The Changing World of a Bombay Muslim Community, 1870 - 1945

Muslims formed a disparate and unwieldy community in Bombay in the nineteenth century. The Islam that was professedly held in common by various groups could barely provide a sense of unity or cohesion to people so widely diverse in terms of language, customs, and also of forms and practices of belief. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a class of wealthy ship owners, ship-builders, and merchants, belonging to the varied communities that constituted the city, of which Muslims formed an important part, had emerged. This class was outward-looking, modern, and generally reformist in outlook: Gujarati or Maharashtrian, its goals of social reform, education, as well as political awareness, were gradually beginning to be perceived as goals held across communities, and increasingly across different regions. The questions that were being raised in the social turmoil of the period amongst Hindus were over issues of female education, the age of marriage, widow remarriage, and female seclusion. These issues were not foreign to the Muslim community; and the part played by Muslim leaders in Bombay in discussing and negotiating them was not an insignificant one, taking into account the size and relative backwardness of the community. Within this context, this book traces the evolving identity of a Bombay family and its changing social and political views in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using three main sources: their family journals, an individual memoir/journal, and letters written home from Europe. Cover The Changing World of a Bombay Muslim Community, 1870–1945 Copyright Contents List of Characters in Alphabetical Order List of Illustrations Foreword Preface Introduction 1. The Tyabjee Family and Its Akhbar I The Genre of Family House Journals II The Language of the Journals III The Need to Keep Journals IV Varying Approaches of the Writers 2. Currents of Change 1876–​1939, as revealed in the Akhbar I The Creation of Family Identity and the Need to Record II Differences in Attitude to the Akhbar III Music: Its Place in the Family Circle IV Modernity: Education, Exercise, and Fun V Social Reform VI European Stimulus to Social Reform VII Changing Views on Purdah VIII Relations with the British IX The Urdu of Bombay X Family Values XI Political Views 3. Passages from the Akhbar: Translated from the Urdu I 1877 The Turkish Crisis II 1877 Amiruddin Tyabji’s Opening Entry in His Wynad Book III 1891 Rahat Badruddin Tyabji’s Account of Family Picnics IV 1894 Amina Tyabji’s Account of Her Travels in Europe V 1898 Mohsin, Commanded to Write the ‘Official Account’ of the Eclipse by Younger Brother Editor Faiz VI 1904 Purdah VII 1905 The Death of Rahat Badruddin Tyabji VIII 1907 A Visit to the Jog Falls IX The Final Entries in the Badruddin Akhbar 4. A Modern Woman: The Journal of Safia Jabir Ali, 1926–​45—​Translated from the Urdu 5. Letters from Europe: 1870 I Extracts from Letters relating to Religion, Marriage, and Happiness II Comments on Relationships within the Family Conclusion Appendix: A Twentieth-​Century View of Europe I Aden to England II London and the South III The Midlands, Wales, Scotland IV Europe: The Rhine, Paris V Bibliotheque Nationale VI Zurich, Vienna VII Berlin, Reinhart Collection, Winterthur, Italy Notes Bibliography About the Author