KARACHI: Prominent leader of the Independence Movement and scion of Lucknow’s traditional scholarly culture Maulana Jamal Mian Farangi Mahali’s association with Karachi was discussed by Prof Francis Robinson of the Royal Holloway University of London in a lecture based on the professor’s unpublished work on the subject organised by the Karachi Conference Foundation at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs on Wednesday.

By showing an early picture of the maulana, Prof Robinson stated that he was a precocious young man. To put things in perspective, he gave a brief account of the Farangi Mahal family. He said it traced its history to the 11th century elder Abdullah Ansari of Herat, who was a descendant of Hazrat Abu Ayub Ansari. The family earned prominence in India in the late 16th century when Emperor Akbar gave one of their elders, Mullah Hafiz, the madad-i-mua’ash. Hafiz’s grandson Qutbuddin was killed in a land dispute. Later Emperor Aurangzeb gave the family the property of a European merchant in Lucknow into which the family moved in 1695.

Since the property belonged to a European, it was named Farangi Mahal. In the 18th century the two main contributions of the Farangi Mahali to Indian society was the emphasis on, and projection of, rationalist subjects in Islamic scholarship — logic, theology, philosophy, etc — and the development of the curriculum, the Dars-i-Nizamiya.

Prof Robinson said Maulana Jamal Mian was born in 1919 and it was in 1938 that he visited Karachi for the first time. He came from a distinguished line of ulema. He was exposed to politicians from an early age as his house would be visited by the likes of Ali Brothers, Nehru and Gandhi. In 1936 Maulana Shaukat Ali took him to Calcutta for the Palestine Conference where, apart from the ice cream, speeches blew the young man from Farangi Mahal away.

Mentioning the 1937 Muslim League’s arrival in Lucknow, Prof Robinson showed a picture of the maluana with Raja Sahib of Mahmoodabad. He said the two became very close friends as the maulana later on worked with Raja Sahib. When M. A. Jinnah came to Lucknow, he also got to know the maulana. At a Muslim League meeting someone suggested that the maulana speak, but Mr Jinnah stopped him arguing he was too young to deliver a speech. However, the young man’s position was consolidated in the League because afterwards Mr Jinnah himself requested him to take part in the election campaign.

From Oct 8 to 12, 1938 the maulana was in Karachi for the first time. He had come by a special train in a big procession to participate in a Muslim League Sindh moot. Here he delivered a speech at the opening ceremony. At this point Prof Robinson showed some pictures of that trip in which the maulana was seen with different people, including Abdullah Haroon, his host in Karachi.

In 1947, the professor said, the maulana came to Karachi three times — as a member of the Indian trade delegation to the Middle East (March), to witness the inauguration of Pakistan (August) and to take part in the Muslim League Council meeting (December) at Khalikdina Hall, where he proposed a resolution to delete the word Muslim because while leaders of the League were in comfort, the condition of Indian Muslims and refugees in Karachi left much to be desired. “The proposal didn’t make him popular,” remarked Prof Robinson. The maluana had also attacked Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman for slipping away to Pakistan and Liaquat Ali Khan for not wishing to see the League continue in India.

Prof Robinson said the maulana never planned to leave India.

The madressahs he and his family had set up in Lucknow and the place he lived in meant a great deal to him. So he reorganised things and revived the Hamdam newspaper. At that juncture, to help improve his financial position, Mirza Ahmed Ispahani played an important role in helping the maulana establish tea business. But between 1947 and 1950 things fell apart for the family both on political and personal fronts.

In 1949 the maulana had his first major nervous breakdown. Mr Ispahani asked him to come to Dhaka and helped him establish business in East Pakistan. The maulana never lost touch with India though, due to the presence of influential friends such as Rafi Ahmed Qidvai there. Still, things were getting increasingly difficult. In 1957 someone at a reception overheard him and Raja Sahib running down India which caused him to lose his Indian citizenship.

Touching upon two important aspects of his life in the 1960s, Prof Robinson said the maulana had befriended Gen Ayub Khan and at the general’s request launched his presidential campaign in Karachi. Secondly, in 1964-65 the Nawab of Kalabagh offered to give him the licence to set up a sugar mill. Between 1967 and 1971, the decline of the Ayub Khan rule put him under pressure and in 1971 with the emergence of Bangladesh the maulana lost everything he had in Dhaka. Three years later he bought a piece of land in Karachi.

Prof Robinson, during his talk, mentioned the maulana’s friendship with many eminent individuals, including poet Hasrat Mohani, Pir Abdul Qadir Jilani, Pir Najmuddin, Hakim Nasiruddin, Hakim Said, and Saeed Jaffery.

The professor told the audience that the maulana’s last visit to Lucknow in 1982 precipitated his final nervous breakdown and in 2012 he passed away. He could not be buried in the Lucknow graveyard as per family tradition because he had left no such instructions.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2015

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