Bound for Home: Books and Community in a Bihari Qasba

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth century, a group of young men in Desna, a qasba (small town) in Bihar, founded an organisation called the Anjuman Al-Islah. There they shared their books in the name of promoting education and cultivation, which they saw as ‘paramount in life’s every undertaking’ and essential to the defence of qasbati culture. Through sustained collaborative efforts, the Anjuman soon built up an impressive library of Urdu books and periodicals. Where other libraries were assembled at the initiative of aristocratic patrons or government officials, the Al-Islah library relied on the contributions of numerous Desnavis, both those who still lived in the qasba and those whose careers had taken them far away. In turn, the Anjuman and its library nurtured Desnavis’ ties to each other and to their watan, or homeland.

Keywords:

• Bihar
• intellectuals
• libraries
• Muslims
• qasbas
• small towns
• Urdu

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Sayyid Shahab al-Din Desnavi, Dida o Shanida: Khud-Navisht (New Delhi: Maktaba Jami‘a, 1993), p. 7. In Urdu, Desna is sometimes spelled Disna, with a short i; I have consistently used the former transliteration. A Desnavi or Disnavi is a person from Desna.

2. Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hakim, ‘Anjuman Al-Islah Desna ki Salana Rudad [1935]’, Mss. 241, Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Patna (hereafter KBOPL).

3. ‘Abd al-Qavi Desnavi (ed.), Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana: Kutub-Khana Al-Islah, Desna, Patna (Desna: Jami‘at al-Tulaba, 1954), pp. 7–12.

4. Ibid., p. 9. On the Anjuman-e Taraqqi-e Urdu, see Andrew Amstutz, ‘A Partitioned Library: Changing Collecting Priorities and Imagined Futures in a Divided Urdu Library, 1947–49’, in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Vol. 43, no. 3, DOI : 10.1080/00856401.2020.1747736.

5. Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hakim, ‘Anjuman Al-Islah Desna ki Salana Report [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL.

6. This sense of Desna’s singularity and corporate identity comes through vividly in ‘Abd al-Qavi Desnavi, Mata‘-e Hayat: Shu‘ba-e Urdu-e Saifiya College men Unnis Sal (Bhopal: Saifiya Postgraduate Arts and Commerce College, 1990), pp. 3–6.

7. See Desna Welfare Association [http://desna.org.pk, accessed 24 June 2019].

8. See, for instance, M. Raisur Rahman, Locale, Everyday Islam, and Modernity: Qasbah Towns and Muslim Life in Colonial India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015).

9. Sayyid Najm al-Huda Nadvi, ‘Mauza‘ Desna ki Mukhtasar Tarikh, in Sabih Muhsin (ed.), Desnavi (Karachi: Desna Association, 1990), pp. 8–9.

10. For a brief English-language biography of Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, see Sayeedul Haq, ‘Preface’, The Living Prophet: Translation of Khutbat-e Madras (Karachi: Pak Academy, 1968), pp. i–xxi.

11. Desnavis known for their scholarly writings include ‘Abd al-Qavi Desnavi, Najib Ashraf Nadvi and Sabah al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman.

12. David Boyk, ‘Collaborative Wit: Provincial Publics in Colonial North India’, in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Vol. 38, no. 1 (May 2018), pp. 89–106.

13. Justin Jones, ‘The Local Experiences of Reformist Islam in a “Muslim” Town in Colonial India: The Case of Amroha’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 43, no. 4 (July 2009), pp. 871–908.

14. Al-Punch (8 Nov. 1902), p. 11; Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL; and Desnavi, Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana, pp. 64–5.

15. Hakim, ‘Report [1935]’, Mss. 241, KBOPL.

16. ‘Anjuman Al-Islah ka Chautha Salana Jalsa’, Al-Punch (28 Dec. 1905), p. 3.

17. During Fakhr al-Din’s term as Bihar’s minister of education, sympathisers in Patna and Motihari arranged a government grant of Rs5,000 to support the construction of a permanent building in 1926. Nadvi, ‘Mauza‘ Desna ki Mukhtasar Tarikh, p. 10; and Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, pp. 11–2.

18. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’ and ‘Report [1935]’, Mss. 243 and 241, KBOPL; Sayyid Sulaiman Nadvi, ‘Hamari Zaban Biswin Sadi Men’, in Nuqush-e Sulaimani: Musannif ki Hindustani aur Urdu Zaban o Adab se Muta‘alliq Taqriron, Tahriron, aur Muqaddamon ka Majmu‘a (Azamgarh: Ma‘arif Press, 1939), pp. 144–5; Sayyid Shahab al-Din Desnavi, ‘Desna Library Marhum’, in Sabih Muhsin (ed.), Desnavi (Karachi: Desna Association, 1990), p. 16; Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hakim, ‘Anjuman Al-Islah Desna’, Al-Punch (26 Nov. 1904), p. 8; and Bimanbehari Majumdar, ‘Patna and Its Libraries’, in Proceedings of the Fourth All-India Library Conference (Patna: The Indian Library Association, 1940), pp. 150–70. A fairly detailed account of the library’s holdings is available in Desnavi, Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana, pp. 64–128.

19. Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, p. 10; and Desnavi, Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana, p. 64. On the Students’ Conference, see Vali Kamal Desnavi, ‘Students’ Conference, Desna: Ek Ta‘aruf’, in Sabih Muhsin (ed.), Desnavi (Karachi: Desna Association, 1990), pp. 31–3.

20. ‘List of Political and Religious Societies in Bihar and Orissa’, Bihar and Orissa (hereafter B&O), Political, Special, 64/1915, Bihar State Archives, Patna (hereafter BSA) and ‘Anjuman Al-Islah ka Chautha Salana Jalsa’, Al-Punch (28 Dec. 1905), p. 3.

21. Vali Kamal Desnavi, ‘Desna: Ek Gaon, Ek Idara’, in Sabih Muhsin (ed.), Desnavi (Karachi: Desna Association, 1990), pp. 21–2.

22. The same uncle, Abu Turab, then started a girls’ school in a vacant house. It was shut down when a village elder reported dreaming that ‘Satan, with a flaming tail, had sat laughing on top of the school’s thatched hut’. Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, pp. 7–8.

23. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL; Sabah al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman, Yar-e ‘Aziz (Azamgarh: Ma‘arif Press, n.d.), pp. 3–4; and Desnavi, ‘Desna Library Marhum’, p. 17.

24. Desnavi, ‘Desna Library Marhum’, p. 17; ‘The Rubaiyat Ms.: Story of the Calcutta Discovery’, The Times (London) (25 April 1930), p. 11.

25. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL; and Desnavi, ‘Desna Library Marhum’, p. 18.

26. Desnavi, ‘Desna Library Marhum’, p. 18. ‘Abd al-Hakim, too, says that nobody ever returned a book sent to them by this system. See Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL.

27. Mushirul Hasan, From Pluralism to Separatism: Qasbas in Colonial Awadh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004); Gyanendra Pandey, ‘“Encounters and Calamities”: The History of a North Indian Qasba in the Nineteenth Century’, in Ranajit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies III (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 231–70; and Rahman, Locale, Everyday Islam, and Modernity.

28. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’ and ‘Report [1935]’, Mss. 243 and 241, KBOPL; and Sabah al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman, ‘Akhlaq o Sairat ke Kuchh Jalwe’, Ma‘arif (May 1955), pp. 58–78.

29. Nadvi, ‘Mauza‘ Desna ki Mukhtasar Tarikh, pp. 8–9; and Desnavi, Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana, p. 13. See also the genealogy of four prominent Sayyid families in Sayyid Najm al-Huda Zaidi Nadvi Desnavi, Sadat Khandan ka Shajara-e Nasab (n.p., 1960) [http://desna.org.pk/index.php/nasb-nama-shijra/, accessed 24 June 2019].

30. Sayyid Badr al-Din Ahmad, Haqiqat Bhi Kahani Bhi: ‘Azimabad ki Tahzibi Dastan (Patna: Bihar Urdu Academy, 2003), pp. 486–91; Aliq., ‘A Visit to a Model Maktab’, The Beharee (9 Aug. 1907), pp. 3–4; and ‘Anjuman Al-Islah ka Chautha Salana Jalsa’, Al-Punch (28 Dec. 1905), p. 3.

31. ‘General Meeting Al-Islah Desna’, Al-Punch (1 Nov. 1906), p. 7; and B&O, Political, Special, 64/1915, BSA.

32. Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, p. 8; and Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL.

33. Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, p. 10; Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hakim, ‘Anjuman Al-Islah Desna’, Al-Punch (26 Nov. 1904), p. 8; ‘Anjuman Al-Islah ka Chautha Salana Jalsa’, Al-Punch (28 Dec. 1905), p. 3 and ‘General Meeting Al-Islah Desna’, Al-Punch (1 Nov. 1906), p. 7.

34. Hakim, ‘Report [1935]’, Mss. 241, KBOPL; Riyasat ‘Ali Taj, Sayyid Najib Ashraf Nadvi: Hayat aur Karname (Hyderabad: Maktaba-e Shi‘r o Hikmat, 1981), pp. 28–39.

35. Desnavi, Mata‘-e Hayat, p. 5.

36. On the history of the qaum and the idea of decline, see Faisal Devji, ‘A Shadow Nation: The Making of Muslim India’, in Kevin Grant, Philippa Levine and Frank Trentmann (eds), Beyond Sovereignty: Britain, Empire and Transnationalism, c. 1880–1950 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), pp. 126–45; S. Akbar Zaidi, ‘Contested Identities and the Muslim Qaum in Northern India: c. 1860–1900’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, UK, 2008; and C. Ryan Perkins, ‘Partitioning History: The Creation of an Islāmī Pablik in Late Colonial India, c. 1880–1920’, unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, USA, 2011, pp. 60–8.

37. Quoted in Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hakim, ‘Anjuman Al-Islah Desna’, Al-Punch (26 Nov. 1904), p. 8.

38. On the intellectual and religious dimensions of the Nadwat al-‘Ulama, see Muhammad Qasim Zaman, ‘A Venture in Critical Islamic Historiography and the Significance of Its Failure’, in Numen, Vol. 41, no. 1 (Jan. 1994), pp. 26–50; and Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 335–47. See also Daniel Majchrowicz, ‘Traveling for Reform: Shibli Nu’mani’s Journey to Constantinople’, in Somdatta Mandal (ed.), Journeys: Indian Travel Writing (New Delhi: Creative Books, 2013), pp. 196–206; and Shibli Nu‘mani, Turkey, Egypt, and Syria: A Travelogue, Gregory Maxwell Bruce (trans. and ed.) (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2020).

39. Jamal Malik, ‘The Making of a Council: The Nadwat al-‘Ulamâ’, in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Vol. 144, no. 1 (1994), pp. 60–91.

40. B&O, Municipal, Local Self-Government, July 1913, 1–11 A, BSA.

41. See David Boyk, ‘Classified Information: Organizing Knowledge at Patna’s Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library’, in M. Raisur Rahman (ed.), Locality, Genre and Muslim Belonging in South Asia (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2020).

42. A 1954 volume on the library gestured to this affinity. The book’s title, Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana (Another Eastern Library), was a reference to Ek Mashriqi Kutub-Khana, the recent Urdu translation by Sayyid Mubariz al-Din Raf‘at of V.C. Scott O’Connor’s An Eastern Library (Aligarh: Anjuman-e Taraqqi-e Urdu, 1950). See Desnavi, Ek Aur Mashriqi Kutub-Khana.

43. The Khayyam manuscript was significant in part because it showed that illustrated manuscripts of the Ruba‘iyat had first been produced in Asia, a discovery that one Desnavi claimed had ‘shaken the nerves of Europe’. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’ and ‘Report [1935]’, Mss. 243 and 241, KBOPL; ‘A Curiosity of Literature’, The Times (London) (9 April 1930), p. 17; ‘The Rubaiyat Ms.: Story of the Calcutta Discovery’, The Times (London) (25 April 1930), p. 11; Sayeedul Haq Desnavi, ‘A Remarkable MS. of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat in Desna Library’, in D.P. Khattry (ed.), Report of All Asia Educational Conference (Benares, December 26–30, 1930) (Allahabad: The Indian Press, n.d.), pp. 130–1.

44. Nadvi, ‘Hamari Zaban Biswin Sadi Men’, p. 144.

45. Founded in 1869, the Lucknow Public Library quickly grew to contain several thousand books in Urdu and English, as well as subscriptions to several dozen newspapers. Ulrike Stark, ‘Associational Culture and Civic Engagement in Colonial Lucknow: The Jalsah-e Tahzib’, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 48, no. 1 (Jan. 2011), pp. 22–3.

46. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL.

47. Such confrontational language was commonplace on both sides of the Hindi–Urdu conflict. For examples of similar rhetoric from supporters of Hindi, see Christopher King, One Language, Two Scripts: The Hindi Movement in Nineteenth Century North India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), pp. 135–9.

48. Sayyid ‘Abd al-Hakim, ‘Anjuman Al-Islah ki Salana Rudad [1938(?)]’, Mss. 242, KBOPL. On communalism and Bihari politics in the 1930s, see Papiya Ghosh, ‘The Virile and the Chaste in Community and Nation Making: Bihar 1920s to 1940s’, in Community and Nation: Essays on Identity and Politics in Eastern India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 102–20; and Vinita Damodaran, Broken Promises: Popular Protest, Indian Nationalism and the Congress Party in Bihar, 1935–1946 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992).

49. Masarrat Firdaus, Baba-e Urdu Maulvi ‘Abd al-Haq ki Khidmat Qiyam-e Aurangabad ke Dauran (Aurangabad: Muhammad Ahsan Siddiqi, 1999), pp. 214–6. Thanks to Andrew Amstutz for this reference. See also ‘A Welcome Move’, Harijan (11 Sept. 1937), p. 250. On Hindustani, see David Lunn, ‘Across the Divide: Looking for the Common Ground of Hindustani’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 52, no. 6 (Nov. 2018), pp. 2056–79.

50. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1938(?)]’, Mss. 242, KBOPL.

51. Hakim, ‘Report [1935]’, Mss. 241, KBOPL.

52. Hakim, ‘Rudad [1928]’, Mss. 243, KBOPL.

53. Boyk, ‘Collaborative Wit’.

54. Desnavi, Mata‘-e Hayat, p. 5.

55. Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, p. 12. The government of Bihar granted the Desna library Rs10,000 in 1957–58. See Report of the Commissioner for Linguistic Minorities (Second Report) (Delhi: Ministry of Home Affairs, 1960), p. 80.

56. Desnavi, Dida o Shanida, p. 13; Desnavi, ‘Desna Library Marhum’, p. 16; and Sayyid Sabah al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman, Bazm-e Raftagan, Vol. 2 (New Delhi: Maktaba Jami‘a, 1981), pp. 64–5.

57. Sayyid Sabah al-Din ‘Abd al-Rahman, Bazm-e Raftagan, Vol. 2, p. 65.

58. Rahman, Yar-e ‘Aziz, p. 4.