Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi:
(1836-1910)
Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi also known as Deputy Nazir Ahmad is a pioneer in many fields: he is the first Urdu novelist and also the first visionary who created a respectable storehouse of literature for women. He is also the person who visualized a manifesto for feminism, apart from translating the Indian Penal Code into Urdu called 'Taazeerat-e-Hind' for the first time. This book was too well received both by the British administration and judiciary.
Nazir Ahmad was born on December 06, 1936, in Bijnaur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. He received his early education from his father, 'Maulvi Saadat Ali', who was a teacher himself. After this, he joined Delhi’s Aurangabadi Madrasa where he was taught by Maulvi Abdul Khaliq. During his stay in Delhi, he used to live in a mosque located in Punjabi Katra. During those days, students had to collect their daily meals from different families in the locality. Nazir Ahmad also followed this exercise and got his food every day from the house of Maulvi Abdul Khaliq. There, a girl used to make him ground spices every day on behalf of the favor he received from that house. She also sometimes hit his fingers with the grinding stone whenever she noticed him slow grounding the spices. Nazir Ahmad has himself narrated this in one of his writings:
'Just as I entered the doorstep, she would pull me inside and make me do a job. She would neither spare me, nor give me a morsel unless she made me grind a sear or two of spices. God alone knows how much of spices she collected from all over to make me grind. If at all, I stopped for a while in doing my job, she would hit my fingers with the grinding stone and put me to great pain '.
Interestingly enough, this girl later became his wife. After he completed his education at the Madrasa, he went to Delhi College where he also got a scholarship to continue his education. After spending eight years in Delhi, he moved to Gujarat where he got a job for 80 rupees per month. On getting his promotion later, he was sent to Kanpur as Deputy Inspector of Madrasas. The catastrophic events of 1857 brought him back to Delhi. Later, the Nizam of Deccan called him to Hyderabad where he was offered a salary of Rs.1240 per month. There, he was assigned the job of inspecting and preparing detailed accounts of the functioning in the offices. He worked diligently and got promoted as a Chief Talukdar. During this period, he also taught the children of the Nizam. When Nazir Ahmad was in Jalon, he needed some books for children which he could not find anywhere. This made him realize the need for writing such books which he actually wrote and produced 'Mirat-ul-Uroos' and 'Muntakhib-ul-Hikaayaat'. Nazir Ahmad wrote reformative novels. He laid special prominence on the education of girls as well as on training them in handling domestic affairs. His foremost novels include 'Mirat-ul-Uroos', 'Nabaat-un-Naash', 'Taubat-un-Nusooh', 'Fasana-i-Mubtala', 'Ibn-ul-Waqt' and 'Rooya-i-Saadiqa'.
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Mirat-ul-Uroos is his most famous novel. Its characters, Akbari and Asghari, are extremely relevant even today. The government gave a prize of one thousand rupees to Nazir Ahmad on the publication of this novel. Many scholars consider it to be the first novel ever written in Urdu which was first published in the year 1869.
'Ibn-ul-Waqt' is his other well-known novel which satirizes the blind aping of Western culture. Some people think that this novel is an indirect criticism of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan but Nazir Ahmad denied this categorically because he was not only influenced by Sir Syed’s movement but also an advocate and active participants in his mission. Being an ardent supporter of Sir Syed, he also made practical contributions from the platform of Muslim Educational Conference.
Apart from writing novels, Nazir Ahmad also wrote 'Qanoon-e-Income Tax', 'Qanoon-e-Shahadat', and translated the Holy Quran. Most of his works were well received and also translated into Puanjabi, Kashmiri, Marathi, Gujarati, Bangla, and Bhakha. In 1884, the English translation of Taubat-un-Nusooh was published with a preface by William Muir. His Mirat-ul-Uroos was also translated into English and published from London in 1903.
The area of Nazir Ahmad’s operation was huge. In recognition of his extraordinary services to life and letters, the British government decorated him with the title of Shams-ul-Ulema. At the fag end of his life, he suffered a paralytic attack and passed away on May 03, 1912, in Delhi.
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