Niazi Soheb, (2022) Local History in the Making: Tārīkh Nigārī at Qasbah Amroha (1878-1934) Urdu Studies (4), (25-45)

Niazi Soheb, (2022) Local History in the Making: Tārīkh Nigārī at Qasbah Amroha (1878-1934) Urdu Studies (4), (25-45)

Soheb Niazi, a visiting scholar at CSH, wrote an article entitled “Local History in the Making: Tārīkh Nigārī at Qasbah Amroha (1878-1934)”, published in the Urdu Studies, a peer-reviewed bilingual journal, on 18 August 2022.

The article can be found at: https://jpurdu.wordpress.com/2022/08/18/urdu-studies-4-2022

Abstract: This article traces the tradition of tārīkh nigārī at Amroha, by examining different historical writings composed in Urdu at the qasbah during the period 1878-1934. The tārīkhs at Amroha are broadly divided into three categories – first, family histories that were based on an earlier historical tradition of tazkiras, second, historical works that were primarily on genealogy or nasb, and third, social histories that were modelled on colonial gazetteers including information on demography, geography and most importantly the inhabitants of the qasbah. A sub-genre of social histories was qaumī tārīkhs or community histories that were based on the history of a specific community, such as the Suhail-e Sahmī, a historical work on the qassāb community of Amroha.

These local histories in Urdu are an important source for the historian of the qasbah, as these texts provide a valuable addition to colonial sources such as gazetteers and administration reports. The rich information on inhabitants and localities of qasbah Amroha can be a vital resource for developing micro histories of specific individuals, families and communities that can potentially deepen our understanding of everyday life of qasbahs in colonial India. 

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