Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T22:27:08.400Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Polygyny, Family and Sharafat: Discourses amongst North Indian Muslims, circa 1870–1918

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2010

Asiya Alam
Asiya Alam*
Affiliation:
Department of Asian Studies, University of Texas, 1 University Station, G9300, Austin, Texas 78712, USA Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While historians of South Asia have examined in elaborate detail critiques of sati and child marriage in the Hindu community, a similar approach to Muslim familial reform also needs serious attention. By investigating discourses on the question of polygyny1, this paper is an attempt in this direction. In the light of these discourses, the paper argues that polygyny, influenced by modern sensibilities of reform and social change, underwent different interpretations during the colonial period. The debate on polygyny was not homogenous and uniform and research reveals a plurality of viewpoints on the subject. The argument was often based on an assumption of sexual difference which, in some cases, emphasized the infertility and reproductive incapacity of the first wife, and in others, presented an idealization of domestic ideology where the second wife made the ‘perfect’ home. Simultaneously, there were also strong critiques of polygyny by women writers who underscored the misery of the first wife. These debates do not necessarily settle the question in favour of a particular position, but reflect a conversation held on marriage, children and family, and express how love, conjugality and affection were narrated in the public sphere.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 3 , May 2011 , pp. 631 - 668
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

In the preparation of this paper, Yasmin Saikia, David Gilmartin and Sarah Shields assisted me in early versions of the draft. Gail Minault, Rochona Majumdar and Indrani Chatterjee suggested significant improvements in the revisions. Sughra Mehdi helped me with relevant Urdu literature. I sincerely acknowledge their help.

References

1 In South Asian analysis, the practice of one man having more than one wife has been referred to as ‘polygamy’, a residue of colonial terminology. I will use ‘polygyny’ instead which has also been employed in the historical study of other Muslim societies. See Baron, Beth ‘The Making and Breaking of Marital Bonds in Modern Egypt’ in Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender, ed. Keddie, Nikki R. and Baron, Beth (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 275–293Google Scholar; Najmabadi, Afsaneh, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), pp. 161–162, 170, 174–5, 177Google Scholar.

2 See for instance, Muir, WilliamThe Life of Mahomet and the History of Islam to the era of the Hegira (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1861), Vols 3, 4Google Scholar.

3 There have been several studies on Muslim family life in South Asia although none on polygyny. See Ahmad, Imtiaz, Family and Kinship among Muslims in India (New Delhi: Manohar, 1976)Google Scholar; Minault, Gail, Secluded Scholars: Women's Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Metcalf, Barbara D., Perfecting Women: Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi's Bihishti Zewar (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Lateef, Shahida, Muslim Women in India: Political and Private Realities, 1890–1980 (London: Zed Books, 1990)Google Scholar; Ali, Azra Asghar, The Emergence of Feminism among Indian Muslim Women 1920–47 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar; Lal, Ruby, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Regional studies of Muslim women include: Lambert-Hurley, Siobhan, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begum of Bhopal (London: Routledge, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Saiyid, Dushka, Muslim Women of the British Punjab: From Seclusion to Politics (London: MacMillan, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Amin, Sonia Nishat, The World of Muslim Women in Colonial Bengal, 1876–1939 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996)Google Scholar. More general studies include Borthwick, Meredith, The Changing Role of Women in Bengal: 1849–1905 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Uberoi, Patricia, ed., Family, Kinship and Marriage in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Sarkar, Tanika, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion and Cultural Nationalism (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001)Google Scholar; Chatterjee, Indrani (ed.) Unfamiliar Relations: Family and History in South Asia (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; Ghosh, Durba, Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sreenivas, Mytheli, Wives, Widows and Concubines: The Conjugal Family Ideal in Colonial India (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Majumdar, Rochona, Marriage and Modernity: Family Values in Colonial Bengal (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sarkar, Tanika, Rebels, Wives, Saints: Designing Selves and Nations in Colonial Times (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2009)Google Scholar.

4 The opinions expressed by the ashraf activists and writers in this paper are not ‘representative’ of Indian Islam or ‘Muslimness’. There was never a uniformity of views on Muslims about their ‘identity’ and their ideas were always informed by regional, ethnic and linguistic differences.

5 For feminist criticism, see Nancy Fraser, ‘Rethinking the Public Sphere’, Social Text 25/26 (1990) and Landes, Joan, Woman and the Public Sphere in the Age of Revolution (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1988)Google Scholar. Challenging the separation of public and private spheres, historians of Bengali social reform have demonstrated how familial space was informed by political currents of nationalism and religious identity. Sarkar, Tanika, Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001)Google Scholar; Chatterjee, Partha, ‘The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question’ in Recasting Women: Essays in Indian Colonial History, ed., Sangari, Kumkum and Vaid, Sudesh (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1990), pp. 233–253Google Scholar. The model of separate public and private spheres has also been challenged by studies on the Muslim family: Lal, Ruby, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Focusing on the presence of a public space in pre-modern and non-European societies, Bayly, C.A. has argued for an ‘indigenous public sphere’ or an ‘Indian ecumene’ during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Empire and Information: Intelligence gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 180–211Google Scholar. Studies of colonial period include Orsini, Francesca, The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–40: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism. (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Freitag, Sandria, Collective Action and Community: Public Arenas and the Emergence of Communalism in North India. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Naregal, Veena, Language Politics, Elites and the Public Sphere: Western India under Colonialism (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001)Google Scholar. Also see, Eisenstadt, Shmuel et al. , ed., The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Dale Eickelman, ‘The Religious Public Sphere in Early Muslim Societies’, in Eisenstadt et. al., ed., The Public Sphere in Muslim Societies, pp. 1–8.

6 Metcalf, Barbara, ‘Imagining Community: Polemical Debates in Colonial India’, in Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages, ed., Jones, Kenneth W. (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 229–240Google Scholar. For socio-religious movements, see Jones, Kenneth W., Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

7 For details of Sayyid Ahmad Khan's life and work, see Hali, Altaf Hussain, Hayat-i Javed (Immortal Life), translated by Mathews, David (New Delhi: Rupa & Co., 1994)Google Scholar; Malik, Hafeez, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muslim Modernization in India and Pakistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980)Google Scholar; Troll, Christian W., Sayyid Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (New Delhi: Vikas, 1978)Google Scholar; Ahmad, Aziz, Islamic Modernism in India and Pakistan: 1857–1964 (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 33Google Scholar.

8 Syed Ameer Ali's autobiography was published in Islamic Culture in 1931–1932: Ameer Ali, ‘Memoirs of the Late Retired Honorable Syed Ameer Ali’, in Islamic Culture, Vol. V, No. 4, October, 1931, pp. 509–542 and Vol. VI, Nos. 1–4, January, 1932, pp. 1–18, April, 1932, pp. 16382, July, 1932, pp. 333–362, October, 1932, pp. 503–525, Hyderabad-Deccan; Aziz, K.K., Ameer Ali: His Life and Work (Lahore: Publishers United, 1968)Google Scholar; Forward, Martin, The Failure of Islamic Modernism? Syed Ameer Ali's Interpretation of Islam (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 1999)Google Scholar; Minault, Gail, ‘Ameer Ali, Syed’, in Esposito, John L., ed., Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), vol. 1, pp. 84–85Google Scholar.

9 Metcalf, Barbara, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Reetz, Dietrich, Islam in the Public Sphere: Religious Groups in the Public Sphere, 1900–47 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006)Google Scholar; Pearson, Harlan O., Islamic Reform and Revival in Nineteenth-century India: The Tariqah-i Muhammadiyah (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Sanyal, Usha, Devotional Islam and Politics in British India: Ahmed Riza Khan Barelwi and his Movement, 1870–1920 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Jalal, Ayesha, Partisans of Allah: Jihad in South Asia (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 For a study of polygyny in the Hindu community, see Joshi, Varsha, Polygamy and Purdah: Women and Society among Rajputs (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 1995)Google Scholar; Kundu, Atul Krishna, Polygamy and the Hindu (Chinsura: Kundu, 1980)Google Scholar; Karlekar, Malvika, Reflections on Kulin Polygamy: Nistarini Debi's Sekeley Katha (New Delhi: Center for Women's Development Studies, 1995)Google Scholar.

11 Exploring the issue of slavery in Islam, Avril Powell has argued that slavery was constituted as a problem because ‘Western critics, several of them employed as civil servants in northwest India, packaged it with other social institutions they deemed to be obstacles to ‘change’ in Islamic societies’. Powell, Avril, ‘Indian Muslim Modernists and the Issue of Slavery in Islam’ in Slavery and South Asian History, ed., Chatterjee, Indrani and Eaton, Richard (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2006), p. 279Google Scholar.

12 Muir, William, The Life of Mahomet and the History of Islam to the era of the Hegira (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1861), Vol. 4, p. 321Google Scholar.

13 Muir, William, The Life of Mahomet and the History of Islam to the era of the Hegira (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1861), Vol. 3, p. 24Google Scholar.

14 Faisal Devji discusses the ‘privatization of shurafa’ and the spatial construction of the Muslim home in the reform movements of the nineteenth century. Devji, Faisal, ‘Gender and the Politics of Space: The Movement for Women's Reform, 1857–1900’, in Women and Social Reform in Modern India, Volume two, ed. Sarkar, Sumit and Sarkar, Tanika (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007), 99–114Google Scholar. Also see Metcalf, Barbara, ‘Islamic Reform and Islamic Women: Maulana Thanawi's Jewelry of Paradise’, in Metcalf, Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 184–195Google Scholar.

15 I use the term, ‘sacred authority’ as employed by Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori in their study of politics in the Muslim world.

16 Eickelman, Dale and Piscatori, James, Muslim Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad, Al-Khutbat al-Ahmadiya fi al-Arab wa al-sirat al-Muhammadiya, Panipati, Muhammad Ismail, ed. (Karachi: Nafees Academy, 1964), reprintGoogle Scholar.

18 Saiyid Ahmad Khan, ‘Whether Islam has been Beneficial. . .’, A Series of Essays, Polygyny is discussed from pages 147 to 152; in Al-Khutbat, see pp. 190–198. He also discussed this question separately in an article: ‘Ta'ddud-i Azvaj ka Mas'ala’. In Maqalat-i Sir Sayyid, Muhammad Ismail Panipati (ed.), Vol. 13, reprint (Lahore: Majlis-i Taraqqi Adab, 1963), pp. 259–265.

19 Sayyid Ahmad, Life of Muhammad, v; in Al-khutbat, see pp. 19–20.

20 Ibid., p. v.

21 Ibid., p. 147.

22 Ibid., p. 148.

23 Ibid., p. 148.

24 Ibid., p. 148.

25 Ibid., pp. 148–149.

26 Ahmad, Sayyid, ‘Auratoon ke Huqooq’ in Maqalat-i Sir Sayyid, Panipati, Muhammad Ismail (ed.), Vol. 5 (reprint) (Lahore: Majlis-i Taraqqi-yi Adab, 1962), pp. 194–199Google Scholar.

27 Ahmad, Sayyid, ‘Ta'addud-i Azwaj ka Masla’ in Maqalat-i Sir Sayyid, Panipati, Muhammad Ismail (ed.), Vol. 13 (reprint), (Lahore: Majlis-i Taraqqi-yi Adab, 1963), p. 265Google Scholar.

28 Ahmad, Sayyid, ‘Azwaj-i Mutahharat-i Rasul-i Khuda Sallallah-u alaih-i wsallam’ in Maqalat-i Sir Saiyid, Panipati, Ismail (ed.), Vol 4 (reprint), (Lahore: Majlis-i Taraqqi-yi Adab, 1962), pp. 222–259Google Scholar.

29 For an analysis of Ameer Ali's position on women, see Powell, Avril, ‘Islamic Modernism and Women's Status: The Influence of Syed Ameer Ali’ in Powell, Avril and Lambert-Hurley, Siobhan (eds) Rhetoric and Reality: Gender and the Colonial Experience in South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 282–317Google Scholar.

30 Ameer Ali, Life of Mohammad, p. 223.

31 Ibid., p. 227.

32 Ibid., p. 227.

33 Ibid., p. 236.

34 Ibid., p. 236.

35 See also Nomani, Shibli, ‘Ta'addud-i Azwaj’ in Maqalat-i Shibli, Volume 1, (Azamgarh: Dar-ul Musanafeen, Shibli Academy, 1999), reprint, pp. 146–155Google Scholar.

36 Mirza, Dilawar Husain Ahmad, ‘The Causes of the Decline of Mohammadan Civilization’, in Salik, Sultan Jahan (ed.), Muslim Modernism in Bengal: Selected Writings of Delawarr Hosaen Ahmed Meerza, 1840–1913 (Dacca: Center for Social Studies, Dacca University, 1980), pp. 55–56Google Scholar.

37 Ameer Ali, Life of Mohammad, p. 226.

38 Ghani, Maulavi Muhammad, Polygamy: A Lecture (Lahore: The Mohammadan Tract and Book Depot, 1891), pp. 3, 11–12Google Scholar.

39 In her excellent book, Francesca Orsini describes the process through which Hindi developed a ‘publicness’ which ensured that it was appropriate for discussing public matters, literature and representing the ‘jati’. Orsini, Francesca. The Hindi Public Sphere 1920–40: Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

40 Banaras Akhbar was started in 1845 in Banaras, Chashma-e Faiz in Siyalkot in 1853, Khairkhva Khalaiq was started in 1858 in Ajmer, Dabdaba Sikandari was started in Rampur in 1867 while Nayyar Akhbar began in 1868 in Bijnor. Other dailies included Jame Jamshid in Muradabad in 1870, Akhtar-e Hind in Saharanpur in 1875 and Shamsul Awadhi in Faizabad in 1884. Khan, Nadir Ali, Hindustani Press, 1556–1900 (Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Urdu Academy, 1990), pp. 28, 74, 101, 142–143, 190, 225, 291–292, 306–310, 359, 360Google Scholar. In English, see Khan, Nadir Ali, A History of Urdu Journalism (Delhi: Idarah-e-Adabiyat-e Delli, 1991)Google Scholar.

41 See Minault, Gail, ‘Sayyid Mumtaz Ali and Tahzib-un Niswan: Women's Rights in Islam and Women's Journalism in Urdu’, in Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages, ed., Jones, Kenneth W. (New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 179–199Google Scholar; Gail Minault, Secluded Scholars, pp. 105–157; Pernau, Margrit, ‘Female Voice: Women Writers in Hyderabad at the beginning of the Twentieth Century’, Annual of Urdu Studies 17 (2002): pp. 36–54Google Scholar.

42 Mir'at al-arus by Nazir Ahmad Dehlavi (1836–1912) was published in 1869, followed by Fasane Mubtala in 1885 and Ayyama in 1891. Similar to Nazir Ahmad's Mira't al-urus, Altaf Husain Hali (1837–1914) wrote Majalis un-Nisa, first published in 1874. For an extensive discussion of Nazir Ahmad's life and work, see Siddiqi, Iftikhar Ahmad, Maulavi Nazir Ahmad Dehlavi: Ahval-o-Asar (Lahore: Majlis Taraqqi Pasand, 1971)Google Scholar. Also see Gail Minault Secluded Scholars, pp. 31–38; Hasan, Mushirul, A Moral Reckoning: Muslim Intellectuals in Nineteenth-century Delhi (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 132–184Google Scholar and Naim, C. M., ‘Prize-winning Adab: A Study of Five Urdu Books Written in Response to the Allahabad Government Gazette Notification’, in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Islam, ed., Metcalf, Barbara D. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 290–314Google Scholar. For a discussion of Hali's novels, see Minault, Gail, Secluded Scholars (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 39–57Google Scholar; Russell, Ralph, The Pursuit of Urdu Literature (N.J.: Zed Books, 1992)Google Scholar; Sadiq, M., History of Urdu Literature, 2nd edn. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 210–219Google Scholar; Husain, Saliha Abid, Yadgar-i Hali, 4th edn., (New Delhi: Anjuman-i Taraqqi-e Urdu Hind, 1975)Google Scholar.

43 Akbari Begum was the momani (wife of maternal uncle) of Nazr Sajjad Hyder, mother of the well-known Urdu writer Qurratulain Hyder. She wrote Gudar ka Lal under the pseudonym of Valida-e Afzal Ali (Mother of Afzal Ali) in consideration of the practice of strict purdah, an integral part of female living, among ashraf Muslims. Akbari Begum's other works include Guldasta-e Muhabbat, Sho'la-e Pinhan and Iffat-e Niswan. For details, see Hyder, Qurratulain, Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai (The Task of the World is Endless), (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2003), reprintGoogle Scholar.

44 Hyder, Qurratulain mentions that the book was published in 1907: Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2003), reprint, p. 150Google Scholar. Shaista Suhrawardy in her study writes that it was serialized in the journal Sharif Bibi in 1911–1912 and then published in book form: Suhrawardy, Shaista Akhtar B.A Critical Survey of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story, (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006), reprint, pp. 110–111Google Scholar.

45 Saliha Abid Husain, great grand daughter of Altaf Husain Hali (d. 1914), was born in Panipat in modern-day Haryana in 1913. She received her primary education at Panipat and Aligarh, and read voraciously as a child. Her first attempt at novel-writing was in 1929, which was unpublished and eventually destroyed by her. She, however, continued writing in women's journals like Tahzib-un Niswan, Saheli, Noorjahan and Ismat. She also won prizes from the editor for the articles that she wrote for Ismat. From 1936, she started writing speeches for All India Radio and later wrote articles that were recited at Bazm-e Khawateen (Women's Association) at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. Her first published novel was Azra which appeared in 1944. She summarized her pain and trauma of the plunder of Panipat during Partition in a series of articles called Niras mein Aas (Hope in Despair) which was published from Bombay, and dedicated to Gandhi. Her second novel Atish-e Khamosh (The Silent Fire) was published in 1948, and her third novel Rah-e Amal was published in 1957. Her other important works include Khawateen-e Karbala (Women of Karbala) and Yadgar-e Hali, a biography of Hali. Husain, Saliha Abid, Silsala-e Roz-o- Shab: Khudnavisht (The Cycle of Day and Night: An Autobiography), (New Delhi: Maktaba Jamia Limited, 1984), pp. 280–290Google Scholar.

46 Sayyid Abid Husain was born in 1896 in Bhopal, where he received his primary education. After school he attended Muir Central College in Allahabad and then went to Oxford for further education. Unable to study at Oxford, he decided to go to Germany where he completed his Doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Berlin in 1925. See Husain, Sayyid Abid, Hayat-i Abid: Khudnavisht (Life of Abid: An Autobiography), (Delhi: Maktaba Jamia, 1984)Google Scholar. He translated important philosophical and literary tracts from German into Urdu, including Goethe's Faust: Part I (Goethe ka Faust: Hissah Avval, Aurangabad: Anjuman-i Taraqqi-ye Urdu, 1931), Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (Tanqid-i Aql-i Mahaz, Delhi: Anjuman-i Taraqqi-ye Urdu, 1941) and Boer's History of Islamic Philosophy (Tarikh-i Falsafa-i Islam, Delhi: Maktaba Jamia, 1936). His translations from English include Gandhi's My Experiments with Truth (Talash-i Haqq: Mahatma Gandhi ki Aap Biti, Delhi: Maktaba Jamia, 1935) and Plato's Selected Dialogues (Mukalamat-i Aflatoon, Delhi: Anjuman-i Taraqqi-ye Urdu, 1942). Some of his significant original writings are National Culture of India (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1961); Destiny of Indian Muslims (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1965); The Way of Gandhi and Nehru (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1959); and Parda-i Gaflat (The Veil of Ignorance), (Delhi: Maktaba Jamia, 1967).

47 Saliha Abid Husain, Silsala-e Roz-o-Shab, p. 214.

48 Hyder, Qurratulain, Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2003), pp. 149–150Google Scholar.

49 Bashiruddin Ahmad, Iqbal Dulhan, p. 274.

50 Ibid., p. 268.

51 Ibid., pp. 278–279.

52 Amongst the many Muslim women involved in writing and activism were Muhammadi Begum (1878?–1908), Rokeya Sakhavat Husain (1880–1932), Khujista Akhtar Banu Suhrawardiya (1874–1919), Jahan Ara Shah Nawaz (1896–1979), Rashid Jahan (1905–1952). See Minault, GailSecluded Scholars: Women's Education and Muslim Social Reform in Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Suhrawardy, Shaista Akhtar B.A Critical Survey of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006), reprintGoogle Scholar.

53 Hyder, Qurratulain, Kar-e-Jahan Daraz Hai (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2003), p. 145Google Scholar.

54 In Islamic mythology, jinn (or genie) are believed to be supernatural creatures that can spiritually possess a human body.

55 Ibid., pp. 149–150.

56 Dehlavi, Muhammad Muslim, ‘Maulavi Bashiruddin Ahmad: Aik Muarrikh Tarikh ke Jharoke se’ in Salahuddin, , ed., Dilli Wale (Delhi: Urdu Academy, volume II, 1988), pp. 217–231Google Scholar.

57 Ahmad, Bashiruddin, Iqbal Dulhan (Delhi: Khari Bavli, 1908), p. 3Google Scholar.

58 For an examination of sharif culture in the context of Aligarh Muslims, see Lelyveld, David's Aligarh's First Generation: Muslim Solidarity in British India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

59 The education of women as a transmitter of culture in the reformist project has been made by Gail Minault in Secluded Scholars (Delhi: Oxford, 1998), pp. 4–9. Recently, Ruby Lal has argued in greater detail, for Nazir Ahmad's Mirat al-Arus and Taubt-al-Nasuh, that the object of reform of the sharif woman was to ‘preserve family, community and culture through her’. ‘Gender and Sharafat: Rereading Nazir Ahmad’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Volume 18, Part 1 (2008), pp. 15–30.

60 Bashiruddin Ahmad, Iqbal Dulhan, p. 82.

61 Ibid., p. 83.

62 Ibid., p. 85.

63 Ibid., p. 85.

64 Ibid., p. 85.

65 Ibid., p. 85.

66 Brenner, Johanna and Laslett, Barbara, ‘Gender and Social Reproduction: Historical Perspectives’, Annual Review of Sociology 15 (1989): pp. 381–404Google Scholar; Bock, Gisela and Thanes, Pat, ed., Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of European Welfare States 1880–1950s (New York: Routledge, 1991)Google Scholar; Gal, Susan and Kligman, Gail, ‘Reproduction as Politics’ in The Politics of Gender after Socialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 15–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ginsburg, Faye and Rapp, Rayna, ‘The Politics of Reproduction’, Annual Review of Anthropology 20 (1991): pp. 311–343CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Schneider, Jane and Schneider, Peter, Festival of the Poor: Fertility Decline and the Ideology of Class in Sicily, 1860–1980 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1996)Google Scholar; Fissell, Mary E., ‘The Politics of Reproduction in the English Reformation’, Representations 87 (2004): pp. 43–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Ahmad, Iqbal Dulhan, p. 85.

68 Akbari Begum, Gudar ka Lal, pp. 70–89, 137–138.

69 Ibid., p. 81.

70 Ibid., pp. 139–142.

71 Ibid., p. 138.

72 Najmabadi, Afsaneh, ‘Creating an Educated Housewife in Iran’, in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed., Abu-Lughod, Lila (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 91–125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 Akbari Begum, Gudar ka Lal, p. 275.

74 Ibid., p. 275.

75 Bashiruddin Ahmad, Iqbal Dulhan, p. 225.

76 Ibid., p. 226.

77 Ibid., p. 228.

78 Powell, Avril, ‘Duties of Ahmadi Women: Educative Processes in the Early Stages of the Ahmadiyya Movement’, in Gurus and their Followers: New Religious Reform Movements in Colonial India, ed., Copley, Anthony (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 129–155Google Scholar.

79 Akbari Begum, Gudar ka Lal, pp. 306–311, 334–335, 344–353.

80 Ibid., p. 283. Phool was started by Mumtaz Ali in 1910 and edited by Nazr Sajjad Hyder, whereas Sharif bibi, founded in 1910, was edited by Fatima Begum, daughter of Mahbub Alam, editor of Paisa Akhbar. Gail Minault, Secluded Scholars, pp. 120, 148–149, 180, 269, 290.

81 Ibid., pp. 303, 305.

82 Ibid., p. 347.

83 Ibid., pp. 576–581.

84 Akbari Begum did not support polygyny outside the boundaries of ashraf community. In one instance in Gudar ka Lal, Khair Ali, the male patriarch, has an affair with the domestic help of the household. He marries her much to the dismay and sadness of his first wife, Khairunnissa. His actions are treated by contempt by everyone in the family, in particular Yusuf. Eventually, his second wife runs away with jewellery and clothes. Khair Ali realizes his mistake and discovers the ‘difference between sharif (respectable) and khandani (high ancestry) wives and awara (vagabond) and zaleel (low/contemptible) women’, Gudar ka Lal, p. 255. For details of the whole affair, see pp. 244–255.

85 For a discussion of her novels, see Shaista Suhrawardy, Critical Survey, pp. 103–106.

86 Hyder, Nazr Sajjad, Hawa-e Chaman mein Khema-e Gul, ed., Hyder, Quratulain (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2005), p. 3Google Scholar.

87 Tahzib un-Niswan was started in Lahore in 1898 by Saiyid Mumtaz Ali. He and his wife Muhammadi Begum (d. 1908) co-edited the journal. Gail Minault, Secluded Scholars, pp. 73, 75, 110, 118–120, 122, 133.

88 Nazr Sajjad Hyder, Hawa-e Chaman mein Khema-e Gul, p. 3.

89 Hyder, Nazr Sajjad, Ah-e-Mazluman, in Hawa-e-Chaman Mein Khema-e Gul, ed., Hyder, Quratualain (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2004), (reprint), p. 375Google Scholar.

90 Ibid., p. 378.

91 Ibid., pp. 393–396.

92 Hyder, Nazr Sajjad, Ah-e-Mazluman, in Hawa-e-Chaman Mein Khema-e Gul, ed., Hyder, Quratualain (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2004), (reprint), p. 448Google Scholar.

93 Ibid., pp. 448–449.

94 For an analysis of nationalist and colonial discourse towards Muslim women in colonial Bengal, see Sarkar, Mahua, Visible Histories, Disappearing Women: Producing Muslim Womanhood in Late Colonial Bengal (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95 For an exploration of everyday forms of resistance by women in South Asia, see Ghosh, Anindita ed., Behind the Veil: Resistance, Women and the Everyday in Colonial South Asia (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2007)Google Scholar.

96 Walter, Marguerite, ‘The All India Moslem Ladies Conference’, Muslim World 9, 2 (April 1919): p. 169CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Gail Minault, Secluded Scholars, pp. 145–146, 283–291.

97 Jahan Ara mentions this conference only briefly in a paragraph in her autobiography saying that the resolution was passed unanimously and ‘brought about a storm of protest and a number of other articles appeared in the papers calling me all sorts of names’. Shahnawaz, Jahan AraFather and Daughter: A Political Autobiography (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2002), reprint, pp. 47–48Google Scholar.

98 Walter, Marguerite, ‘The All India Moslem Ladies Conference’, Muslim World 9, 2 (April 1919): pp. 172–174CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

99 Hurley, Siobhan Lambert, Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage: Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal (London: Routledge, 2007), pp. 144–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 Margrit Pernau has argued that from the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Muslim public opinion shifted concern towards the personal, and emphasized the regeneration of the individual through the exemplary life of the individual Muslim, in particular of the wife and the daughter. Pernau, Margrit, ‘From a ‘Private’ Public to a ‘Public’ Private Sphere: Old Delhi and the North Indian Muslims in Comparative Perspective’, in The Public and the Private: Issues of Democratic Citizenship, ed., Mahajan, Gurpreet and Reifeld, Helmut (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2003), pp. 103–129CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101 Hyder, Nazr Sajjad, ‘Islah-e Rasoom ke Mashware’ in Guzeshta Barso ki Baraf (The Snows of Yesteryears), ed., Hyder, Qurratulain (Delhi: Educational Publishing House, 2007), p. 381Google Scholar.

102 Saliha Abid Husain, Silsala-e Roz-o Shab, pp. 149–151.

103 Ibid., p. 115.

104 Ibid., p. 118.

105 Ibid., p. 218.

106 Sarkar, Tanika, ‘Strishiksha or Education for Women’, in John, Mary E. ed., Women's Studies in India: A Reader (New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2008), p. 321Google Scholar.