Listen to me - Preface of the book

Listen to me ……..

While studying the of history of Oudh (Awadh), I came across the name of Maulvi Shaikh Habib-ur-Rahman ,a Chakladar of the Nawabi and a Taluqdar of British period who was highly appreciated by a British Official for his steadfastness and influence especially in the backdrop of the Uprising of 1857. Again I happened to read a few lines about him in the gazetteer of Oudh by Charles W.Bennet published in 1878 at Page 74, Vol 1 as follows:-

Habib-ur-Rahman was a chakladar under the Oudh king, and holds a large estate under the English. Another native, Ghulam Ali Khan, constructed a mosque and sarai.

As inquisitive I am, I tried to know more about him but alas nothing was readily available! We do keep records of film industry but forget to save the records of our own forefathers. Nothing concrete was available in any Urdu/Persian book. Then I looked some old British papers in the libraries of Delhi and Allahabad and as always it was the British who preserved our history and names of our ancestors.

After getting clues about him in the Gazetteer of Unnao , I tried to learn more about his estate and his successors but nobody could tell me where his family was and what happened to his vast land holdings that he maintained from 1855 to 1875.

As the luck would have it, during one of my trips to Kanpur, I discussed his name with some of my friends who ,in turn, discussed this with their friends of Unnao ( Formerly Unao , Asiwan is now a part of this district to which the Maulvi belonged to). As a result of this verbal communication, I was taken to see a gentleman named Akhlaq-ur-Rahman Siddiqui who is rarely known by his real name for he is widely known as Elvi in Unnao & Kanpur both. To my pleasant surprise , this gentleman turned out to be a great-grand son of Maulvi Shaikh Habib ur Rahman of Asiwan. He himself was looking for some more information about his distinguished forefather. He told me some of the facts which was little known by the people and goaded me for further research. Then I started on a journey of re-searching and discovering the facts about Maulvi Habib ur Rahman. Here is what I have collected and I would call it sufficient until someone comes up with more substantial facts and figures.

I look forward to your comments & suggestions.

Khalid

22 Dec 2010

New Delhi