Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage

Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam of Bhopal

Siobhan Lambert-Hurley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781134143467
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Islamic Theology

This is a new and engaging examination of the emergence of a Muslim women's movement in India. The state of Bhopal, a Muslim principality in central India, was ruled by a succession of female rulers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably the last Begam of Bhopal, Nawab Sultan Jahan Begam.

Siobhan Lambert-Hurley puts forward the importance for early Muslim female activists to balance continuity and innovation. By operating within the framework of Islam, these women built on traditional norms in order to introduce incremental change in terms of veiling, female education, marriage, motherhood and women's political rights. For the first time, this book analyzes the role of the 'daughters of reform', the first generation of Muslim women who contributed to the reformist discourse, particularly at the regional level.

Based on numerous primary sources in Urdu, including the tracts, books, reports, letters and journal articles of Sultan Jahan Begam and the other women of Bhopal along with official records such as the reports of early organizations and institutions in the Bhopal State, the author sheds light on an important part of India's history.

1
MODELS AND INHERITANCES

Born in 1858, Sultan Jahan Begam was heir to a remarkable legacy. As seen in the introduction, three generations of Muslim female rulers had come before her, establishing Bhopal as an oasis of female agency and power within India’s patriarchal order. Of course, the significance of the year should not be ignored; as she noted in her autobiography, she had the “high privilege” to begin her life in the very year that rule by the East India Company was ended in favour of the British crown, an event that, “like a sun rising in the West, brought life and vigour to the fainting East.”¹ This dramatic imagery no doubt reflected the Begam’s acquiescence to Orientalist theories of Muslim and Asian historical decline, as well as the success of the Queen’s Proclamation in moulding the princely order into key collaborators of the British in India. What is more relevant to this discussion, however, is the local and, indeed, familial context for her birth. What influence did her female predecessors have on her development as a ruler and reformer? Were they an inspiration to her later writings and activities? Or did she react against the reformist agenda set in Bhopal in the nineteenth century? And how was she shaped directly – for example, by the provision of education – by the Begams Qudsia, Sikandar and Shah Jahan?

In the first chapter of Secluded Scholars, Gail Minault addresses this theme of Muslim female role models explicitly, investigating the patterns that were set for ashraf women in particular in mid- to late nineteenth-century India. Discounting the Begams of Bhopal themselves, her examples are more “ideal” than “real,” encompassing, in the main, fictional heroines from the novels of the first generation of Aligarh reformers. She narrates, for instance, the story told in Nazir Ahmad Dehlavi’s Mir’at ul-‘Arus (The Bride’s Mirror, 1869) of two sisters, Akbari and Asghari, who, in temperament and ability, are in complete contrast. Akbari, the elder, is illiterate, ill-natured and idle, while her younger sister, Asghari – who had been educated at home – is clever, compassionate, respectful and hard-working. In the course of the novel, Asghari proves herself to be the ideal of the reformed woman: not only does she uncover a dishonest servant, find her husband good employment, arrange a suitable marriage for her sister-in-law and start a school in her home for respectable girls, but she also observes purdah, advocates arranged marriages and always remains loyal to her husband and family. It was these latter qualities that made her education and independent action acceptable, as the thousands of Indian girls and women who read this book privately or at school in the late nineteenth century would surely have recognized.² Nevertheless, the Deobandi ‘alim, Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi, proscribed it, as well as its sequel, Banat un-Na‘sh (The Daughters of the Bier), and most of Nazir Ahmad’s other novels on women, including Muhsinat (The Chaste Woman) and Ayama (Widows),³ in his renowned advice manual, Bihishti Zewar. Barbara Metcalf postulates that it is because Nazir Ahmad’s female characters learn “cosmopolitan” subjects like geography and history, play with dolls, take example from Englishwomen, read Urdu newspapers and generally display more ability and fortitude than the male characters that Thanawi rejects them.⁴

Nazir Ahmad’s themes were also to reappear in other books published after winning prizes in the competition organized by the Lieutenant-Governor of the North Western Provinces, William Muir, to promote “useful” literature in the vernacular on social problems affecting women. That some of them – like Abdul Rahim Khan’s Chasmah-i-Khirad (The Spring of Wisdom, 1876), to take just one example – were also adopted as textbooks in girls’ schools in British India and the Muslim princely states highlights the role played by these lesser-known works in providing exemplars to girls of Sultan Jahan’s generation.⁵ A more celebrated “Muslim female paragon” discussed by Minault is Zubaida Khatun, the heroine of Altaf Husain Hali’s Majalis un-Nisa (Assemblies of Women, 1874). Having been taught the Qur’an, calligraphy, Persian and Urdu by her father and domestic sciences by her mother, she is able to overcome numerous obstacles in the way of her family’s happiness, making her an articulate proponent of female education. She is prudent, yet pious, conserving the family’s resources by eschewing expensive rituals and customs, including dowry, which are not in-keeping with textual Islam. Following her marriage, she turns her attention to inculcating her son, Sayyid Abbas, with the same virtues. The second part of the story documents his many successes in life, which result not from family ties or influential alliances, but from his own diligence, sagacity and resourcefulness. The message is clear: educated mothers play an essential role in the regeneration of the Muslim community by reforming their households and producing progressive sons. There is no mention of more extensive reforms such as higher education for women, the introduction of a Western curriculum or a reduction in purdah observance.⁶ These omissions meant that, though there are parallels, the reformist models being advocated for Muslim women in this period often differed dramatically from those set for Sultan Jahan by her foremothers in Bhopal.

In the Qudsia mould

In his family history of Bhopal, Shaharyar M. Khan asserts that Sultan Jahan Begam was, above all, “in the Qudsia mould.” He makes this judgement on the basis that, like this earlier Begam of Bhopal, she was “deeply religious, homely, frugal and ascetic.”⁷ Sultan Jahan Begam’s own writings confirm her admiration for these very qualities in her great-grandmother whom, thanks to her longevity, she knew personally into her early twenties. In the introduction to her biography, Hayat-i-Qudsi, she portrays her as an exemplary religious figure in terms reminiscent of traditional Islamic life-stories. As she wrote: “[Qudsia] was one of the most God-fearing, pious and virtuous ladies of her time. The interesting account of her virtues, charities, kindness to her subjects, benevolence to the poor, piety and sanctity can hardly be rivalled in the life of the great saints.”⁸ Yet there was also another factor that inspired her to write, namely that Qudsia Begam was the first woman to officially rule Bhopal. On this basis alone, her status as a role model for her successors can hardly be questioned.

Interestingly, Qudsia Begam’s inspirational qualities manifested themselves even before she came to the throne. As a young girl, she had assisted her mother, Zeenat Begam, in rallying the general population of women in Bhopal when, in 1812, the city was besieged for six months by the chiefs of Nagpur and Gwalior. In this context, it should be noted that the nawabs of Bhopal had recognized Maratha supremacy over Malwa since the last years of Dost Muhammad Khan’s reign, but had retained an independent administration in-keeping with the tributary system of the confederacy. In the early nineteenth century, however, local Maratha chieftains, namely Daulat Rao Scindia and Rahuji Bhonsle, had sought to subdue Bhopal formally so that they could carve up the territory between them. Their challenge culminated with the siege of Bhopal in 1812. But, when the Nagpuri army had eventually breached one of the gates of the city, women had bombarded them with stones and bricks until they were compelled to retreat.⁹ The epic-like proportions that this episode assumed in the minds of Bhopali women may be seen in that Sultan Jahan Begam often evoked it in her writings and speeches to justify Muslim women’s participation in the public sphere from behind the veil (see Chapter 4).

Qudsia Begam herself only became ruler of Bhopal in 1819 when she was appointed regent after the accidental death of her husband, Nazar Muhammad Khan. As explained in the introduction, the intention was that she would remain in this position until her infant daughter, Sikandar, came of age and married, at which time power would be transferred to her son-inlaw, thus restoring male succession in the state. In accepting this unorthodox arrangement, it appears that the British and their collaborators were seeking to deter rival factions from weakening Bhopal by fighting among themselves for control of the gaddi. These considerations ring all the more true if one considers the tumultuous political circumstances in central India at this time. It was only a year since the armies of the East India Company had defeated the Marathas once and for all. And it was only a year before that that the British had battled Pindari horsemen of Afghan and Rajput descent in the region.¹⁰ Clearly, the new paramount power did not want to risk the ascendance of hostile forces in a state with which it had just signed a “treaty of friendship and cooperation” a year before. To seal the arrangement, male members of Qudsia’s family and Bhopal’s highest religious authorities, including the mufti (jurisconsult) and the qazi (judge), signed a historic document that contradicted certain well-known hadith by acknowledging, in the spirit of early Islamic heroines like Bilqis and Aisha, a woman’s right to political power.¹¹

Having ascended to the throne, Qudsia Begam established a style of rule that can only be described as Spartan. As one contemporary British observer noted: “The Begum was distinguished by an abhorrence of debt, to discharge which she was ever ready to dispose of her jewels and make other personal sacrifices.”¹² The only activities on which she would expend state funds besides the army were those of a religious or philanthropic nature. As suggested in the introduction, her defining administrative project was a system of waterworks designed by a British engineer to supply clean drinking water to the people of Bhopal city. Maintained through a perpetual endowment, it continued to help fight waterborne diseases, like cholera, well into the twentieth century. Of a religious nature, she initiated the construction of a substantial mosque in the heart of the old city, as well as rubats (lodging halls) in Mecca and Medina to provide Bhopal’s pilgrims with free accommodation during the hajj. Funds were also made available for a dispensary and rest house in Ajmer for the benefit of pilgrims to the tomb of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, intimating a devotion to this Sufi pir.¹³ Sultan Jahan Begam attributed her great-grandmother’s ascetic approach – and, by extension, her own – to their descent from Afghan warriors who “cared more about a trusty sword and a stout hearted horse than luxurious palaces.”¹⁴

Notably, Qudsia was also renowned for her lavish patronage of various Sufi activities in Bhopal, including the mawlid (birth anniversary) of Abdul Qadir Jilani (1088–1166).¹⁵ As the major Qadiri centres were not in central India, but in Punjab, Awadh and Madras, it may be conjectured from these celebrations that a connection had been established between Bhopal and one or all of these areas, perhaps through scholars who sought employment in the state. In this context, it is relevant to note that, as the Mughal centre declined, successor states, like Hyderabad, Awadh and Bhopal, played an important role in providing alternative income to the ashraf of north India, notably the ‘ulama of Farangi Mahall.¹⁶ With regard to Bhopal specifically, we do know that the Begam Mother was recognized for the “singular discernment” that she displayed in choosing her state officers.¹⁷ Her four main advisors included: Shahzad Masih, a descendent of the French Bourbon family; Bakshi Muhammad Khan, a Pathan of the Mishti Khail; Mian Karam Muhammad Khan, a Pathan of the ruling family’s Mirazi Khail; and Raja Khushwakht Rai, a Hindu. As can be seen, they represented dominant clan and religious groups within the state. They were also descended from families that had proved their loyalty by serving Bhopal’s rulers for several generations.¹⁸

Qudsia is perhaps best remembered, however, for the resistance that she put up to returning the state to male leadership. Having delayed her daughter’s marriage for a number of years, she rejected the chosen suitor, Munir Muhammad Khan, entirely in 1827 on the basis of a seemingly false charge of impotency. Her stalling tactics were then shifted to his younger brother and replacement suitor, Jahangir Muhammad Khan, even after the young man complained to the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, in 1833. Finally, under pressure from the British representative, the marriage of Sikandar and Jahangir went ahead in 1835. But even that did not deter Qudsia from her purpose. Over the next two years, she and her supporters mounted an armed struggle against her son-in-law’s family in an attempt to deter them from claiming the gaddi.¹⁹ Interestingly, the British Political Agent in Bhopal, Lancelot Wilkinson, described her during this period in terms far from synonymous with Indian models of modesty and submissiveness:

[Qudsia Begam] now begins to manifest frequent symptoms of furious passion approaching to insanity. She rides and walks about in public, and betrays her determination to maintain herself in power by learning the use of the spear and other manly accomplishments. At times she became quite frantic; and as one of the soldiers observed, more terrible to approach than a tigress. On these occasions her servants were greeted with abuse too gross for repetition.²⁰

Quite an example to provide for her young daughter and successors!

It is probably not surprising that Sultan Jahan Begam did not include these reports of her great-grandmother acting like a “tigress” in her own biography. Instead, she focussed, with reference to this period, on Wilkinson’s favouritism towards Jahangir even as the latter broke agreements and arranged assassination plots, thus intimating that the Political Agent was prejudiced against women rulers.²¹ She did, however, address the issue of purdah observance, noting that Qudsia had decided to “discard the veil” in the early 1830s on the basis that “ruling from behind the Purdah was like working in the dark.”²² Subsequently, Qudsia received petitions from her subjects, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Royal Asiatic Society Books
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Frontispiece: Map of Bhopal
• Frontispiece: Map of princely states and Muslim centres
• Introduction
• Models and Inheritances
• State and Society
• Scholars and Schools
• Veiling and Seclusion
• Medicine and Motherhood
• Rights and Duties
• Conclusions
• Appendix Genealogy of the Ruling Family of Bhopal
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index