London to Karachi, 186-year-old book on Surat's history creates buzz

AHMEDABAD: Professor Mohyiuddin Bombaywala of the Hazrat Pir Mohammed Shah library at Gheekanta has been getting calls from scholars in London, Karachi and several other Persian and Urdu libraries. Over the last three days literary and academic circles are abuzz with news that the library is in possession of a handwritten three-volume history of Surat by Sheikh Raziuddin alias 'Bakshu Miyan', which was written almost 186 years ago.
The book 'Hadiq-Ei-Ahmadi', running into approximately 1,700 pages which has been donated to the library, is one of two sets of scholarly works by Bakshu Miyan that remained elusive for more than four decades.
Mohyiuddin Bombaywala
"The volumes were last seen in 1981 by scholar Z A Madini. The work is historically important as it talks of the origin of the city till the time Surat lost its importance to Bombay under the British rule; and the politics and the trading intrigues of Surtis. The book was completed a few years before Bakshu Miyan's death in 1849, at the age of 45. It was brought out by his son, Mohammed Arif alias Sheikhu Miyan, in 1858.
"Bakshu Miyan served with the East India Company just like his father. He soon left the work and took to compiling the history of the city," says Bombaywala. The book has been donated for researchers by Shaikh Moinuddin.
The Gujarat Sahitya Parishad's Urdu Academy's book on Surat, called 'Guldaste-Sulhai- Surat' has an entire chapter on Bakshu Miyan. The chapter says that apart from the Hadiq-Ei-Ahmadi, Bakshu wrote another scholarly compilation called the Hadiq-ei-Hind. He had cited 444 references in his book on Surat and had included Islamic texts like the al-Tabari Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham.
"The mammoth book was written at a time when most scholarly books in Arabic or Persian were handwritten," says Bombaywala. After he died, Bakshu Miyan was laid to rest beside his grandfather's grave in the Hazrat Marjan Shami mosque in Surat.