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{{EngvarB|date=April 2022}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
{{Infobox royalty
| name = Faizunnesa Choudhurani
| title =[[Nawab]]
| image =Faizunnesa.jpg
| caption =Nawab Faizunnesa
| reign =1883–1903
| succession = Zamindar of Homnabad-Pashchimgaon
| predecessor = Ahmed Ali Chowdhury
| successor = Mohamed Ali Chowdhury
| full name = Begum Faiz-un-Nissa Choudhurani
| spouse = Muhammad Gazi
| issue = Arshad-un-Nissa Choudhurani<br> Badr-un-Nissa Choudhurani
| father =Ahmed Ali Chowdhury alias Shahzada Mirza Aurangazeb
| mother = Begum Araf-un-Nissa Choudhurani
| house = [[Tughluq dynasty|House of Tughluq]] ''(by birth)''<ref name="en.wikisource.org">{{cite web | url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Indian_Biographical_Dictionary.djvu/48 | title=Page:The Indian Biographical Dictionary.djvu/48 - Wikisource, the free online library}}</ref>
[[Timurid Dynasty|House of Timur]] ''(by birth)''<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.nawabfaizunessa.com/images/familytreebig.jpg | title=Photo: The Laksham Nawab Family Genealogy}}</ref>
| birth_date =1834
| birth_place = [[Laksam Upazila|Pashchimgaon]], [[Comilla District|Tipperah District]], [[Bengal Presidency]] (now [[Comilla District]], [[Bangladesh]])
| death_date ={{death year and age|1903|1834}}
| death_place = Pashchimgaon, Tipperah District, Bengal Presidency
| place of burial=[[Laksham]], Bangladesh
|}}

'''[[Nawab]] Begum Faizunnesa Choudhurani''' ({{lang-bn|নওয়াব বেগম ফয়জুন্নেসা চৌধুরানী}}; 1834–1903) was [[Zamindar]] of Homnabad-Pashchimgaon Estate in present-day [[Comilla District]], Bangladesh.<ref name="banglapedia">{{cite web|author=Prof. Sirajul Islam |url=http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Choudhurani,_Nawab_Faizunnesa |title=Choudhurani, (Nawab) Faizunnesa |publisher=Banglapedia.org |access-date=4 September 2022}}</ref> She is most famous for her campaign for [[female education]] and other social issues. In appreciation of her social work, in 1889 [[Queen Victoria]] awarded Faizunnesa the title of "[[Nawab]]", making her the first female Nawab in South Asia.<ref name="college"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://mybangladesh.tumblr.com/post/24960142392/famous-bengali-nawab-faizunnesa-chowdhurani |title=Famous Bengali: Nawab Faizunnesa Chowdhurani ... | Bangladesh |publisher=Mybangladesh.tumblr.com |date=12 June 2012 |access-date=4 September 2022}}</ref><ref name="sangram">{{cite news | url=http://www.dailysangram.com/news_details.php?news_id=75678 | title=বাংলা সাহিত্যে মুসলমান নারী | agency=Daily Sangram | access-date=3 September 2013 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215844/http://www.dailysangram.com/news_details.php?news_id=75678 | archive-date=4 October 2013 | url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=http://www.jjdin.com/print_news.php?path=data_files/502&cat_id=3&menu_id=81&news_type_id=1&news_id=70119 | title=নারী মহীয়সী | agency=[[Jaijaidin]] | access-date=3 September 2022}}</ref>

Faizunnesa's educational and literary work belonged to the post-1857 era when Muslims in India started having the full thrust of colonial acrimony and were at the nadir of deprivation and discrimination. Faizunnesa embarked on establishing schools for women in that cultural context. Metaphorically, she sought to rescue the community from the menace of despair and pessimism by portraying a Muslim hero in Rupjalal and thus gave them hope and confidence.<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my">Hasan, Md. Mahmudul (Winter, 2010) Review of Nawab Faizunnesa's Rupjalal. The Muslim World Book Review. Vol. 30, Issue. 2. Available at http://irep.iium.edu.my/30644/3/N._Faizunnesa.pdf</ref>

An advocate of female education, a [[Philanthropy|philanthropist]] and social worker, Faizunnesa was born in Comilla in what is now Bangladesh. She was married to a distant cousin and neighbouring zamindar, Muhammad Gazi, in 1860 as his second wife only to be separated after mothering two daughters, Arshadunnesa and Badrunnesa. She became a zamindar after her mother's death in 1883 and became increasingly involved in social and charitable work, and thus in 1889 earned the honour of being the first woman Nawab of British India. She penned few other literary pieces such as Sangeet Saar, Sangeet Lahari and Tattwa O Jatiya Sangeet, and is renowned for her pioneering educational and charitable work and establishing of schools, madrasas and hospitals. However, Rupjalal has remained her most important work and attracted more research and critical attention.<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my"/>

==Birth and background==
[[File:Nawab-bari.JPG|thumb|right|280px|Kurshed Munzil, the palace of the Pashchimgaon Nawab Family]]
Begum Faizunnessa Chowdhurani was born in 1834 to an aristocratic [[Bengali Muslim]] family in the village of Pashchimgaon under [[Laksam Upazila|Laksam]] in the [[Comilla District|Tipperah District]] of the [[Bengal Presidency]].<ref name="college"/> She was the eldest daughter of [[Khan Bahadur]] Ahmed Ali Chowdhury (Shahzada Mirza Aurangzeb), the [[Nawab]] of ''Homnabad-Pashchimgaon'', and Arfannessa Chowdhurani Saheba. Her mother was notable for constructing the Pashchimgaon Nawab Bari Mosque in 1864.<ref name=tar>{{citation|title=তরফের সৈয়দ বংশ ও লাকসাম নবাব পরিবার|date=30 June 2021|author=Ahmad, Syed Kamaluddin|language=bn}}</ref>

Her paternal family is descended from a paternal niece of [[Bahadur Shah I]] who was married to [[Emir|Amir]] [[Mirza Abdul Aziz]] of [[Banu Abbas]].<ref name="en.wikisource.org">{{cite web | url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:The_Indian_Biographical_Dictionary.djvu/48 | title=Page:The Indian Biographical Dictionary.djvu/48 - Wikisource, the free online library}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Lorimer|first=John Gordon|author-link=John Gordon Lorimer (civil servant)|title=Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ʻOmān, and Central Arabia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NL0sAQAAMAAJ|volume=1|year=1970|orig-year=1908|publisher=Gregg International Publishers Limited|page=285}}</ref> Under the emperor's instructions, Abdul Aziz sent his son, Amir Mirza Jahandar Khan (Agowan Khan), with thousands of soldiers to quell a rebellion in [[Comilla District|Tipperah]]. After stopping the rebellion, Jahandar Khan returned to [[Delhi]] but left his son, Amir Mirza Humayun Khan in [[Bengal]]. Mirza Humayun Khan (Bahroz Khan, Bhuru Khan) was made the [[Jagir]]dar of a territory named after him as Humayunabad, which later got corrupted to Homnabad, and was succeeded by his son, Amir Mirza Masum Khan. The Homnabad Nawab dynasty was thus established, with the family settling in the village of [[Chandina Upazila|Mahichal]]. They later relocated to [[Laksam Upazila|Pashchimgaon]] after Masum Khan's son Amir Mirza Motahar Khan married off his son Amir Mirza Sultan Khan (Gora Ghazi Chowdhury) to Syeda Bhanu Bibi, the daughter of Khuda Bakhsh Ghazi (the ''zamindar'' of Pashchimgaon and descendant of Ghazi Saheda). Faizunnesa's maternal grandfather, Muhammad Asjad Chowdhury, was the son of Muhammad Amjad Chowdhury (Dengu Mia), the ''[[zamindar]]'' of [[Feni Sadar Upazila|Sharshadi]] in [[Feni District|Feni]].<ref name=tar/>

==Early life and marriage==
Faizunnessa was raised in a conservative Muslim family, where the women would maintain a strict [[purdah]] system. She received no formal education but she educated herself in her library during leisure time. She was proficient in [[Arabic]], [[Persian language|Persian]], [[Sanskrit]] and [[Bengali language]].

In 1860, Chowdhurani was married to a distant cousin and neighbouring Zamindar, Muhammad Gazi, becoming his second wife. But the couple became separated and Faizunnesa returned to live with her paternal family again.<ref name="sangram" />

==Career and philanthropy==
After her mother's death in 1883, Faizunnesa inherited her property and became zamindar of Pashchimgaon. She became increasingly involved in social work after becoming zamindar. In 1873, Faizunnesa Choudhurani established a high school for girls in [[Comilla]], which is one of the earliest female schools privately established in Indian subcontinent, which is now called [[Nawab Faizunnesa Government Girls' High School]].<ref name="sangram"/><ref>{{cite web|author=Elita Karim |url=http://archive.thedailystar.net/magazine/2008/08/01/history.htm |title=A Dedicated Educationist |publisher=the daily star |date=1 August 2008 |access-date=30 January 2022}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tesCwx1j95IC&q=nawab+faizunnesa+rupjalal&pg=PA4 | title=Nawab Faizunnesa's Rupjalal | publisher=BRILL | author=Caudhurāṇī, Phaẏajunnesā | year=2009 | page=4 | isbn=978-9004167803}}</ref> She also founded a school at Pashchimgaon that was later upgraded to a college and now named as [[Nawab Faizunnesa Government College|Nawab Faizunnesa Degree College]].<ref name="college">{{cite web |author=Saydul Karim |url=http://www.nfgc.edu.bd/fouu.html |title=Nawab Faizunnessa Chowdhurani History |publisher=Nawab Faizunnessa Government College |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131004215725/http://www.nfgc.edu.bd/fouu.html |archive-date=4 October 2013 |access-date=4 October 2022}}</ref> In 1893, Faizunnesa established a charitable dispensary in her village for women in purdah, particularly destitute women. She also built a hospital for women, Faizunnesa Zenana Hospital in Comilla. In addition, she built mosques and contributed towards the development of roads and ponds.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.theindependentbd.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=175002:in-tribute-to-a-great-lady&catid=164:free-for-all&Itemid=196 |title=In tribute to a great lady |publisher=Theindependentbd.com |date=23 June 2013 |access-date=4 October 2022}}</ref> Faizunnesa patronised different newspapers and periodicals, including ''Bandhab'', ''Dhaka Prakash'', ''Musalman Bandhu'', ''Sudhakar'', and ''Islam Pracharak''. Before her death in 1903 she donated her entire property to the nation.<ref name="banglapedia" />

==''Rupjalal''==
Originally written in Bangla, Nawab Faizunnesa's (1834–1903) ''Rupjajal'' was published from Dhaka in 1876. Fayeza S. Hasanat's translation into English of the long-neglected semi-autobiographical allegory with an introduction and commentary has for the first time secured a place for Faizunnesa and for her work among the global readership. Previously, perhaps, the only notable mention Faizunnesa had in any significant research work was in Sonia Nishat Amin's The World of Muslim Women in Colonial Bengal, 1876–1939 (Brill, 1996) that regards Rupjalal's publication year as a significant marker in the history of Bengali Muslim women's literary practice, and the founding of Lady Brabourne College in 1939 as the culmination of Muslim women's education, since that was the first time it had government support during the colonial period.<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my"/>

Although Amin regards Faizunnesa as the first significant modern [[Muslims|Muslim]] woman writer of former Bengal, it is still early to make a definitive assumption in this regard. New research is unearthing more and more past Bengali Muslim women writers. Now we know about [[Rahimunnessa]] of the eighteenth century whose poetry manuscript was first discovered in 1955, about Rahima and Zamirunnessa from Chittagong who the literary historians believe wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century. These three still remain largely obscure, and probably for this reason Taherunnesa is commonly known as the earliest Bengali Muslim woman writer whose 'Bamagoner Rachana' (Writing by Women) appeared in Bamabodhini Patrika in 1865. However, since she is known to have appeared in the magazine just once along with her article and since we do not know much about her life except that she attended Boda School for Girls, early history of Bengali Muslim women's writing generally starts from Nawab Faizunnesa, information about whose life and work is available. The only Bengali Muslim woman litterateur who has so far received comparatively a greater amount of research attention is Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880–1932), and that with certain amount of disbelief and amazement as she is presumed to stand out alone without any significant predecessors or successors to form a continuous literary tradition of Bengali Muslim women. Between Faizunnesa and Rokeya, there were few more: Latifunnesa, whose ‘Bangiya Musalman Lekhikader Prati’ (To the Bengali Muslim Women Writers) was published in Bamabodhini Patrika in 1897, and Azizunnesa, the first known Muslim woman to have been published in a Muslim-run magazine, Islam Pracharak, as her poem ‘Hamd Orthat Ishwar Stuti’ (In Praise of God) was published in it in 1902.<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my"/>

''Rupjalal'' is a story of prince Jalal and two heroines, Rupbanu and Hurbanu. It narrates Jalal's heroic and sexual exploits and his marriages to both the heroines. Hasanat reads Rupjalal “as a manifesto of Muslim women’s sexual defiance and subordination in nineteenth century Bengal” (p. 2). However, the text can also be read as a counter narrative to the discourse of nineteenth-century Western literary orientalism that tends to emasculate Muslim men and represents Muslim women as always in the lookout for a gaze at Western Christian heroes only to sexually offer themselves to their supposed dream-lovers. Contrary to the image of emasculated Muslim man, Faizunnesa depicts an ‘athletic and strong’ Muslim hero of virility and valor who “grew so handsome at sixteen / That wherever he went, women were seen / Flocking around him; his manliness / Turned the meekest housewives into temptresses / And each of these women longed to be the one / To be loved by this handsome man!” (50) As opposed to orientalist representations, in Rupjalal it is a Muslim hero who is at the centre of Muslim women's imagination.<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my"/>

Hasanat's treatment of Muslim society as opposed to Hindu society in colonial Bengal with regard to the status of women may also not stand up to academic scrutiny. She claims: “Muslim society’s treatment of the female body was totally different from that of an orthodox Hindu or a liberal Brahmo society” (p. 2). She attempts to depict a favourable picture of the Hindu community as opposed to the Muslim community, stating: ‘While “the [Hindu] nationalist male" thought of his own wife/sister/daughter as "normal" precisely because she was no more a "sex object," a Muslim male reformer considered his wife/sister/daughter always as a sex object' (p. 13).<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my"/>

Hasanat did a noble work by introducing Faizunnesa's work to a global readership and for her beautiful, reader-friendly translation. What makes her work unwieldy is her audacious attempts to make big theological statements about Islam, and that without adequate knowledge about the religion. However, her efficient translation of Rupjalal will facilitate more interpretations and encourage further research on the text.<ref name="irep.iium.edu.my"/>

==See also==
{{Commons category|Nawab Faizunnesa}}
* [[Nawab Bari]]
* [[Zamindars of Bengal]]
* [[Begum Rokeya]]
* [[Islamic feminism]]

==References==
{{reflist}}
{{Feminism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faizunnesa, Nawab}}
[[Category:19th-century Bengalis]]
[[Category:Bengali writers]]
[[Category:Bengali-language writers]]
[[Category:Indian feminist writers]]
[[Category:Indian feminists]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian Muslims]]
[[Category:Proponents of Islamic feminism]]
[[Category:Indian women's rights activists]]
[[Category:1834 births]]
[[Category:1903 deaths]]
[[Category:Nawabs of Bengal]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Ekushey Padak]]
[[Category:People from Comilla]]
[[Category:Bangladeshi feminist writers]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian women writers]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Bangladeshi women's rights activists]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian educational theorists]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian women scientists]]
[[Category:Indian women philanthropists]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian businesswomen]]
[[Category:19th-century Indian philanthropists]]
[[Category:19th-century women rulers]]
[[Category:19th-century women philanthropists]]

Nawab Faizunnesa - Revision history

Bot at 17:38, 13 December 2022

Bot at 17:38, 13 December 2022