint. Allahabad:
Ram Narain Lai Beni Madho, 1963).
/45/ One is reminded
of the episode of the perforated sheet in Salman Rushdie's novel, Midnight's
Children.
/46/ For women's
rituals and customs, see Robert Fernea and Elizabeth Fernea, "Variation
in Religious Observance among Islamic Women" in Nikki R. Keddie,
ed., Scholars Saints and Sufis: Muslim Religious Institutions since
1500 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 185-401;
Qanun un-Nisa (Delhi: Urdu Department, Delhi University, 1972),
pp. 44-64; Jaffur Shurreef, Qanoon-e Islam or the Customs of the
Mussulmans of India, tr. by G.A. Herklots (Reprint, Lahore: Al-Irshad,
1973); and Sayyid Ahmad Dihlavi, Rasum-e Dihli (Reprint. Rampur:
Kitabkar, 1965). For a psychological inquiry into indigenous healing
practices concerning spirit possession, see Sudhir Kakar, Shamans,
Mystics, and Doctors (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp.
15-88.
/47/ For a discussion
of these groups, see Marc Gaborieau, "On the Specific Service Roles
in Traditional Muslim Society," in Gopal Krishna ed., Contributions
to South Asian Studies 2 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1982),
pp. 146-163.
/48/ Gaborieau,
p. 157; on status ranking see Douglas E. Goodfriend, "Changing
Concepts of Caste and Status Among Old Delhi Muslims," in Imtiaz
Ahmad, ed., Modernization and Social Change Among Muslims in India,
pp. 119-152.
/49/ On the vernacular
curriculum, see Leitner, History of Indigenous Education; and
G.M.D. Sufi, Al-Minhaj (Reprint. Delhi: Idarah-i-Adabiyat-i-Delhi,
1977). On Muslim women's education, see Muhammad Amin Zuberi, Muslim
Khawatin ki Ta'lim (Karachi: All-Pakistan Educational Conference,
1961); Nasiruddin Hashmi, Ahd-e Asafi ki Qadim Ta'lim (Hyderabad:
Intizami Press, 1946), pt. II; and Gail Minault, "Purdah's Progress:
The Beginnings of School Education for Indian Muslim Women," in
J.P. Sharma, ed., Individuals and Ideas in Modern India (Calcutta:
Firma KLM, 1982), pp. 76-97. On the development of western education
for women in India, see Y.B. Mathur, Women's Education in India
1813-1966 (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1973).
/50/ In this respect
Hali is also up to date, or even ahead of his time. For a treatise dealing
with women's rights in Islamic law from around the same time, see Sayyid
Mumtaz Ali, Huquq un-Niswan (Lahore: Darul Ishaiat-e Punjab,
1898).
/51/ In these respects,
Sayyid Amjad Ali's advice to his son resembles that contained in Kai
Ka'us ibn Iskandar's Qabus Nama. In other respects, as in the
admonition to trust his wife and educate his daughters, it is very different.
cf. A Mirror for Princes, tr. by Reuben Levy, pp. 90-95, 112-116,
144-165, 191-200.
/52/ In addition
to these general sources is its specific source: the story of the debate
between human and animal representatives over which was superior, contained
in the Rasa'il of the Ikhwan us-Safa. This literature is discussed
in Ian R. Netton, Muslim Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought
of the Brethren of Purity (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982), pp. 92-93.
I am grateful to C. M. Naim for pointing out that this literature was
well known at the time, had been translated into Urdu and English, and
was used for teaching Urdu to British civil servants.
/53/ Mir Amman
of Delhi, Bagh o Bahar or Tales of the Four Darweshes, tr.
by Duncan Forbes (London: Crosby Lockwood, 1857). The Qabus Nama
contains the story of the son of the Caliph Mutawakkil who was swept
downstream from Baghdad, struggled ashore, and was later found, somewhat
similarly to Sayyid Abbas. Levy, tr, Mirror for Princes,
pp. 24-26.) One may also find in the story of Sayyid Abbas elements
of tales of successful young merchants from such Arabic sources as Alf
Laila wa Lail (The Arabian Nights) or Sanskrit sources such as
Katha Sarit Sagara. Horatio Alger had many eastern counterparts.
/54/ Lelyved, Aligarh's
First Generation, discusses the way in which Aligarh College helped
mediate this transition for the North Indian Muslim ashraf.
/55/ For further
details, see Minault, "Shaikh Abdullah, Begam Abdullah and Sharif
Education for Girls at Aligarh."