Pakistan

Atiya Fyzee

About: 

Born in Istanbul, Atiya Fyzee was the daughter of Hasanally Feyzhyder, an Indian merchant attached to the Ottoman Court, and his first wife, Amirunissa. Belonging to the prominent Tyabji clan of Bombay, Atiya was one of the first elite Indian Muslim women to receive a modern education, appear in public unveiled and participate in women’s organizations. In her youth, she made important contributions to reformist journals for women in Urdu, including Tahzib un-niswan (Lahore) and Khatun (Aligarh).

While studying at a teachers’ training college in London in 1906-7, she also kept a travel diary that was first serialized in a monthly journal then published as Zamana-i-tahsil ('A Time of Education', 1921). Along with her sisters, Zehra (1866-1940) and Nazli Begum of Janjira (1874-1968), she patronized celebrated Muslim intellectuals such as Maulana Shibli Nomani and Mohammad Iqbal. Their published correspondence, Khutut-i Shibli ba-nam-i muhtarma Zahra Begum sahiba Faizi va ‘Atiya Begum sahiba Faizi (ed. Muhammad Amin Zuberi, 1930) and Iqbal (1947), attests to the close friendships that brought Atiya notoriety in literary and social circles.

Following her marriage to the artist and writer Samuel Rahamin, in 1912, Atiya pursued a variety of cultural activities on the international stage. Among their collaborations was an authoritative book in English on classical Indian music that ultimately went into three editions: Indian Music (1914), The Music of India (1925) and Sangt of India (1942). In this work, Atiya’s impressionistic and colourful prose was used to explicate Samuel’s illustrations of Indian melodies (ragmalas). Atiya also arranged music and choreography for two of her husband’s plays, Daughter of Ind and Invented Gods, when they were staged in London in the 1930s. While abroad, she gave lectures on Indian women, like ‘Epic Women of India’ (1919), which were published in international journals.

At partition, Atiya and Samuel migrated to Karachi with Nazli where they continued to bring together artistes in their private salon at their home, Aiwan-e-Rifat, modelled on their famous Bombay residence. After being evicted in the 1950s, they lived in reduced circumstances, suffering great hardship in their final years.

Published works: 

Indian Music (London: Goupil Gallery and W. Marchant, 1914)

Zamana-i-tahsil (Agra: Matba‘ Mufid-i-‘Am, 1921)

The Music of India (London: Luzac, 1925)

Sangt of India (Bombay, 1942)

Iqbal (Bombay: Victory Printing Press, 1947)

Gardens (Karachi: Ameen Art Press, n.d.)

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1877
Connections: 

Shaikh Abdul Qadir, Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Syed Ali Bilgrami, Alma Latifi, Syed Ameer Ali, (Arthur) Oliver Villiers Russell Ampthill, M. A. Ansari, Thomas Walker Arnold, Badruddin Tyabji, the Maharaja and Maharani of Baroda, Emilie Barrington, Emma Josephine Beck, Mancherjee M. Bhownaggree, Mary Frances Billington, Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Blood, Hemangini Bonnerjee, Camruddin Abdul Latif, Vazirunnisa Latif, William Coldstream, Sunity Devi - the Maharani of Cooch Behar, Sir Henry Cotton, Catherine Crisp, Frank Crisp, Major-General John Baillie Ballantyne Dickson, Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh, Princess Sophia Alexandra Duleep Singh, Lady Alice Louisa Elliott, Sir Charles Alfred Elliott, Bhagwatsinghji Sagramsinhji - the Thakur of Gondal, Mrs K. G. Gupta, Lala Har Dayal, Major Saiyid Hasan Bilgrami, Edward Hughes, Syed Husain Bilgrami, Mohammad Iqbal, Jabir Ali, Margaret Elizabeth Child-Villers, countess of Jersey, Jagatjit Singh - the Maharaja of Kapurthala, Emily Kinnaird, Dame Maude Agnes Lawrence, Esther Lawrence, Sir William Lee-Warner, Sidney Low, Sir Charlies Lyall, Lady Florences Lyall, Miss A. J. Major, Mrs Sarala Bala Mitter, Theodore Morison, Nazli Begum of Janjira, Rafia Tyabji, Donald James Mackay, the eleventh Lord Reay, Lady Margaret Rice, George Frederick Samuel Robinson - first Marquess of Ripon, John Gerald Ritchie, Mrs P. K. Roy, Mrs P. L. Roy, Salman Tyabji, Sarhan Camruddin Latif, Flora, Mozelle Sassoon, Rachel Sassoon, Lady Edgeworth Leonora Scott, Lady Sinha, Cornelia Sorabji, Sydney Sprague, Navajbai Tata, Ratan Tata, Lady Mary Augusta Temple, Tyab Ali Akbar, Mary Augusta Ward, Helen Webb, Raymond West, Alice Augusta Woods, Sir (William Hutt) Curzon Wyllie.

Maria Grey Training College

Contributions to periodicals: 

The Indian Magazine and Review (‘Some Reminiscences of Kashmir’, 432, December 1906, pp. 314-16)

Asia (as “Shahinda” (Begum Fyzee-Rahamin), 'Epic Women of India’, 19.6, June 1919, p. 580)

Tahzib un-niswan (series of articles on studying in Britain in issues dated 26 January 1907 - 30 November 1907)

Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Reviews: 

Kathleen Schlesinger, ‘The Basis of Indian Music’, The Musical Times (London) 56.868, 1 June 1915, pp. 335-9

Secondary works: 

In English:

Lambert-Hurley, Siobhan and Sharma, Sunil, Atiya’s Journeys: A Muslim Woman from Colonial Bombay to Edwardian Britain (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010)

Justuju, Naeem-ur Rahman, ‘Portrait of a Lady’, http://www.pakistanlink.com/Letters/2003/June/13/04.html

In Urdu:

al-Qadri, Mahir, 'Atiya Faizi', in Yadgar-i-raftagan, vol. 2 (Lahore: al-Badr, 1984)

Jafri, Ra’is Ahmad, 'Atiya Begum Faiz', Nigar 58.5 (November 1979), pp. 25-7

Nasrullah, Shaikh, 'Atiya Begam Faizi', Kya qafila jata hai (Karachi: Tahzib o Fan, 1984)

City of birth: 
Istanbul
Country of birth: 
Turkey
Other names: 

A. H. Fyzee (used in print)

Atiya Fyzee-Rahamin (used after marriage in 1912)

Atiya Begum (used after marriage in 1912)

Shahinda (pen-name)

Date of death: 
01 Jan 1967
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Location of death: 
Karachi, Pakistan
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
17 Sep 1906
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1906-7, 1908, 1914, perhaps mid-1920s, 1937-9.

Location: 

Primarily London

Ali Mohammed Abbas

About: 

Ali Mohammed Abbas went to London towards the end of the Second World War to study law. He joined the All-India Muslim League in London and edited newspapers (Our Home and the Voice of Pakistan) from London. With the creation of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, Abbas used his flat in Tavistock Square as an unofficial Pakistan embassy until an embassy was set up. He remained in England after independence and practised as a barrister. With the help of local councils, Abbas set up twenty-eight schools all over England to enable Pakistanis to speak, read and write in English.

 

Date of birth: 
01 Jan 1922
Precise DOB unknown: 
Y
Other names: 

Ali Muhammad Abbas

Location

Tavistock Square
London, WC1H 9EZ
United Kingdom
51° 31' 29.9676" N, 0° 7' 47.0496" W
Date of death: 
01 Jan 1979
Precise date of death unknown: 
Y
Location: 

33 Tavistock Square, London (1945-79)

Tags for Making Britain: 

Muhammad Ayub Khan

About: 

Muhammad Ayub Khan was born in Rehana in 1907. His father was a Risaldar Major in the Indian Army. In 1922, he enrolled at Aligarh University but before completing his studies he was selected for entry to the Royal Military College in Sandhurst, England.

He sailed for England in July 1926 on the SS Rawalpindi, with six other Indian cadets. He was the first foreign cadet to be promoted to Corporal. Ayub Khan passed first among the Indian cadets (about 60th among 123 cadets) in 1928. His first commission was with the Royal Fusiliers in Eastern Punjab and then to the 1st/14th Punjab regiment.

During the Second World War he was Second-in-Command of a regiment in Burma and commanded a regiment in India. After Partition he rapidly rose through the ranks of the Pakistan Army from Major General to Commander-in-Chief to become Minister of Defence in 1954. In 1958, President Iskander Mirza suspended the constitution and appointed Ayub Khan Chief Martial Law Administrator. A few weeks later Ayub Khan declared himself President of Pakistan and Mirza was exiled. He reorganized the administration and sought to restore the economy. In 1965 Ayub Khan was re-elected, but by 1969 internal turmoil had become so intense that he resigned on 26 March. He died in 1974.

Published works: 

In the Words of the President: Extracts from the Speeches of General Mohammad Ayub Khan (Karachi: Department of Advertising, Films and Publications, 1959) 

Speeches and Statements by Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan, vol. 5, July 1962-June 1963 ([S. I.]: Pakistan Publications, 1963)

'Economic Well Being Prerequisite for Peace' (London: Information Department, High Commission for Pakistan, 1964)

Friends, Not Masters: A Political Autobiography (London: Oxford University Press, 1967) 

Pakistan's Economic Progress (London: Royal Institute of International Affair, 1967)

President Ayub on Educational Revolution (Rawalpindi: Sardar Mohammad Aslam Khan, 1968)

(with Rada Khudada) Agricultural Revolution in Pakistan (Lahore: Rana Tractors and Equipment, 1968)

Example: 

Khan, Mohammad Ayub, Friends, Not Masters: A Political Autobiography (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p.10

Date of birth: 
14 May 1907
Connections: 

J. R. Bhosle (at Sandhurst together), J. N. Chaudhuri (at Sandhurst together), Iskander Mirza, Khawaja Nazimuddin, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy.

Extract: 

There was a sizable community of Indian cadets at Sandhurst at that time and we clung to one another. Somehow we all sensed that we were regarded as an inferior species. The British did not practice the colour bar in a blatant manner, as in some countries, but they were no less colour conscious. In those days anyone coming from a subject race was regarded as an inferior human being and this I found terribly galling. The tragedy of belonging to a subject race depressed us more poignantly in the free air of England.

Secondary works: 

Akhtar, Jamna Das, Political Conspiracies in Pakistan: Liaquat Ali's Murder to Ayub Khan's Exit (Delhi: Punjab Pustak Bhandar, 1969) 

Baxter, Craig (ed.), Diaries of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, 1966-1972 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007)

Gauhar, Altaf, Ayub Khan: Pakistan's First Military Ruler (Lahore: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1993)

Haider, S. M., Public Administration and Police in Pakistan: Incorporating Report of a Seminar on Police Administration Inaugurated by President Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan (Peshawar: Pakistan Academy for Rural Development, 1968)

Jafri, Rais Ahmad, Ayub: Soldier and Statesman: Speeches and Statements (1958-1965) of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, President of Pakistan and a Detailed Account of the Indo-Pakistan War, 1965 (Lahore: Mohammad Ali Academy, 1966)

Newman, Karl J., Pankalla, Heinz, and Krumbein-Neumann, Robert, Pakistan unter Ayub Khan, Bhutto und Zia-ul-Haq (München; London: Weltforum, 1986)

Pakistan, President Ayub Khan on the Record (President's Interview to Press and Radio, London Airport, July 5 1964) (London: Ministry of External Affair, High Commission for Pakistan, Information Department, 1964) 

Pakistan Reconstructed: A Pictorial History of Nine Years of Pakistan's Achievements under President Ayub, Oct. 1958-Oct. 1967 (Rawalpindi: Pakistan Muslim League, 1967)

Pakistan-Soviet Relations: President Mohammad Ayub Khan's Visit to the U.S.S.R., September 25-October 4, 1967 (Karachi: Department of Films and Publications, Government of Pakistan, 1967)

President Ayub in the Eyes of the World (Karachi: Pakistan Publications, 1965)

President Ayub's Offer of Friendship to India (Karachi, 1964)

President Mohammad Ayub Khan: A Profile (Karachi: Pakistan Publications, 1961)

Suleri, Z. A., Politicians and Ayub: Being a Survey of Pakistani Politics from 1948 to 1964 (Lahore: Lion Art Press, 1964)

Ziring, Lawrence, The Ayub Khan Era: Politics in Pakistan, 1958-1969 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1971)

City of birth: 
Rehana
Country of birth: 
India
Current name country of birth: 
Pakistan
Other names: 

Mohammad Ayub Khan

Ayub

Location

Sandhurst GU15 4PQ
United Kingdom
51° 20' 59.6004" N, 0° 44' 46.4208" W
Date of death: 
19 Apr 1974
Location of death: 
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jul 1926
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1926-8

Location: 

Sandhurst Royal Military College, Surrey

Tags for Making Britain: 

Mohammed Ali Jinnah

About: 

Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the founding father of Pakistan. He was the eldest of seven children born to Jinnabhai Poonja, a merchant, and his wife Mithibhai, and attended the Sind Madrassa then the Christian Mission High School, Karachi, where he failed to excel. He first travelled to Britain when just seventeen years old to take up an apprenticeship with the British managing agency Douglas Graham and Company, marrying his first wife Emibhai shortly before he set sail. Emibhai died just a few months later. Jinnah worked in accounts at the firm’s head office in the City of London, and lived in various lodgings including at 35 Russell Road, Kensington, the home of Mrs F. E. Page-Drake and her daughter. Once in London, he shortened his surname from Jinnahbhai and took to wearing tailored suits and silk ties. Just two or three months after his arrival in England, Jinnah left his apprenticeship to train as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn. Fascinated by politics, he frequently viewed parliamentary debates from the visitor’s gallery at the House of Commons, and was present there to witness Dadabhai Naoroji’s maiden speech in 1893. He studied at the Reading Room of the British Museum, listened to speeches at Hyde Park Corner, visited friends at Oxford, and developed a keen interest in the theatre, even considering a stage career. He was called to the Bar in 1895 and returned to Bombay, India, the following year.

In Bombay, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress and began to practice law, attaining a position in the chambers of the acting advocate-general, John Macpherson. He first attended the Indian National Congress in 1904, and in 1906 served as secretary to the Congress President, Naoroji, in the Calcutta sessions. In 1909 he was elected to the Muslim seat on the Bombay Legislative Council, and he joined the All-India Muslim League in 1913, becoming its President in 1916 and playing a key role in the Lucknow Pact which brought the Congress and League together on issues of self-government to make a united stand to the British. Jinnah made trips to London in 1913 and 1914 – the latter as chair of the Congress deputation to lobby parliament over their proposed Council of India bill. He also helped to found the All-India Home Rule League in 1916. In 1918, he married his second wife, the Parsee Rattanbai Petit, with whom he had a daughter, Dina, born in 1919.

The next few years saw a decline in Jinnah’s political influence and success. In 1919 he resigned from the legislative council in protest against the Rowlatt Acts, and in 1920 he broke with Congress and resigned from the Home Rule League because he disagreed with the increasingly popular Gandhi’s policy of non-cooperation with the British and aim of complete swaraj or self-rule. He remained active with the Muslim League throughout the 1920s, however, and in 1927 negotiated with Hindu and Muslim leaders on constitutional reform in the wake of the Simon Report. In 1930, Jinnah returned to London to participate in the first, abortive Round Table Conference. In his short speech, he represented Indian Muslims as a distinct ‘party’ with their own demands and needs, and warned of the urgent need for a settlement that satisfied all of India, including its minorities. At the close of the conference, he decided to remain in England, calling for his sister Fatima and daughter Dina to join him. Despairing of the settlement of Hindu-Muslim conflict, he immersed himself in law, securing chambers at London’s Inner Temple. Jinnah lived in Hampstead during this period. He tried to enter parliament, first as a Labour Party candidate, joining the Fabian Society in an attempt to gain credibility, and then as a Conservative candidate – but he failed on both counts. He also failed to achieve his ambition of practising in the Privy Council Bar. He was invited by Wedgewood Benn to sit on the Federal Structure Committee of the second Round Table Conference, but played a very minor role there, with Gandhi, as the voice of Congress, taking centre stage. During his years in London, Jinnah received persuasive requests from prominent leaders for his return to India to assume leadership of the newly formed Muslim League, including a visit to his Hampstead home by Liaquat Ali Khan and his wife. In 1934, he succumbed to these demands, and returned to Bombay.

Back in India, Jinnah struggled to strengthen the League’s position. In the 1940 League sessions, the Pakistan resolution was adopted by the party. In 1941, he founded the newspaper Dawn which increased support for the League, and in the 1945-6 elections the League was successful in securing the vast majority of Muslim electorate seats. Jinnah’s concern now was to ensure the best possible outcome for Indian Muslims after independence. He assented to the British Cabinet Mission’s proposals of June 1946 for groupings of Muslim- and Hindu-majority provinces under a weak Indian union government, but later rejected it when Congress refused the idea of parity with the League, and advocated instead the formation of the separate state of Pakistan. On 3 June 1947, Jinnah accepted the Mountbatten plan to transfer power to two separate states. On 14 August 1947, he was appointed as governor-general of Pakistan and set to work establishing a government and restoring order after the horrific communal violence that had accompanied the partition of India. Already suffering from tuberculosis, Jinnah succumbed to the strain of this enormous task and died at home in Karachi just a year the creation of Pakistan. He is remembered by Pakistanis as Quaid-i-Azam, or Great Leader.

Published works: 

Congress Leaders’ Correspondence with Quaid-i-Azam (Lahore: Aziz Publishers, nd)

(with M. A. H. Ispahani and Z. H. Zaidi) M. A. Jinnah-Ispahani Correspondence, 1936-1948 (Karachi: Forward Publications Trust, 1976)

The Collected Works of Quai-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, compiled by Syed Sarifuddin Pirzada (Karachi: East and West Publishing Company, 1984-6)

Date of birth: 
25 Dec 1876
Secondary works: 

Ahmed, Akbar, Jinnah, Pakistan, and Islamic Identity: The Search for Saladin (London: Routlege, 1997)

Ahmad, Riaz, Jinnah and Jauhar: Points of Contact and Divergence (Islamabad: Quaid-i-Azam University, 1979) 

Ahmad, Ziauddin, Mohammad Ali Jinnah: Founder of Pakistan (Karachi: Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, 1976)

Jalal, Ayesha, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, The Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)

Jinnah, F., 'A Sister's Recollections', in Hamid Jalal (ed.) Pakistan Past & Present: A Comprehensive Study Published in Commemoration of the Centenary of the Birth of the Founder of Pakistan (London: Stacey International, 1977)

Khan, Aga, The Memoirs of Aga Khan: World Enough and Time (London: Cassell & Co. Ltd, 1952)

Khurshid, K. H., and Hasan, Khalid, Memories of Jinnah (Karachi and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990)

Montagu, Edwin Samuel, and Montagu, Venetia, An Indian Diary (London: Heinemann, 1930)

Mujahid, Sharif Al, Founder of Pakistan, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) (Islamabad: National Committee for Birth Centenary Celebrations of Quaid-i-Azam Muhammed Ali Jinnah, 1976)

Mujahid, Sharif Al, Quaid-I-Azam Jinnah: Studies in Interpretation (Karachi: Quaid-I-Azam Academy, 1981)

Pirzada, Syed Sharifuddin, Foundations of Pakistan: All India Muslim League Documents, 1906-1947 (Karachi: National Pub. House, 1969)

Robinson, Francis, 'Jinnah, Mohamed Ali (1876–1948)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/34191]

Roy, A., 'The High Politics of India's Partition: The Revisionist Perspective', Modern Asian Studies 24 (1990), pp. 385-415

Wolpert, Stanley A., Jinnah of Pakistan (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984)

Zaidi, Z. H., Quaid-I-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah Papers: First Series (Islamabad: Quaid-i-Azam Papers Project, 1993)

Archive source: 

Quaid-i-Azam Papers, National Archives of Pakistan, Islamabad, Pakistan

Archives of the Freedom Movement, University of Karachi, Pakistan

Syed Shamsul Hasan Collection, National Bank of Pakistan, Karachi, Pakistan

Quaid-i-Azam Academy, Karachi, Pakistan

India: The War Series, L/PJ/8/524, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Mountbatten ‘Top Secret’ Personal Reports as Viceroy, L/PO/433, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Private Secretary to the Viceroy on the Transfer of Power, R/3/1, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Rahmat Ali pamphlets, L/PJ/8/689, India Office Records, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Brabourne Collection, Mss Eur F 97, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Chelmsford Papers, Mss Eur E 264, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Christie Collection, Mss Eur D 718, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Cunningham Collection, Mss Eur D 670, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Fleetwood Wilson Papers, Mss Eur F 111 & 112, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Hailey Collection, Mss Eur E 220, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Halifax Collection (Irwin Papers), Mss Eur C 152, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Hallett Collection, Mss Eur E 251, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Hamilton Papers, Mss Eur D 510, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Linlithgow Collection, Mss Eur F 125, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Montagu Papers, Mss Eur D 523, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Mudie Diary, Mss Eur 28-34, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Reading (Lady) Collection, Mss Eur E 316, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Templewood (Hoare Papers) Collection, Mss Eur E 240, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Zetland (Lawrence Papers) Collection, Mss Eur D 609, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library St Pancras

Cripps Collection, CAB 127/57-154, National Archives, Kew

Ramsay MacDonald Papers, PRO 30/69, National Archives, Kew

Alexander Papers, University of Cambridge

Baldwin Papers, University of Cambridge

Hardinge Papers, University of Cambridge

City of birth: 
Karachi
Country of birth: 
India
Current name country of birth: 
Pakistan
Other names: 

M. A. Jinnah

Mahomedali Jinnabhai

Locations

Hampstead
London, NW3 1AX
United Kingdom
51° 33' 14.76" N, 0° 10' 27.84" W
35 Russell Road Kensingon
London, W14 8JB
United Kingdom
51° 29' 55.6548" N, 0° 12' 36.9144" W
Date of death: 
11 Sep 1948
Location of death: 
Karachi, Pakistan
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Feb 1893
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1893-6, 1913, 1914, 1930-4

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